WARTIME REPARATIONS

POLAND is preparing to demand billions of euros in wartime reparations from Germany.

Government officials in Poland are looking into a “historical counteroffensive” to claim compensation for atrocities and looting.

Arkadiusz Mularczyk, an MP with the ruling Law and Justice party, has revealed that parliamentary researchers will have an analysis of the issues ready by Friday, 11 August 2017.

Germany’s 1939-1945 occupation of Poland cost the lives of up to six million civilians, around a fifth of the pre-war population. Half the dead were Jewish Holocaust victims. Churches, cultural treasures and entire cities were plundered and destroyed.

The Soviets also carried out looting and committed atrocities such as the Katyn massacre of Polish officers in 1940. Under pressure from Moscow, Poland’s former communist government agreed in 1953 to make no further reparation claims.

But Antoni Macierewicz, Poland’s defence minister, has said that the decisions of a Soviet puppet state were not necessarily valid today.

He insisted the Germans needed to “pay back the terrible debt they owe to the Polish people”.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the country’s most powerful politician, said in a recent interview the “Polish government was preparing itself for a historical counteroffensive”.

“We are talking here about huge sums, and also about the fact that Germany for many years refused to take responsibility for World War II,” said Kaczynski, who leads Right-wing Law and Justice.

He called for reparations when he was prime minister more than a decade ago, creating tensions between two important trading partners and allies in NATO and the European Union. Ulrike Demmer, a spokesman for German chancellor Angela Merkel, responded to Mr Macierewicz by saying “the question of reparation for Poland was dealt with conclusively in the past, legally and politically”.

She added: “Of course Germany stands by its responsibility in World War II, politically, morally and financially. It has made significant reparations for general war damage, including to Poland, and is still paying significant compensation for Nazi wrongdoing.”

Poland’s wartime suffering has been highlighted this week by the anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Uprising. The revolt in 1944 claimed 200,000 Polish lives and saw the near total destruction of the capital city.

A year earlier the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto also saw heroic resistance. Underground fighters held out for almost a month against heavily-armed German units; 13,000 Jews were killed.

Poland has spent decades trying to regain its looted treasures. Its ministry of culture still keeps a watch for any works that may turn up on the international art circuit.

It often finds itself having to buy the works at auction – sometimes from the descendants of those who stole them.

Berlin has paid billions of euros over the years in compensation for Nazi crimes, primarily to Jewish survivors, and acknowledges the country’s responsibility for keeping alive the memory of Nazi atrocities and atoning for them.

It took until 2010 for Germany to finally clear its First World War debt. The £22billion reparations were set by the Allied victors – chiefly Britain, France and the United States – as compensation and punishment for the conflict.