The Poles decided to add to themselves the "speed" at the expense of Germany
Lasting more than a year, the confrontation between Warsaw and Berlin in the week gained a new dimension. The Minister of National Defense of Poland, Anthony Macieczewicz, said on Polish television that Germany must pay war reparations to Poland for the damage and crimes committed during the Second World War. Minister Macherevich - a figure in European politics is rather odious. For two years at the head of the Polish Defense Ministry, he was noted by many loud statements, which the former Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski called simply - “nonsense.”
The “nonsense” of Macieczewicz and the shrinking Polish treasury
Strictly speaking, Komarovsky so appreciated only Macherevich's statement that the collapse of the presidential Tu-154 near Smolensk in April 2010 was an attempt against the leader of Poland Lech Kaczynski. However, such an assessment can be given to many statements of the Polish Minister of War. For example, his "denunciation" that "Russia supports and is the creator of radical Islamic terrorism."
There are a lot of such “pearls” in Maccherevich’s assets. Sometimes they led to heavy scandals in Polish politics and even the resignation of the government, as was the case in 1992 with the cabinet of Prime Minister Jan Olszewski. However, the odious politician is getting away with it, because he has gained a long-standing reputation as an ardent anti-communist and adversary of Russia.
The best recommendation for a career in today's Poland is hard to come up with. The fact is that today the government offices of Warsaw were occupied by the public, who inherited the ideology and policy of the émigré Polish government and its military derivative - Army Krajeva. This is often manifested in family heredity, such as, for example, the leader of the ruling party “Law and Justice” Jaroslaw Kaczynski (his parents were part of the Army Krayevoy).
In any case, the current government in Warsaw is the heirs of that part of the Poles who lost in the Second World War. Now they have come for revenge. Something similar is happening now in neighboring Ukraine. Only in Poland are these moods of the ruling elite less brutal. There is more polite, but he does not change the essence of the matter.
The current owners of Warsaw are trying to regain power not only in Poland, but also in the region. Claims against the Germans fit the logic of this Polish revenge. They appeared immediately after Poland passed under the authority of a one-party government, parliament and president from the national-conservative party Law and Justice.
Greater confidence Polish politicians gave the American "umbrella". In recent years, Washington has demonstrated special patronage of Poland. Diligently sculpts from it another force center in Europe. This policy has not changed since President Donald Trump came to power.
Such support of Americans only whet the Poles. It motivates them, among other things, to ill-considered actions, to which, according to experts, the Minister Macherevich’s statement on the war reparations of Germany applies. Experts have already decomposed it into "components" and found several motives at once.
First of all, it is noted that the claim for reparations is a kind of revenge of Warsaw to Berlin for transferring the development of the European Union to the “two speeds” regime. Poland, which, in comparison with other Young Europeans, has received more preferences, subsidies and grants from the EU, is now assigned the role of a secondary country. It hurt the ambitions of the honorable Polish politicians.
Another, not less important issue is the reduction of funding for Warsaw from Brussels. It will not happen tomorrow. The budget of the European Union is formed on 2020 year. But now economists quite openly say that the financial support of weak EU countries will sharply decline. One of the explanations for the upcoming changes is the exit from the European community of such a large financial donor as the United Kingdom.
There are other reasons for the reduction of financial assistance from Europe (for example, a slowdown in economic growth in the eurozone countries.) They are aware of them in Warsaw. It is possible that this is why the close-up minister Macherevich decided to replenish the Polish treasury with German reparations.
Reparations in exchange for the territory?
In Berlin, the statement of Anthony Macherevich was heard and commented immediately. As the deputy official representative of the German government Ulrik Demmer noted, the German cabinet of ministers considers the issue of paying reparations to Poland to be finally closed. Demmer emphasized that the German government "did not receive a request to which we could respond."
The position of Germany is clear to international lawyers. The Polish People's Republic, shortly after the war, abandoned German reparations. There were several reasons. Firstly, Poland, following the Soviet Union, abandoned the reparations of the German Democratic Republic. (The USSR also freed Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary from reparations.) Secondly, after the war, Poland had seriously grown into German territories.
By the way, Germany in the middle of 1950's, citing financial difficulties, refused to pay reparations altogether. This was recalled by the Greeks in the new century. They also wanted German money to support their economies. In 2013, the government of Antonis Samaras counted 162 a billion euros in compensation for the damage caused by Germany to Greece during the Second World War.
Later, the Alexis Tsipras government increased its claims to Germany to 279 billion euros. The Germans did not bother arguing about numbers. In 2016, a representative of the German government, Steffen Seibert, replied to the Greeks that "the issue with the payment of reparations to Greece was finally resolved - both from a legal and political point of view."
Something similar is waiting for Poland. Although Minister Macherevich tried to find a legal background to his claims. He came up with a “course” that was understandable only to him, that the refusal of reparations “was never consolidated from a formal legal point of view, but had only the character of a political journalistic act”. To make it more convincing, the minister added that it was not Poland that refused to reparations, but “a Soviet colony called the People's Republic of Poland (Polish People's Republic)”.
It is unlikely that anyone will seriously look for logic in the statement of the Polish Minister. But all at once they remembered how Poland after the war had grown by German territories immediately to 100 thousand square kilometers - approximately to Iceland or Bulgaria. The new borders of Poland on the initiative of the Soviet Union were discussed at a number of conferences of the leaders of the three major powers of the anti-Hitler coalition.
The final decision was taken after the victory in Potsdam. The area of Poland at the expense of the western part of East Prussia, Pomerania, Lower Silesia and East Brandenburg was increased from 212 to 313 thousand square kilometers. Polish steel, in particular, the port city of Danzig (now Gdansk), Stettin (now Szczecin).
By the way, in the neighboring Szczeń Swinoujscie, a terminal for receiving liquefied natural gas is now equipped. Before it was the German coast. Before the war, Poland had access to the Baltic coast, only 71 kilometers in length. The victorious countries added to the Poles 455 kilometers of coastline at once.
And that's not all story. As German economists have estimated, at the expense of mining in the former German lands, the Polish budget received more than 130 billion US dollars in the post-war period. Another painful question for Germany is the deportation of ethnic Germans from the now Polish territory.
The participants of the Potsdam Conference gave their consent to their relocation. Using this permission, the Polish authorities created intolerable living conditions for the local Germans, deprived them of elementary civil rights, turned them into defenseless “second-class” people. In the end - 4 million people forced to go to Germany.
In the postwar period, all these actions did not cause any protests. Germany brought trouble to the world, and now paid for it. Now is a different time. Berlin became the main capital of the European community and its main donor. This is the German money raised Poland's economy. Germany, on occasion, will surely remind the Poles of this, as has already shown them a place in the European Union, of a “second speed” country. And Berlin will certainly not allow Warsaw to add “speeds” at the expense of German reparations.
All this is perfectly understood in Europe, as it is also understood that many politicians in Warsaw today broke away from reality and clearly overestimate their strength, capabilities and the weight of Poland itself in the European community. Minister Macherevich gave another vivid example of such inadequacy.
The “nonsense” of Macieczewicz and the shrinking Polish treasury
Strictly speaking, Komarovsky so appreciated only Macherevich's statement that the collapse of the presidential Tu-154 near Smolensk in April 2010 was an attempt against the leader of Poland Lech Kaczynski. However, such an assessment can be given to many statements of the Polish Minister of War. For example, his "denunciation" that "Russia supports and is the creator of radical Islamic terrorism."
There are a lot of such “pearls” in Maccherevich’s assets. Sometimes they led to heavy scandals in Polish politics and even the resignation of the government, as was the case in 1992 with the cabinet of Prime Minister Jan Olszewski. However, the odious politician is getting away with it, because he has gained a long-standing reputation as an ardent anti-communist and adversary of Russia.
The best recommendation for a career in today's Poland is hard to come up with. The fact is that today the government offices of Warsaw were occupied by the public, who inherited the ideology and policy of the émigré Polish government and its military derivative - Army Krajeva. This is often manifested in family heredity, such as, for example, the leader of the ruling party “Law and Justice” Jaroslaw Kaczynski (his parents were part of the Army Krayevoy).
In any case, the current government in Warsaw is the heirs of that part of the Poles who lost in the Second World War. Now they have come for revenge. Something similar is happening now in neighboring Ukraine. Only in Poland are these moods of the ruling elite less brutal. There is more polite, but he does not change the essence of the matter.
The current owners of Warsaw are trying to regain power not only in Poland, but also in the region. Claims against the Germans fit the logic of this Polish revenge. They appeared immediately after Poland passed under the authority of a one-party government, parliament and president from the national-conservative party Law and Justice.
Greater confidence Polish politicians gave the American "umbrella". In recent years, Washington has demonstrated special patronage of Poland. Diligently sculpts from it another force center in Europe. This policy has not changed since President Donald Trump came to power.
Such support of Americans only whet the Poles. It motivates them, among other things, to ill-considered actions, to which, according to experts, the Minister Macherevich’s statement on the war reparations of Germany applies. Experts have already decomposed it into "components" and found several motives at once.
First of all, it is noted that the claim for reparations is a kind of revenge of Warsaw to Berlin for transferring the development of the European Union to the “two speeds” regime. Poland, which, in comparison with other Young Europeans, has received more preferences, subsidies and grants from the EU, is now assigned the role of a secondary country. It hurt the ambitions of the honorable Polish politicians.
Another, not less important issue is the reduction of funding for Warsaw from Brussels. It will not happen tomorrow. The budget of the European Union is formed on 2020 year. But now economists quite openly say that the financial support of weak EU countries will sharply decline. One of the explanations for the upcoming changes is the exit from the European community of such a large financial donor as the United Kingdom.
There are other reasons for the reduction of financial assistance from Europe (for example, a slowdown in economic growth in the eurozone countries.) They are aware of them in Warsaw. It is possible that this is why the close-up minister Macherevich decided to replenish the Polish treasury with German reparations.
Reparations in exchange for the territory?
In Berlin, the statement of Anthony Macherevich was heard and commented immediately. As the deputy official representative of the German government Ulrik Demmer noted, the German cabinet of ministers considers the issue of paying reparations to Poland to be finally closed. Demmer emphasized that the German government "did not receive a request to which we could respond."
The position of Germany is clear to international lawyers. The Polish People's Republic, shortly after the war, abandoned German reparations. There were several reasons. Firstly, Poland, following the Soviet Union, abandoned the reparations of the German Democratic Republic. (The USSR also freed Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary from reparations.) Secondly, after the war, Poland had seriously grown into German territories.
By the way, Germany in the middle of 1950's, citing financial difficulties, refused to pay reparations altogether. This was recalled by the Greeks in the new century. They also wanted German money to support their economies. In 2013, the government of Antonis Samaras counted 162 a billion euros in compensation for the damage caused by Germany to Greece during the Second World War.
Later, the Alexis Tsipras government increased its claims to Germany to 279 billion euros. The Germans did not bother arguing about numbers. In 2016, a representative of the German government, Steffen Seibert, replied to the Greeks that "the issue with the payment of reparations to Greece was finally resolved - both from a legal and political point of view."
Something similar is waiting for Poland. Although Minister Macherevich tried to find a legal background to his claims. He came up with a “course” that was understandable only to him, that the refusal of reparations “was never consolidated from a formal legal point of view, but had only the character of a political journalistic act”. To make it more convincing, the minister added that it was not Poland that refused to reparations, but “a Soviet colony called the People's Republic of Poland (Polish People's Republic)”.
It is unlikely that anyone will seriously look for logic in the statement of the Polish Minister. But all at once they remembered how Poland after the war had grown by German territories immediately to 100 thousand square kilometers - approximately to Iceland or Bulgaria. The new borders of Poland on the initiative of the Soviet Union were discussed at a number of conferences of the leaders of the three major powers of the anti-Hitler coalition.
The final decision was taken after the victory in Potsdam. The area of Poland at the expense of the western part of East Prussia, Pomerania, Lower Silesia and East Brandenburg was increased from 212 to 313 thousand square kilometers. Polish steel, in particular, the port city of Danzig (now Gdansk), Stettin (now Szczecin).
By the way, in the neighboring Szczeń Swinoujscie, a terminal for receiving liquefied natural gas is now equipped. Before it was the German coast. Before the war, Poland had access to the Baltic coast, only 71 kilometers in length. The victorious countries added to the Poles 455 kilometers of coastline at once.
And that's not all story. As German economists have estimated, at the expense of mining in the former German lands, the Polish budget received more than 130 billion US dollars in the post-war period. Another painful question for Germany is the deportation of ethnic Germans from the now Polish territory.
The participants of the Potsdam Conference gave their consent to their relocation. Using this permission, the Polish authorities created intolerable living conditions for the local Germans, deprived them of elementary civil rights, turned them into defenseless “second-class” people. In the end - 4 million people forced to go to Germany.
In the postwar period, all these actions did not cause any protests. Germany brought trouble to the world, and now paid for it. Now is a different time. Berlin became the main capital of the European community and its main donor. This is the German money raised Poland's economy. Germany, on occasion, will surely remind the Poles of this, as has already shown them a place in the European Union, of a “second speed” country. And Berlin will certainly not allow Warsaw to add “speeds” at the expense of German reparations.
All this is perfectly understood in Europe, as it is also understood that many politicians in Warsaw today broke away from reality and clearly overestimate their strength, capabilities and the weight of Poland itself in the European community. Minister Macherevich gave another vivid example of such inadequacy.
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