2026-01-22 17:39
publication
2026-01-22 17:39
Kay Gottschalk, an MP from the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), said that Poland should pay reparations to Germany for “complicity in blowing up Nord Stream” and announced that if he becomes Minister of Finance, he will strive for this.
EUR 1.3 trillion should be enough as reparations for complicity in blowing up Nord Stream. My first official decision as Minister of Finance will be to pursue these claims from Poland – Gottschalk posted such content on the X platform.
At the end of the post, he noted: “He who laughs last laughs best,” adding the Polish flag and a blue heart (the color of the AfD).
This is another post by Gottschalk regarding Poland and Nord Stream. In October, when a Polish court refused to extradite Volodymyr Zhuravlov, suspected of blowing up the gas pipeline, to Germany, the AfD politician accused the Polish state of “being an accomplice of terrorists.” In response, he called for, among others: to withhold EU funds for Poland.
Gottschalk is one of the parliamentary leaders of the AfD, he has been a member of the Bundestag since 2017, among others. as spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group on financial policy. He is one of the co-founders of the party in 2013. Last year, together with a wider AfD delegation, he visited the USA, where he met with circles associated with Republicans and US President Donald Trump.
The AfD, leading in some German support polls, is isolated by Germany's main parties at the federal and state levels. However, at a lower level, especially in the east of the country, this “firewall” (Brandmauer) principle is not strictly observed.
The AfD's relations with Russia remain a source of controversy on the German political scene. The group's politicians visit the Russian embassy in Berlin and travel to Russia. The attitude towards Moscow is also the subject of a dispute within the AfD itself. In recent months, the party leadership has been strongly focusing on relations with Trump's entourage. In December, a group of AfD politicians visited Washington and New York, where they met, among others, with congressmen and State Department officials.
The damage to three of the four lines of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, intended to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, occurred on September 26, 2022. The German prosecutor's office also suspects a Ukrainian citizen, Serhiy K, of blowing up the pipes.
According to the German prosecutor's office, K. and several other people used a yacht that sailed from the port of Rostock. They were supposed to rent the boat from a German company on the basis of false identity documents and with the help of intermediaries. According to investigators, the divers attached at least four explosives to the pipelines, and after the operation they were picked up by a driver and taken to Ukraine.
German media reported that K., who was detained in Italy, where he was on vacation with his family, and then extradited to the German side, was the organizer of the attack.
From Berlin Mateusz Obremski (PAP)
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