Posted on 09/16/2025 3:21:36 PM PDT by fluorescence
It’s no secret that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz prefers to work with that other Polish leader, centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
But on Tuesday he’ll be receiving Polish President Karol Nawrocki, a nationalist backed by the opposition populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which demands that Berlin pay reparations for Nazi Germany’s World War II invasion and occupation of Poland.
Relations between Poland and Germany have seesawed between close cooperation and open friction in recent years. While the two countries have strong trade relations and increasingly cooperate on defense, Nawrocki and PiS politicians have railed against the EU’s influence over Polish affairs and have stoked lingering resentments over the historical destruction that Nazi Germany wrought on Poland.
“Reparations will not serve as an alternative to historical amnesia, but Poland as a frontline state, as the key country on NATO’s eastern flank, needs justice and truth [and] clear relations with Germany,” Nawrocki said earlier this month during a World War II commemoration.
Nawrocki will “certainly refer to the issue” during his Berlin visit, said his spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz. The Polish president is scheduled to meet Merz as well as German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. No press conferences are planned, limiting the opportunity for open displays of discord.
[snip]
In April, a temporary memorial involving a 30-ton boulder was erected in Berlin to commemorate the Polish victims of Nazi Germany. There are plans to erect a permanent memorial, though the German Bundestag must first pass a resolution.
But such gestures are unlikely to satisfy demands by PiS politicians for reparations, given how many Polish voters back the party’s stance. A survey by SW Research for news portal Onet found that 54 percent of respondents backed reparations while some 27 percent opposed the idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.eu ...
Get reparations from the Russkies for brutalizing them for decades behind the iron curtain.
Ironically, that may have saved Poland. In the '90s, nobody wanted to work in Poland as they were trying to get on their feet. Now that Poland is thriving, they've closed their borders after seeing what happened to France and UK with open borders.
Demand a few hundred billion Krona from Sweden while you are at it. The Swedish invasion in the middle of the 1600s caused a level of destruction similar to that inflicted by Germans three centuries later.
Russia and Nazis partnered and both took over Poland, divided it up.
Learn history Ivan.
Learn your own history Polski.
“ Thing is, which most people today don’t realize, is that Russia (USSR) got to keep the part of Poland they invaded in ‘39 after the war.”
Yes. In partnership with Hitler.
WWII is said to have started when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 but Germany’s ally at the time, Russia, invading from the other side isn’t mentioned.
Everyone's getting in on the act. FREE MONEY. More FREE MONEY. Because, someone else should always pay. It's thing now the world wide, given the spread of the welfare state mentality accelerated by the reparations strategy and linked to echoes of "and on our children" into millennia.
What could possibly go wrong? Tick tock.
Prior to WWI, Poland's territory was divided between Germany, Austro-Hungary and Russia. It didn't exist as an independent State, but it became one after the war ended. Poland participated in the WWI peace negotiations, and signed The Treaty of Versailles. After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, Poland reduced the size of its army. It's only been since they joined NATO in 1999 that they began building up their military and weapons capability.
works for me!
And reparations means Poland will give back the German territory it was awarded after WWII?
No mention of Poland giving reparations to Czechia & Slovakia for their invasion and seizing of land in 1938.
Nazis and Russians wanted to go back to how it had been I guess.
You are correct!
It should have read:
4,449 billion euros.
Poland’s list of allies grows thin ...
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union at the time. The Soviets were able to receive the benefits of the resources of that area.
Excellent!
Browbeat Merkel, and don’t let up!
The funny thing is there really wasn't much different between the Nazis and the Commies in the 30's. They both hated capitalism. Both resorted to violence to get their own way. Fascism let you retain control of your company, but if you didn't manufacture what they wanted you to, you lost your factory, and possibly your life. Communist leadership owned everything.
I think the biggest issue that the Nazis had with communists, was that Jews were in that club. The other thing was that Hitler admired socialism, but felt Stalin did know how to do socialism the right way. He had plans to bring his own form of socialism to the people of Germany, that they wouldn't like it in the beginning, but that they would come to like it. He was also planning on de-christenising the Catholic Church.
The Russians and Nazis could wish all they wanted, but the fact is that you can never go back to how it had been. Not in relationships, not in civilizations, not in governments, nothing. Too much water under the bridge. Too many new outside forces to contend with and challenge you. I grew up in the 50's and 60's. It was a wonderful, innocent time growing up when America was at its greatest, but as much as I wish things could go back to those simpler times, it's never going to happen. When JFK was assassinated, the Vietnam War escalated, then MLK, and RFK were killed, shit went downhill fast in this country. I'm still grateful and thankful every day that I was born when I was, despite the government scaring the bejesus out of us every day over nuclear destruction.
Natural allies in a way, so they made the pact, but I figure Hitler and Stalin were both playing the other.
“Natural allies in a way, so they made the pact, but I figure Hitler and Stalin were both playing the other.”
They joined together to wreck the Weimar Republic.
How about No. And I am a big supporter of Poland. This is just stupid.
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