- Tytuł:
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Odpowiedzialność odszkodowawcza NRF w XXI wieku – Próba opisu
The compensation responsibility of the Federal Republic of Germany in the 21st century - An attempt to describe - Autorzy:
- Gruszczyński, Krzysztof Jerzy
- Powiązania:
- https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/485749.pdf
- Data publikacji:
- 2017
- Wydawca:
- Instytut Studiów Międzynarodowych i Edukacji Humanum
- Tematy:
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War reparation,
Germany,
WWII,
Poland damages,
Law and Justice Party - Opis:
- Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) is considering whether to seek further reparations from German Federal Republic for the massive losses inflicted during WWII. PiS head Kaczynski described the move as a “historical counteroffensive.” World War II (WW II), which began with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, killed nearly 6 million Polish citizens and inflicted huge material losses, including the destruction of cultural treasures, industry and entire cities. Those crimes carry not only a moral price, but a material one as well: In 2004, Warsaw’s then-mayor, Lech Kaczynski, calculated that the Deutsche Bundesrepublik was liable for reparation payments of some $45 billion dollars (38 billion dollars) for the destruction of Warsaw alone. If one were to extrapolate the amount to include the whole of Poland, one would certainly arrive at a figure 10 to 20 times higher. That would be a sum that could only be paid out over decades and across generations. When one considers that German Federal Republic’s (GFR) final reparation payments to France and Belgium for the First World War were not made until 2010, one gets an idea of the dimensions of such a demand. Shortly after the PiS regained power in 2916 its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, announced that Poland and the GFR had outstanding accounts to settle from the WW II. He went on to say that the issue of war reparations between the neighboring countries had never been resolved. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, GFR’s foreign minister at the time, answered Kaczynski’s claims with a letter stating that Poland had no legal basis for demanding such damages. He reminded Kaczynski of Poland’s relinquishment of reparations in 1953. Poland’s government did indeed waive its right to war reparations from its western neighbor at the time – yet that neighbor was the German Democratic Republic (GDR). A few other interesting points. The GFR has paid billions of dollars over the years in compensation for III Reich crimes, primarily to polish survivors, and acknowledges the country’s responsibility for keeping alive the memory of III Reich atrocities. After WW II, both GFR and GDR were obliged to pay war reparations to the Allied governments, according to the Potsdam Conference. Other Axis nations were obliged to pay war reparations according to the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947 an early plan for a post-war GFR was the Morgenthau plan with terms that would have essentially transformed the GFR to an agrarian society... This position was completely changed by the London Agreement on German External Debts, so called the London Debt Agreement. As a consequence of aggression by the III Reich much of Poland was subjected to enormous destruction of its industry (62% of which was destroyed), its infrastructure (84%) and loss of civilian life (16.7% of its citizens during the war- 10% of them Jews). It is estimated that damages incurred by Poland during WWII total $640 billion in 2004 exchange values. As of 2012, the GFR had paid a total of $89 billion in compensation to victims of the war, in Poland and beyond, and GFR officials continue to meet regularly to revise and expand the guidelines for compensation. All in all, after WW II 17 % of Polish citizens perished, 62 % of industry & 84 % of infrastructure was destroyed. The capital Warsaw was raised to the ground as a result of Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Poland could not benefit from US Marshall Plan as other countries (incl. the GFR) as the Soviets decided for Poland to renounce it. The GFR paying WWI reparations to France in 2010 (92 years after WWI). Polish estimates of the damage the country suffered are in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with a government figure from 1945-47 putting material losses at $850 billion, not including human losses. In 2004, Kaczynski’s late twin brother Lech, as mayor of Warsaw, put the damages to the capital city alone at $45.3 billion. Poland is the biggest net beneficiary of the bloc’s 140 billion-euro ($164 billion) annual budget, having been granted more than 250 billion dollars since entry. The monstrosity of III Reich crimes, not only against Polish Jews but also others, including the 150,000 civilians butchered during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, will forever remain a disgrace and an unforgettable injustice. It is all the more so given that hardly any of those Germans responsible for the deeds were ever brought to account. In 2004 a special commission estimated that damages incurred by the Polish capital alone during WW II amounted to more than $45 billion (38 billion dollars). The commission was convened by Lech Kaczynski, then Warsaw’s mayor. The topic has routinely strained German-Polish relations since the national-conservative party PiS returned to power in 2016. On 23 August 1953, the Communist People’s Republic of Poland under pressure from the Soviet Union announced it would unilaterally waive its right to war reparations from the German Democratic Republic on 1 January 1954, with the exception of reparations for III Reich oppression and atrocities. The GDR in turn had to accept the Oder-Neisse border, which gave around 1/4 of GDR’s historic territory to Poland and the USSR. Poland’s former communist government, agreed in 1953 to not to make any further claims on GDR. Poland’s former Communist government waived its right to German post-war compensation back in 1953, as part of its commitment to “contribute to solving the GDR question in the spirit of democracy and peace.” However, many argue that the agreement was unlawful since the government at the time was under pressure from the Soviet Union, and following the reunification of the GFR in the 1990s the matter has faced new scrutiny. As to the GFR the federal government has claimed that its duty to compensate Poland was denounced in the 1950s but insists that it continues to stand by its moral and financial duties to the victims of the war. The GFR hadn’t paid reparations to non-Jewish recipients for the damage inflicted in Poland. The agreement signed by Mr. Gierek and Mr. Schmidt in 1975 in Warsaw, stipulated that 1.3 billion DM will be paid to Poles who, during Nazi occupation, had paid into GFR’s social security system without receiving pension. After German reunification, Poland demanded reparations again, as a reaction to claims made by German refugee organizations demanding compensation for property and land repossessed by the new Polish state that they were forcibly deported from as a stipulation of the Potsdam Agreement and the mentioned Oder-Neisse border. In 1992, the Foundation for Polish-German Reconciliation was founded by the Polish and GFR governments, and as a result GFR paid Polish sufferers ca. 4.7 billion PLN. There is still an ongoing debate among international law experts if Poland still has the right to demand war reparations, with some arguing that the 1954 declaration wasn’t legal. According to a statement made by the German government in 2017, the reparations issue was resolved in 1953 as Poland declined receiving any payments from the GFR. However, it’s worth remembering that in 2004, the Polish government reaffirmed that decision when, in return, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder promised that the GFR’s government would not support demands for damages lodged by expellees against the Polish government. The decision came about dueto the fact that the GFR had relinquished former eastern territories to Poland as compensation for III Reich war crimes. Poland’s ruling officials are stepping up calls to demand compensation from the GFR for damages caused in WW II, potentially deepening a divide between the European Union’s largest eastern member and the bloc’s biggest economy. Between the collapse of communism in 1989 and 2004 when Poland joined the EU, subsequent governments declared the issue of war reparations from the GFR closed, based on a declaration of the 1953 communist administration in Warsaw and treaties from 1970 and 1990 with the GFR. Presently the Polish parliament’s research office is preparing an analysis of whether Poland can legally make the claim and will have it ready by Aug. 11, 2017 according to Deputy Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a lawmaker with the ruling Law and Justice party who requested the report. One of the reasons that the government is reopening the question may be to demonstrate it isn’t intimidated by the EU’s criticism for democratic backsliding. The bloc has opened an unprecedented probe into Poland over the rule-of-law that’s centered on a government push to strip the judiciary of its independence by giving politicians greater control over the courts. In response to the Poland’s new demand Ulrike Demmer, deputy spokeswoman for the GFR government, said that, while the GFR assumed political, moral and financial responsibility for the WW, the question of restitution was closed. The deputy spokeswoman added, that the GFR has made significant reparations for general war damage, including to Poland, and is still paying significant compensation for III Reich wrongdoing. Further it is stated that the federal government has paid billions over the years in compensation, namely to Polish survivors, for war crimes committed during WW II. The country has also acknowledged its responsibility for keeping alive the memory of atrocities committed by the III Reich. As far as German lawyers and scholars are concerned, the issue was resolved years ago and are not afraid of any possible lawsuit in the International Court of Justice. In 2004, Jochen Frowein, an expert on international law and the former director of the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, along with a Polish historian, came to the conclusion that no such demand by Poland had any chance of being upheld in a court of law – and that remains the case today. In his opinion the question has been “legally resolved and definitively settled.” He also points to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to the GFR, known also as the Two plus Four Agreement. The agreement, signed in 1990, paved the way for German reunification and also made clear that the GFR would not be responsible to pay any further reparations stemming from WW II. Frowein refutes Polish Defense Minister Senor Antoni Macierewicz’s claim that Poland’s 1953 waiver is invalid because communist Poland was not a sovereign state. “Poland’s 1953 renunciation of reparations claims against the GFR remains valid even today. The fact that the constitutional situation in Poland has changed and that it is no longer a communist state does nothing to change the validity of that declaration. Many other treaties that Poland signed at the time have also remained in effect.
- Źródło:
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Humanum. Międzynarodowe Studia Społeczno-Humanistyczne; 2017, 4(27); 81-115
1898-8431 - Pojawia się w:
- Humanum. Międzynarodowe Studia Społeczno-Humanistyczne
- Dostawca treści:
- Biblioteka Nauki
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