Germany should move quickly on compensation for the last surviving Polish victims of Nazi crimes committed during World War 2, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said during a visit to Berlin this week.

Tusk met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz as they both chaired a joint meeting of their governments, held as part of regular Polish-German consultations. Warsaw and Berlin are seeking to build a close partnership within the EU and Nato in response to the Russian threat.

Polish-German relations have long been shaped by World War 2, with Warsaw pushing Berlin for redress for the destruction and atrocities the Nazis had inflicted on the country under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.

A thorny aspect of the dispute is fast-tracking compensation for the rapidly dwindling number of Polish survivors of the war. There are only about 50,000 of them still alive, Tusk told Merz.

“Hurry up if you truly want to make this gesture,” Tusk said.

“If we do not receive a swift and unequivocal declaration [on compensating survivors], then next year I will consider a decision for Poland to do so from our own resources,” Tusk also said, in remarks seen as a diplomatic jab at Merz.

Germany proposed last year €200mn for that purpose, an offer Poland said was only symbolic and far too small.

Poland's post-WW2 communist government signed away war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union in the 1950s, although the deal was between Poland and Soviet-run East Germany only.

The Polish authorities say that Poland had no free hand to make foreign policy decisions at the time, especially concerning Moscow’s key outpost, which the eastern German state was.

“As those familiar with history know well, Poland in the 1950s in practice had no say in this matter, and the renunciation … is not recognised as an act that reflected the will of the Polish nation,” Tusk said.

Merz said the stance of his government, as well as that of previous German governments, is that the reparations issue is settled politically and legally.

“In Poland, really everyone without exception believes we have not received compensation for the losses and crimes of the World War 2. And we know the German position, which sticks to that formal record from the 1950s,” Tusk said. He added that the Polish position also remains unchanged.

Poland suffered nearly PLN6.23 trillion (€1.32 trillion) worth of losses in the wake of Germany’s invasion and brutal occupation of the country in 1939-1945, Warsaw claimed in a report released in 2022. The report's methodology has been disputed, even in Poland.

West Germany paid some reparations to Polish war victims between 1970 and the early 1990s.