Berlin Leaves Polish War Survivors Waiting for Payment

Germany’s draft budget still contains no decision on compensation for surviving victims of its occupation of Poland, while only 30,000 to 50,000 survivors remain, according to an opinion article by Philipp Fritz, Warsaw correspondent for Die Welt. Many are over 90, live alone and are in poor health. The government holds the money and the decision. The people waiting have little time.

At a press conference in late September, German foreign office spokesman Josef Hinterseher said: “The draft budget currently reflects the fact that no decision has been made.” Fritz says survivors therefore won't receive compensation, a one-off payment or a monthly pension from the German government. The official language is brief. The consequences are not.

A decision deferred in Berlin

The German chancellor had announced that Germany would support surviving Polish victims of World War II and help strengthen Poland’s eastern border, but offered no details on how either measure would work in practice. At the same press conference, Hinterseher discussed the planned removal of two Russian oligarchs from the EU sanctions list, or Berlin’s failure to prevent it. Fritz contrasts the matters: the German government reached decisions more quickly when the outcome benefited supporters of Vladimir Putin than when it concerned victims of Nazi terror. He called that contrast “a declaration of moral bankruptcy.”

The delay has prompted sadness and fury in Poland. Fritz describes a growing Polish view that Germany may erect memorials without providing tangible help to survivors, and says some believe Berlin is waiting for the victims to die. Those are judgments reported in the opinion article, not a decision announced by the German government. Still, as Fritz describes it, the budget contains no compensation plan.

Warsaw no longer demands war reparations from Berlin. In December 2023, Donald Tusk’s government shifted its language to “making amends.” During a visit to Berlin, Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski urged Germany to “think creatively” about compensation and said the new government would “end the cold war” waged by the former ruling PiS party against Germany. Fritz argues Tusk’s approach gave Berlin a chance to recognise suffering, provide a relatively small sum and help Polish survivors and German-Polish relations.

Former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reportedly offered Tusk a one-off payment in 2024. Poland’s prime minister rejected it as insufficient, while Polish diplomats seek monthly pensions. Fritz estimates the sum at a few hundred million euros, far below the equivalent of €1.3 trillion once demanded by Poland’s former ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, and small compared with many other budget items. Poland is seeking $1.3 trillion in war reparations; Berlin says the matter was legally settled long ago.

The price of a signature

Fritz reports rumours that German foreign ministry officials want Poland to promise it won't make further reparations demands, or at least ensure a German payment receives favourable coverage in Poland. He calls such a condition indecent, comparing it to a perpetrator trying to buy a victim’s silence. He also contrasts that approach with a system in which work in a ghetto counts toward statutory pension contributions, while compensation goes unpaid.

Fritz calls on Chancellor Friedrich Merz to work with the foreign office and finance ministry to put compensation in the budget. If politics moves too slowly, he argues, civil society should act: donations or a fund could provide monthly payments, and businesses could contribute. He names BASF, Siemens, Volkswagen, BMW and Deutsche Bank as corporations guilty of, or descended from companies guilty of, exploiting forced labourers in occupied Poland. Poland covers almost all costs of maintaining former Nazi-German camps on its territory and has spent more on this than Germany has paid in compensation to Polish war victims.

Germany’s state elections took place in September. As of 6 October, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider of the AfD was vice-president of the Sachsen-Anhalt state parliament; he wrote on X, “the Poles have been getting on my nerves for a long time now”. Fritz also says the left-wing Die Linke celebrated its electoral success with Israel haters and antisemites and tolerated them in its ranks. The article closes by demanding that Germany make its stated responsibility tangible: “Time is running out, Germany – it’s your last chance.”