We hope that the report will become a starting point for conversations and discussions in the forum of relevant committees and factions of the German parliament, wrote Foreign Ministry Deputy Chief Arkadiusz Mularczyk in the accompanying letter to the report on war losses. The report will be sent to German parliamentarians by the embassy in Berlin.
Sign up already in Berlin. For the Polish Embassy in Berlin, an intensive information campaign in the Bundestag about reparations
— this content was tweeted on Thursday by Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk, government plenipotentiary for compensation for damage caused by German aggression and occupation in 1939-45.
Mularczyk told PAP the reports will now be distributed to all German parliamentarians through their parliamentary offices.
After the Bundestag, we plan further actions and send reports to the Bundesrat and the main German media
Mularczyk told PAP.
We are working on a major information campaign in Germany
– added.
He noted that “we must give our partners in the Union time to familiarize themselves with the report and then we will attempt dialogue again.”
Copies of the report will be accompanied by a letter from Mularczyk, asking to note “a very important problem from the past, which unfortunately to this day has not been resolved in a fair and honest manner and a casts shadow on good Polish.” -German relations.”
Later in the letter, Mularczyk recalls the circumstances of Poland’s losses during World War II and the fact that as a result of five years of work, a report has been prepared in which these losses are estimated at more than PLN 6 trillion 220 billion. He also points out that Germany paid compensation for war losses to 70 countries, while “Poland, despite huge personal and property losses, was overlooked.”
Both surviving Polish citizens who remember the atrocities of World War II and their families cannot accept that the damage done by Germany during World War II has not been repaired
– writes the deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Germany’s position on compensation, expressed on December 28, 2022, regarding the lack of intention to discuss this with the Polish government, has been described by the Secretary of State as “disappointing”. Reminds me that on May 16. In 2017, during the Reykjavik summit, the Council of Europe document “United Around Our Values” was adopted, also signed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which states, among other things: there is no statute of limitations for genocide and war crimes.
In the letter, the deputy head of the State Department also emphasizes that he hopes to initiate a dialogue on compensation.
We hope that the report will become a starting point for discussions and discussions in the relevant committees and factions of the German Parliament
he makes clear. He adds that as a representative of the Polish government on these matters, he is ready to meet and talk in different forums.
Presentation of the report on Poland’s war losses
On 1 September last year, a report was presented on the losses Poland suffered as a result of German aggression and occupation during World War II. On October 3, Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau signed a diplomatic note to the German side regarding reparations. In it, Poland is demanding, among other things, compensation for material and immaterial losses amounting to PLN 6 billion 220 billion 609 million and compensation for damage.
3 January this year The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responded to this note. According to the German government, the issue of reparations and compensation for war losses remains closed and the German government does not intend to enter into negotiations.
In April, the government adopted a resolution on the need to address in Polish-German relations the question of reparations, compensation and compensation for the losses suffered by Poland and the Poles as a result of Germany’s illegal attack on Poland in 1939 and the subsequent German occupation.
In May, MPs from the left party tabled a question in the Bundestag about compensation for the victims of the Distomo massacre in Greece. Earlier they asked about an agreement with Namibia.
In the interpellation on Greece, the delegates cite the opinion of the German government, according to which the issue of compensation and reparations has been closed in relations with Italy, Greece and Poland. Members recalled that “on June 10, 1944, a Waffen-SS unit killed 218 residents of the Greek village of Distomo.”
Greek courts awarded the survivors of the massacre or their descendants compensation of around €30 million as early as 1997. However, Germany continues to refuse to pay this compensation, just as it refuses to pay compensation to other victims of Nazism and reparations to the Greek state. The German government says the issue is “closed with regard to Italy, Greece and Poland”
They wrote.
The authors of the interpellation disagree and emphasize that this issue is far from over: it is raised by Greece and the victims of National Socialism. The Greek foreign minister “has also often raised the issue of reparations, for example in early April 2023 during a meeting with the German ambassador to Greece”, the authors of the interpellation point out.
On April 6, 1941, Germany invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. Until 1944, SS and Wehrmacht units carried out numerous massacres in Greece. Public mass executions were called retaliation for partisan attacks. Tens of thousands of Greek civilians died in the war. In Athens alone, more than 40,000 people died of starvation. Greeks. Greek industry was destroyed for 80 percent.
In the interpellation on Namibia, the left-wing MPs emphasize that the joint statement negotiated by the German government with the Namibian government and initialed in Berlin on 15 May 2021 has caused great controversy in part of Namibian society and has not yet received formal approval. of the Namibian government.
The German Empire was a colonial power in what is now Namibia from 1884 to 1915 and brutally suppressed uprisings by the local population. During the 1904-1908 war in what was then German South-West Africa, colonial authorities committed mass murders of members of the Herero and Nama ethnic groups. This is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. According to historians, about 65,000 of 80,000 are Herero and at least 10,000 of 20,000 are nama.
The Association of Ethnic Leaders of Herero and Nama has rejected a German offer to fund infrastructure projects in Namibia as a way of apologizing for genocide during German colonial rule. They believe that 1.1 billion euros in compensation is not enough.
tkwl/PAP
READ ALSO:
– Repair reports are already in Germany! Mularczyk: For the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin, an intensive information campaign in the Bundestag
— Deputy Minister Mularczyk in Riga: “Latvia is an important partner of Poland in the EU, NATO and the Baltic Sea region”; “The will to work together is great”
Source: wPolityce