Germany has rejected a report by Poland’s parliamentary committee that said Berlin owed it €1.3 trillion (approximately $1.32 trillion) for damages caused and crimes committed during the Second World War. Germany has said it believes the question of wartime reparations is “closed”. The release of the report coincided with the anniversary of Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, that some historians believe sparked the start of the Second World War. The parliamentary report was commissioned five years ago but its publication was repeatedly delayed till it was released this past week. Why is Poland demanding World War II reparations? Poland’s demands for reparation comes after the release of a report on the cost of the Nazi occupation of Poland from 1939 to 1945. The Polish government says the country has not been fully compensated, a claim that Germany has denied. During the Second World War, approximately 6 million Poles were killed, including approximately 3 million Polish Jews. The war severely damaged Poland’s industry and infrastructure. Poland believes that modern Germany is obligated to pay reparations. According to an Al Jazeera report, Poland says that the payment of this sum of money would be spread over several years, with modern Germany being solvent enough to pay. But successive German governments have said that agreements in 1953 between Germany and Poland waived its claims to compensation, as part of an agreement in which its ally East Germany ceded territories to Poland and Russia. But Poland contends that it was forced by the Soviet Union to accept the agreements. What is Poland’s stance? After the PiS party, or the Law and Justice party, a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party, came to power in Poland, the country’s interpretation of Second World War history has become increasingly contentious, a DW report said. Over the past few years, it has passed several controversial laws that have resulted in criticism from the international community. Some of those laws include preventing Jewish families from trying to reclaim property seized during the Holocaust and outlawing mentions of some Polish participation in the Holocaust. Some critics believe that there may be more to the story: they believe that Poland may be pursuing these reparations to score political points domestically in Poland, because the country will be holding elections next year and the subject may help deflect from issues such as inflation and other issues that the country is experiencing. More than 80% of the PiS party’s supporter base want the reparations to occur, according to an Al Jazeera report. What is Germany’s stance? Some critics believe that Germany’s view is that Poland’s right-wing government is weaponsing the issue of reparations, in part to deflect from its own domestic issues. Some experts of European politics believe that it has to do more with the European Union’s scrutiny and criticism of Poland’s right-wing government’s domestic decisions, for example changes to the judicial system, which they say violates principles of the European Union. From a legal perspective, Germany believes that the issue of reparations for damages caused during the Second World War have been entirely settled between the two countries.