Poland to present report demanding WWII reparations next week

The Polish government is to present a report next week on the devastation wreaked on the country by the Nazi German occupation during World War II, the parliamentary administration announced in Warsaw on Thursday.

The expert report is to be presented in Warsaw's Royal Castle on September 1, the date of the German invasion in 1939. It is also seen as marking the start of the war, which claimed at least 55 million lives and possibly as many as 80 million.

Up to 6 million people are estimated to have died as a direct result of the war in Poland itself.

The governing national conservative PiS party has indicated repeatedly that the report was pending. It is aimed at supporting claims for reparations from Germany.

A survey taken last year showed 64% of those polled in favour of demanding reparations from Germany for the damage caused to Poland.

The German government opposes all demands for further reparations, insisting that the Two Plus Four Agreement of 1990, also known as the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, ended the matter.

That treaty, negotiated by the former West Germany and the former East Germany, along with Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States, paved the way for German reunification and confirmed Germany's borders.