German war reparations 'matter of honor' for Poland

[PHDNM]

German war reparations 'matter of honor' for Poland

KRAKOW, Poland - Demanding reparations from Germany for its actions in Poland during World War Two is a matter of honor for Warsaw, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Polish ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said on Saturday.

The issue of reparations, revived by Poland’s eurosceptic PiS after decades of improving relations with Germany, could escalate tensions between the two European Union members.

In September Polish parliamentary legal experts ruled that Warsaw has the right to demand reparations from Germany, although Poland’s foreign minister indicated that no immediate claim would be made.

“The French were paid, Jews were paid, many other nations were paid for the losses they suffered during World War Two. Poles were not,” Kaczynski said.

“It is not only about material funds. It is about our status, our honor ... And this is not theater. This is our demand, a totally serious demand,” added Kaczynski, Poland’s de facto leader.

The PiS government, deeply distrustful of Germany, has raised calls for wartime compensation in recent months but Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski has said further analysis was needed before any claims were lodged.

Six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war, and the capital Warsaw was razed to the ground in 1944 after a failed uprising in which 200,000 civilians died.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-germany-reparations/german-war-reparations-matter-of-honor-for-poland-idUSKBN1DB0SF

[Linebacker]

I think its beneath Poles to be turning into Greeks like this because this is usually Greek behavior in the EU,demanding not earned money.

[Ülev]

el bumpo

[Veslan]

Europe should support German reparations for Poland.

Weaker Germany = Stronger, and safer Europe.

[Arduti]

Europe should support German reparations for Poland.

Weaker Germany = Stronger, and safer Europe.

This actually boosts German ego. Doesn't make Germany weaker in the least.

[Veslan]

This actually boosts German ego. Doesn't make Germany weaker in the least.

How so? We need them to have less money, less land (favourably none), less influence. Otherwise WW3 is guaranteed.

[Arduti]

How so? We need them to have less money, less land (favourably none), less influence. Otherwise WW3 is guaranteed.

Reparations of land will not be given.
Reparations of money and military craft say, "We need your riches, Germany, and your ingenuity."

[Veslan]

Reparations of land will not be given.
That's quite pesymistic of you.

Reparations of money and military craft say, "We need your riches, Germany, and your ingenuity."
So what? Everybody knows that they have a lot of money thanks to the USA and Marshall plan. But they don't need it anymore.

[Peterski]

https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-could-seek-war-reparations-from-germany-say-parliament-researchers/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-should-pay-poland-1-trillion-reparations-world-war-ii-government-a7929561.html

From the Comments section:

Tony
I would be inclined to say the past is the past and in the spirit of unity we need to move on from events that happened 75 years ago.

However that unity was not showing too much when Greece needed help after they were loaded with debt so they could repay the German and French banks.

Germany was ruthless in extorting the money they were owed, forgetting the 1953 treaty when their own debts were largely forgiven enabling them to make a fresh start.

Perhaps this is schadenfreude by some mischievous entity? Can the antagonists be forgiven whilst their victims do not receive recompense?

If this goes to the ECJ I would remind commentators here that I have the popcorn concession and can sell them a good seat to watch the action for a very reasonable price

Posted on 9/11/17 | 7:52 PM CET

Filip
The 1953 decision was made by the cabinet of Polish People’s Republic, not by The Council of the State – as required by the then-consitution. Secondly, if anything, the cabinet dropped the claim for reparations only in respect to German Democratic Republic (East Germany) – not in respect to the Federal Republic of Germany, which exists to this day. Thirdly, the agreement never took a form of a treaty, so it can be withdrawn.

Germans just can’t admit that from the legal point of view Poland has a point.

Posted on 9/11/17 | 7:56 PM CET

Veritas-Semper
Finally! This taboo topic is out in the open and must be addressed.

The Germans are blowing smoke. Those post WWII borders were sealed by the United States, the Soviet Union (and its successor Russia), Great Britain and France. Germany had no say (and for that matter Poland, as the 4th Ally) in the creation of those borders. So, any talk of reparations being tied directly to the question of borders in a non-starter.

However – the most important aspect – there are no official documents registered with the UN in which Poland gave up its claims to reparations from Germany. And, genocide and crimes against humanity have no lapse in time.

The Polish government will go through a very thorough process of claim before it either presents it to the German government or brings it up directly at the Hague.

Things are getting very interesting.

Posted on 9/11/17 | 8:36 PM CET

pol
The German government is SCARED of this issue because it knows the 1953 declaration is only a political statement and not a formal agreement recognized under international law.

There are international protocols as to how such issues are officially settled, they include both sides sitting down and signing an agreement, with each party getting a copy and a third going to the UN.

Just ask Angela Merkel and Walter Steinmeier to show you their signed copy… oh, what they don’t have one, cause it don’t exist.

Posted on 9/11/17 | 8:43 PM CET

Veritas-Semper
One final note. Germany avoided the opportunity in June 1990 in the so called “4+2” agreement to sign a WWII Peace Treaty precisely because a Peace Treaty would trigger the question reparations. They wanted their cake and eat it too – unification without reparations – thus the 4+2 Agreement was born.

So, today WWII is still officially not over and German reparations are moving to the forefront of the discussion ahead. No “cake” for Germany.

Posted on 9/11/17 | 8:46 PM CET

A Greek

@Veritas-Semper ‘Germany avoided the opportunity in June 1990 in the so called “4+2” agreement to sign a WWII Peace Treaty precisely because a Peace Treaty would trigger the question reparations.’

Interesting. Germany also didn’t sign a peace treaty with us for the same reason. Somehow I think this is symptomatic on more than one count

Posted on 9/11/17 | 10:06 PM CET

wow
I dare Germany to ask for an itemised bill…….

But on a serious note as this is actually a serious matter… This is correct :…..the treaty was signed ‘by a puppet government under Moscow’s control in violation of the Polish constitution of the time.’

This is one of the few things that will make a signed international treaty completely worthless, under International Law not just Poland’s constitution.

I was reading about it just last night (on another issue not this one) in a law academic book (Oxford University Press)

Always wondered why Blair ducked out and got Brown to sign the Lisbon Treaty. Blair was lawyer and knows the law. He also got rid of the Treason Laws as a criminal offence.

Posted on 9/11/17 | 10:23 PM CET

bc
@Tony
“I would be inclined to say the past is the past and in the spirit of unity we need to move on from events that happened 75 years ago.”

First of all it is to Poles to decide on that matter. And only Poles.

Secondly WWII war reparations are still being negotiated and paid out, even after over 70 years after it ended:
– 2016: “U.S. begins paying out reparations from France to Holocaust survivors and their heirs”
– 2017: “Survivors of Romania pogrom and ‘death trains’ to receive German compensation”

Why Poles should be discriminated against on that matter ? On what grounds ? Racist ones ?!?

[Peterski]

Two other interesting comments:

Gerhard

This causes quite some misery for the nationalistic right in Germany. Today’s Poland has been celebrated by many of them as an exemplary, trendsetting force in Europe, mainly because of their authoritative tendencies, their conservative politics and their generally hostile stance towards Brussels.
Yet many of those on the German far-right, who, until recently , so loudly praised Kaczynski and his ultra-conservative Government still have a rather questionable opinion about the Third Reich. Accepting Polish claims for reparations would mean admitting the German aggression towards Poland. And that is something that the German far-right is definitely not willing to do.

Posted on 9/13/17 | 1:22 PM CET

Rafael

Having lived in Germany for much part of my life, I have had enough occasions to experience both German culture, attitudes towards Poles and many other nations as well as German sense of social responsibility (or rather lack of it) and their moral compass with regard to many different aspects of life and international relations.

What is most striking to me is the huge level of hypocrisy and notoriously applying double standards to judge others. As a matter of fact it has become some sort of sport to judge and criticize as well as lecture other nations and cultures. Germans themselves on the other hand like to be seen by the outside world as the golden example of moral standards, values and developments. And they used to like this role very much. They liked to be admired by other nations. But this image of the “Good German” which took decades to build after WW2 is crumbling all over the world now.
Now the world sees various examples of big-time scandals and frauds happenig both on the political as well as economical stage. Dieselgate is very much a landmark example for both the Asian as well as the American world how big and deep those scandals and crimes can get.
The same applies to Germany in Europe and its relations with other countries. Germany is applying wage and social dumping in many industries to keep wages artificially low and by those means pose a serious competion threat to other Western European countries. Germany is constantly producing huge surpluses but fails to invest in all key areas relevant for society (Infrastructure, education system, schools, kindergarden, universities, police, army etc.). This has been a key topic and accusation towards Germany for many years now but nothing has changed.

Here some great examples of hypocrisy of Germany:
– Lecturing other nations on freedom, peace and democracy while being the worlds 3rd largest exporter of weapons including many conflicted regions such as the Middle East
– Trying to uphold an artificial positive image on tolerance towards other nationalities while at the same time a large portion of Germans are to a large degree quite strongly raci** and ignorant and notoriously behave in a discriminative way towards foreigners as witnessed by very obvious and visible discrimination in the workplace, hundreds of brutal assaults on refugee homes, substantial support of various exteme right wing parties and constantly speaking of other nations/countries/cultures in an inferior way
– pretending to promote clean energy and environmental friendly solutions but at the same time blocking all efforts to introduce electric vehicles and shift away from fossil fuels

The same hypocrisy also applies to war reparations. Having profited from the generous treatment by the Allies and the immense financial and economical aid after WW2 where the German atrocities have been forgiven and where Germany was given a new chance to prosper and rise from the ashes, Germany now treats its former victims in a deeply ignorant, raci** and inferior way.
Instead they prefer to spread the guilt and try to balance brutal crimes to make them less relevant. This politics of relativization is quite impressive.

Yes, Germans like to forget their history and tend to have a short memory on various matters.

Posted on 9/13/17 | 12:29 AM CET

[Magnolia]

Well, as I said a minute ago at another thread Germany should pay their debts.
On the other hand it is needed to remember Poland collaborated with Nazis at the beginning of the war.
They attacked Czechoslovakia on October 2, 1938; they didn't allow transit of Soviets troops through their country to help Czechoslovakia defeat Nazis...

Poles were bitches - they are not innocent.

[wvwvw]

I think its beneath Poles to be turning into Greeks like this because this is usually Greek behavior in the EU,demanding not earned money.

Germany don't just own war reparations to Greece, (it looted its natural resources and archeological treasures, destroyed infrastructure and Greece lost 10% of its population)

Forget about reparations, Germany took forced loans from the Greek central bank, loans which never repayed back. Do you think a country should pay its debts back or not. Greece repayed every cent of the loans she took in 1821, in her war of Independence from the Turks. Those loans had very unfavorable conditions but Greece had to repay every cent of them.
So why shouldn't Germany. Note that Germany government had recognized those loans and had agreed to a repayment plan.

Forced loans do not fit into the category of war reparations.

Piketty: "Germany Has Never Repaid Its Debts; It Has No Standing To Lecture Other Nations"

When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.

... Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt. The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice."

And since the crisis begun Germany has gained trillions o euros on the backs of Greece. No matter what you hear she has not lost a cent from loaning Greece.

[wvwvw]

No country suffered as much under the Nazis as Poland. Poland is 100% in seeking reparation from Germany.

[wvwvw]

Full interview:

Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”

In a forceful interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, the star economist Thomas Piketty calls for a major conference on debt. This interview has been translated from the original German.

Since his successful book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the Frenchman Thomas Piketty has been considered one of the most influential economists in the world. His argument for the redistribution of income and wealth launched a worldwide discussion. In a interview with Georg Blume of DIE ZEIT, he gives his clear opinions on the European debt debate.

DIE ZEIT: Should we Germans be happy that even the French government is aligned with the German dogma of austerity?

Thomas Piketty: Absolutely not. This is neither a reason for France, nor Germany, and especially not for Europe, to be happy. I am much more afraid that the conservatives, especially in Germany, are about to destroy Europe and the European idea, all because of their shocking ignorance of history.

ZEIT: But we Germans have already reckoned with our own history.

Piketty: But not when it comes to repaying debts! Germany’s past, in this respect, should be of great significance to today’s Germans. Look at the history of national debt: Great Britain, Germany, and France were all once in the situation of today’s Greece, and in fact had been far more indebted. The first lesson that we can take from the history of government debt is that we are not facing a brand new problem. There have been many ways to repay debts, and not just one, which is what Berlin and Paris would have the Greeks believe.

ZEIT: But shouldn’t they repay their debts?

Piketty: My book recounts the history of income and wealth, including that of nations. What struck me while I was writing is that Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up, such as after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt. The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.

ZEIT: But surely we can’t draw the conclusion that we can do no better today?

Piketty: When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.


ZEIT: Are you trying to depict states that don’t pay back their debts as winners?

Piketty: Germany is just such a state. But wait: history shows us two ways for an indebted state to leave delinquency. One was demonstrated by the British Empire in the 19th century after its expensive wars with Napoleon. It is the slow method that is now being recommended to Greece. The Empire repaid its debts through strict budgetary discipline. This worked, but it took an extremely long time. For over 100 years, the British gave up two to three percent of their economy to repay its debts, which was more than they spent on schools and education. That didn’t have to happen, and it shouldn’t happen today. The second method is much faster. Germany proved it in the 20th century. Essentially, it consists of three components: inflation, a special tax on private wealth, and debt relief.

ZEIT: So you’re telling us that the German Wirtschaftswunder [“economic miracle”] was based on the same kind of debt relief that we deny Greece today?

Piketty: Exactly. After the war ended in 1945, Germany’s debt amounted to over 200% of its GDP. Ten years later, little of that remained: public debt was less than 20% of GDP. Around the same time, France managed a similarly artful turnaround. We never would have managed this unbelievably fast reduction in debt through the fiscal discipline that we today recommend to Greece. Instead, both of our states employed the second method with the three components that I mentioned, including debt relief. Think about the London Debt Agreement of 1953, where 60% of German foreign debt was cancelled and its internal debts were restructured.

ZEIT: That happened because people recognized that the high reparations demanded of Germany after World War I were one of the causes of the Second World War. People wanted to forgive Germany’s sins this time!

Piketty: Nonsense! This had nothing to do with moral clarity; it was a rational political and economic decision. They correctly recognized that, after large crises that created huge debt loads, at some point people need to look toward the future. We cannot demand that new generations must pay for decades for the mistakes of their parents. The Greeks have, without a doubt, made big mistakes. Until 2009, the government in Athens forged its books. But despite this, the younger generation of Greeks carries no more responsibility for the mistakes of its elders than the younger generation of Germans did in the 1950s and 1960s. We need to look ahead. Europe was founded on debt forgiveness and investment in the future. Not on the idea of endless penance. We need to remember this.

ZEIT: The end of the Second World War was a breakdown of civilization. Europe was a killing field. Today is different.

Piketty: To deny the historical parallels to the postwar period would be wrong. Let’s think about the financial crisis of 2008/2009. This wasn’t just any crisis. It was the biggest financial crisis since 1929. So the comparison is quite valid. This is equally true for the Greek economy: between 2009 and 2015, its GDP has fallen by 25%. This is comparable to the recessions in Germany and France between 1929 and 1935.

ZEIT: Many Germans believe that the Greeks still have not recognized their mistakes and want to continue their free-spending ways.

Piketty: If we had told you Germans in the 1950s that you have not properly recognized your failures, you would still be repaying your debts. Luckily, we were more intelligent than that.

ZEIT: The German Minister of Finance, on the other hand, seems to believe that a Greek exit from the Eurozone could foster greater unity within Europe.

Piketty: If we start kicking states out, then the crisis of confidence in which the Eurozone finds itself today will only worsen. Financial markets will immediately turn on the next country. This would be the beginning of a long, drawn-out period of agony, in whose grasp we risk sacrificing Europe’s social model, its democracy, indeed its civilization on the altar of a conservative, irrational austerity policy.

ZEIT: Do you believe that we Germans aren’t generous enough?

Piketty: What are you talking about? Generous? Currently, Germany is profiting from Greece as it extends loans at comparatively high interest rates.

ZEIT: What solution would you suggest for this crisis?

Piketty: We need a conference on all of Europe’s debts, just like after World War II. A restructuring of all debt, not just in Greece but in several European countries, is inevitable. Just now, we’ve lost six months in the completely intransparent negotiations with Athens. The Eurogroup’s notion that Greece will reach a budgetary surplus of 4% of GDP and will pay back its debts within 30 to 40 years is still on the table. Allegedly, they will reach one percent surplus in 2015, then two percent in 2016, and three and a half percent in 2017. Completely ridiculous! This will never happen. Yet we keep postponing the necessary debate until the cows come home.

ZEIT: And what would happen after the major debt cuts?

Piketty: A new European institution would be required to determine the maximum allowable budget deficit in order to prevent the regrowth of debt. For example, this could be a commmittee in the European Parliament consisting of legislators from national parliaments. Budgetary decisions should not be off-limits to legislatures. To undermine European democracy, which is what Germany is doing today by insisting that states remain in penury under mechanisms that Berlin itself is muscling through, is a grievous mistake.

ZEIT: Your president, François Hollande, recently failed to criticize the fiscal pact.

Piketty: This does not improve anything. If, in past years, decisions in Europe had been reached in more democratic ways, the current austerity policy in Europe would be less strict.

ZEIT: But no political party in France is participating. National sovereignty is considered holy.

Piketty: Indeed, in Germany many more people are entertaining thoughts of reestablishing European democracy, in contrast to France with its countless believers in sovereignty. What’s more, our president still portrays himself as a prisoner of the failed 2005 referendum on a European Constitution, which failed in France. François Hollande does not understand that a lot has changed because of the financial crisis. We have to overcome our own national egoism.

ZEIT: What sort of national egoism do you see in Germany?

Piketty: I think that Germany was greatly shaped by its reunification. It was long feared that it would lead to economic stagnation. But then reunification turned out to be a great success thanks to a functioning social safety net and an intact industrial sector. Meanwhile, Germany has become so proud of its success that it dispenses lectures to all other countries. This is a little infantile. Of course, I understand how important the successful reunification was to the personal history of Chancellor Angela Merkel. But now Germany has to rethink things. Otherwise, its position on the debt crisis will be a grave danger to Europe.

ZEIT: What advice do you have for the Chancellor?

Piketty: Those who want to chase Greece out of the Eurozone today will end up on the trash heap of history. If the Chancellor wants to secure her place in the history books, just like [Helmut] Kohl did during reunification, then she must forge a solution to the Greek question, including a debt conference where we can start with a clean slate. But with renewed, much stronger fiscal discipline.

[Skjaldemjøden]

They're very late. The other reparation agreements were signed within two decades of the war. Are they appealing to the honor of German nonagenarians?