By contrast, 20% of respondents said they were against such a move, and 21.9% declared that they had no opinion on the matter, according to a poll by the SW Research agency for the Rzeczpospolita daily.
During German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visit to Warsaw for Polish-German government consultations last week, the Polish prime minister and German chancellor were asked about the issue at a press conference.
Berlin has repeatedly signaled that the subject of reparations is closed after a 1953 declaration in which Poland renounced such compensation. This position was reaffirmed by Marek Belka's government in 2004.
In 2019, however, then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that the 1953 declaration was a “treaty between Poland and East Germany,” and that his government did not recognize it. Seventy years ago, Poland was a Soviet satellite state, and its foreign policy was conducted under the dictates of the USSR.
Poland was one of the countries hardest hit by the effects of warfare during World War II. During Germany's occupation, some six million citizens of the pre-war Polish Second Republic died. During the Warsaw Uprising and its subsequent suppression, the Germans razed Poland's capital to the ground.
In September 2022, the populist-nationalist Law and Justice party, which was in power at the time, produced a report declaring that Poland should receive 6,220,000,000 zlotys in reparations from Germany.
While in Warsaw, Scholz proposed that, as reparations for the wrongs Poland suffered, Germany should provide support to the still-living victims of the conflict but did not provide specifics. Scholz also spoke about the creation of a memorial in Berlin, the Polish-German House.
German proposal
According to Polish media outlet Onet, citing sources in Berlin, Germany was ready to announce the allocation of €200 million in compensation to the still-living victims of World War II.
However, Onet reported that the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, to the surprise of the German side, did not accept the proposal. Tusk allegedly considered the proposed amount to be too low and disproportionate to the payments made by Germany to still-living citizens of Israel.
Onet added that Germany offered to transfer a submarine to Poland, which the Polish side did not respond to.
The SW Research survey was conducted from July 2 to 3. The study covered a group of 800 internet users over the age of 18.
