Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Germany rejected a Polish parliamentary report saying that it owes the country $1.32 trillion for damages caused during the World War II.
A spokesperson for the German government said Friday that the country would not entertain the idea of reparations.
"The federal government's position is unchanged," a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said. "In the view of the government this matter is closed."
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland's ruling conservative Law and Justice party, on Thursday presented a report assessing the financial damages caused by Nazi Germany's invasion and occupation.
Related
This new estimate tops the $850 billion estimate from 2019.
"The sum that was presented was adopted using the most limited, conservative method, it would be possible to increase it," Kaczynski said while speaking at a ceremony commemorating the 83rd anniversary of the 1939 invasion.
Some 6 million Poles, including 3 million Polish Jews, were killed during the war, and Warsaw was razed after a 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died.
The report was commissioned five years ago, but its release has been repeatedly delayed. The release comes at a time when the two governments have taken a more confrontational stance toward each other.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly criticized the Polish governments' crackdown on judicial independence and suggested that EU should be tied to rule of law standards.
Poland, meanwhile, has accused Germany of backtracking on its support for Ukraine in the wake of Russia's invasion.
The German government has argued that in 1953 Poland's then-communist rulers relinquished all claims to war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to free East Germany, also a Soviet satellite, from any liabilities.
