Poland calls for WWII reparations talks with Germany, mooting trillion dollar payment

[Jeezy911]

I'm starting to love Based Poland. Hit them with their own bullshit.

[Logwyn]

How about they blame the Russia for their conditions now... Warsaw Pact and all that.

[ro9ue]

Does anyone have any sensible argument for reparations in any circumstance? Being serious, I genuinely just don't see how it could ever be logical to redistribute resources amongst people based on historical conflicts from which they've had no part.

[zealo]

Wouldn't Russia owe a lot more than Germany??

Money is only a small part of what's going on here. Id be surprised if they ever expected to receive anything out of Germany by now.

It's more of a smoke screen with an external "enemy" to rally people against, when they're doing things like trying to impose political control over the supreme court from the rest of government.

[Yvaelle]

I'm not trying to downplay the plight of the Polish people under Nazi Germany, but wasn't most of the overall damage to Poland done by the Soviet Union while trying to conquer (note: not liberate) it from the Nazis?

I highly doubt reparations would ever be paid out at all, as they make no sense at this point. However, if they were owed, it would be from Russia to Poland, I would think? (Note: excluding Polish Jews, blacks, homosexuals, etc - I'm excluding the holocaust here because it's too complex a topic to mix the two).

Even still - I'm sure if Poland is in really dire straights (as this suggests) they could probably just offer to join Germany as provinces? I feel like Germany would be down with that - even if it meant supporting the Polish people in the short-term and getting their standard of living up to German parity.

Edit: Then again, it already feels like we're on the brink of WW3 lately - and all prior world wars began with German borders expanding. So maybe it would be just too much of an ill omen.

[cubby]

everyone wants reparations for past actions it seems lol

I'll never understand how they think this can every seriously be paid - not just Poland, but anyone who is looking for "reparations for past actions" - i.e. slavery, etc. How am I going to ever want to pay for my great-grandfather's actions - and to whom it is paid to?

[Almaric]

You guys are wasting time discussing it. Nobody takes this shit seriously, its only a smoke screen for our current stupid government to deflect attention from destroying the justice system and rising inflation. That's it. This bullshit topic is brought by the current ruling party every time they need a smoke screen for domestic issues.

[Yvaelle]

I'll never understand how they think this can every seriously be paid - not just Poland, but anyone who is looking for "reparations for past actions" - i.e. slavery, etc. How am I going to ever want to pay for my great-grandfather's actions - and to whom it is paid to?

Realistically I don't think anyone does expect to get paid reparations, it's usually just a way to talk about recognizing the damages caused and quantifying the effect. Ask for $1T in reparations, but settle for some sympathetic news coverage and an official apology.

[ImpTaimer]

Poland not taking shit during WW1 or WW2. Will continue to not take shit during WW3.

I doubt Poland even cares. They're just saying it to expose EU/Germany/Liberal virtue signaling hypocrisy.

"Let's take tax dollars from <insert country> citizens that weren't responsible or even involved in <insert other country> at all because we're upset about something that happened to people who aren't even us!"

Illogical.

Just like the entire liberal/globalist/socialist agenda.

[cubby]

Realistically I don't think anyone does expect to get paid reparations, it's usually just a way to talk about recognizing the damages caused and quantifying the effect. Ask for $1T in reparations, but settle for some sympathetic news coverage and an official apology.

Now that makes a lot more sense. And I could see the egregious countries being on board with those kind of requests. I'm just not sure starting out with wholly unrealistic requests is the best way to go. It does get people's attention, of course - so maybe I'm already wrong about that.

[papajohn4]

"Let's take tax dollars from German citizens that weren't responsible or even involved in WW2 at all because we're upset about something that happened to people who aren't even us!"


Illogical.

Yea ask about Greece, were recently we payed a loan from our Independence war in 1821.. In fact all Country loans are to pay former loans and so on... Countries have a continuation, they don't "reset" after each generation... I am 35 years old and I pay taxes for loans I was not even born when Greece got them..

I am not saying that your point are illogical, but is not how Countries are operating. Also imagine that in Greece the Church possess land because they had some papers from Byzantine Empire.... this is how the system works.

[I Push Buttons]

Yea ask about Greece, were recently we payed a loan from our Independence war in 1821.. In fact all Country loans are to pay former loans and so on... Countries have a continuation, they don't "reset" after each generation... I am 35 years old and I pay taxes for loans I was not even born when Greece got them..

I am not saying that your point are illogical, but is not how Countries are operating. Also imagine that in Greece the Church possess land because they had some papers from Byzantine Empire.... this is how the system works.

That's a pretty silly false equivalence since loans given on the promise of repayment aren't in any way shape or form comparable to reparations for past wrongs committed.

If you take out a loan and buy a house and then you die before you repay it, that doesn't mean your family just gets a free house... They have to pay for it or the whoever loaned you the money gets it.

Are you prepared to cede control of your country to whomever loaned it money in the past? If not then you are obligated to repay that debt.

[zealo]

That's a pretty silly false equivalence since loans given on the promise of repayment aren't in any way shape or form comparable to reparations for past wrongs committed.

If you take out a loan and buy a house and then you die before you repay it, that doesn't mean your family just gets a free house... They have to pay for it or the whoever loaned you the money gets it.

Are you prepared to cede control of your country to whomever loaned it money in the past? If not then you are obligated to repay that debt.

Not disagreeing that reparations and debts are different, but the debt of a state isn't the same as a debt to a person, nor does it operate on the same principles.

If a country cannot replay a loan it has, what would happen is that it would just say "screw you, I'm not paying" and go into a default rather than any ceding of sovereignty.

[papajohn4]

That's a pretty silly false equivalence since loans given on the promise of repayment aren't in any way shape or form comparable to reparations for past wrongs committed.

If you take out a loan and buy a house and then you die before you repay it, that doesn't mean your family just gets a free house... They have to pay for it or the whoever loaned you the money gets it.

Are you prepared to cede control of your country to whomever loaned it money in the past? If not then you are obligated to repay that debt.

I just want to say that countries have a continuation. A loan is a loan sure. But an attacker in war also get profits from the loser. They take their resources, their food, their money and from these actions the attacker get benefit. Is like saying that if my father has killed some people and made 1 million profit from it, and then my father dies i get a free million.

Its not that some people died, but the treasures of the nation also got abused etc. Anyway i am not here to support 1 or another.. but i am sure that the answer is not " its 70 years old i was not born yet".

[Airlick]

What about France then? You also forgot Britain may not have been occupied but... chemical warfare was air-borne.

France couldn't have had money pumped into it during WW2, considering it was occupied by Germans after a shamefully poor display, but it also benefitted greatly from Marshall Plan. In any case, the main difference between UK and France and Poland, not taking into account their wealth prior to WW2, is that they just weren't getting continueously robbed by USSR for 35 years after the war, instead they were being helped to rebuild by USA.

Oh, and I know, UK suffered so much during WW2. A few bombings and 400k dead from all sources, most of whom died away from UK. Compared to virtually the whole infrastructure － oh, there wasn't that much infrastructure there in the first place, considering Poland only had 20 years to build it after Germans rolled through its territories not once, but twice during WW1, causing immense damage each time - destroyed, 6 millions (corresponding to 17% of the population) of people straight up killed, many millions more heavily oppressed and threatened with death on daily basis, followed by 35 years of communist occupation. You certainly had it rough.

Man you need to read the difference between "I read news articles", to an opinion along the lines of "stop claiming British benefits to build your homes, so go back to your motherland".
Yes, it's infuriating but firstly it's a supposed 'minority' despite those articles never stipulated how many, but I would prefer to select a minority because it will 99% be that amount compared to the majority and secondly, it's probably no different to anywhere else in the world.

By quoting articles in this manner you pretty much acknowledge that you believe there may be some truth to them. You explicitly mentioned taking benefit money and building 5 bathroom houses in the same sentence. No matter how you try to twist it, you did imply that polish workers should in fact "stop claiming British benefits to build your homes, so go back to your motherland". If we follow this specific example, let's just say building a 5 bathroom medium standard house would probably cost around a million PLN, which is some 200-250k GBP. Do you really believe a low/mid class worker could save this much, even if he worked his ass off for years? Even if there is a single case of an immigrant building such a house, there must be much more to the story than just "they worked in UK, came back to Poland and built a 5 bathroom house".

if your grandfather shit on your neighbors doormat before you where born you would feel obliged to go over there and hand them cake and an apology ? people don't all go "oh it wasn't me, suck it" , they tell you they weren't even born when the act happened/the few that were were mostly children ( i doubt there are a lot of posters here that where legal adults during ww2) and after the whole shebang was done this things in fact got settled on mutually agreed upon terms, it's just that 70 years later nations that could use some money boost suddenly remember that they didn't think what was agreed upon 70 years ago was fair to them.

As was stated in another post, such claims do not become outdated in the light of international law. So the comparison isn't really precise, I just said grandfather because these were grandfathers of current generation of Germans that fought in the WW2, but if we take it to the historical scale where 70 years does in fact not matter much, it should be a case of a middle aged person apologizing for the acts of his mad father.

[Trassk]

Pretty much, yes. They had their chance, they missed it.
End of story.

Today's Germans are sick and tired of the WW-II fallout.

If anything I'd say certain people in power in Germany do think their country owes the world something, so much so they would let their borders be fully open without migration control to show how much they want to world convinced their country is the most progressive, going as far as destroying their own society to do so.

[I Push Buttons]

Not disagreeing that reparations and debts are different, but the debt of a state isn't the same as a debt to a person, nor does it operate on the same principles.

If a country cannot replay a loan it has, what would happen is that it would just say "screw you, I'm not paying" and go into a default rather than any ceding of sovereignty.

Just stating it in terms relative to my example.

A more apt question would be "are you willing to ruin your nation's credit and harm all future generations of your country?"

[Evangeliste]

France couldn't have had money pumped into it during WW2, considering it was occupied by Germans after a shamefully poor display, but it also benefitted greatly from Marshall Plan. In any case, the main difference between UK and France and Poland, not taking into account their wealth prior to WW2, is that they just weren't getting continueously robbed by USSR for 35 years after the war, instead they were being helped to rebuild by USA.

Oh, and I know, UK suffered so much during WW2. A few bombings and 400k dead from all sources, most of whom died away from UK. Compared to virtually the whole infrastructure － oh, there wasn't that much infrastructure there in the first place, considering Poland only had 20 years to build it after Germans rolled through its territories not once, but twice during WW1, causing immense damage each time - destroyed, 6 millions (corresponding to 17% of the population) of people straight up killed, many millions more heavily oppressed and threatened with death on daily basis, followed by 35 years of communist occupation. You certainly had it rough.



By quoting articles in this manner you pretty much acknowledge that you believe there may be some truth to them. You explicitly mentioned taking benefit money and building 5 bathroom houses in the same sentence. No matter how you try to twist it, you did imply that polish workers should in fact "stop claiming British benefits to build your homes, so go back to your motherland". If we follow this specific example, let's just say building a 5 bathroom medium standard house would probably cost around a million PLN, which is some 200-250k GBP. Do you really believe a low/mid class worker could save this much, even if he worked his ass off for years? Even if there is a single case of an immigrant building such a house, there must be much more to the story than just "they worked in UK, came back to Poland and built a 5 bathroom house".

So quoting an article about a kid killed by hit and run where the driver sped off, is me agreeing with his actions? Right.
You believe that then. Because I wouldn't say that's a good practice to see how people have opinions.

"Go figure".

[MonsieuRoberts]

"Your forefathers owe us money" is going to be as effective here as "You're long lost cousins, get along" is going to be in Korea.

[Noradin]

Not disagreeing that reparations and debts are different, but the debt of a state isn't the same as a debt to a person, nor does it operate on the same principles.

If a country cannot replay a loan it has, what would happen is that it would just say "screw you, I'm not paying" and go into a default rather than any ceding of sovereignty.

It's just that the "you"in "screw you" are mostly its own citizens.
And nobody is ceding any sovereignty currently, certainly not Greece, anyway.
(Germany did cede sovereingty over parts of its territories to all its neighbours, but that is decades in the past.)