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Lastenausgleich ("Burden Equalization") was the post-World War II program and law to recompense Germans for damages incurred during the war.
Between 1939 and 1948, millions of Germans had lost most or all of their property due to bombings from Allied attacks or expulsion from their homes outside of Germany; others lost all their wealth due to currency reform. [1] More than ten million Germans had been expelled from Eastern Europe alone. [2] Those impoverished by or from the war argued for a Lastenausgleich: that West Germany must equally divide the burden of the war by confiscating 50% or more of the surviving wealth from those "undamaged" by the war and redistribute it among the war-damaged, restoring the pre-war distribution of wealth and, by extension, moral order.
Proponents of a Laustenausgleich argued that all Germans constituted a "community of risk" who had fought the war together, would have enjoyed victory together, and therefore should experience defeat together. August Haußleiter, a politician with the Christian Social Union (CSU), argued that a Laustenausgleich would create a new social order and would return the social society that property ownership that failed to provide. [1] The left-wing of the CSU argued that the war-damaged had suffered undeserved and unusual treatment that raised their concerns of a higher status than the typical welfare-seeker.
Politicians of communist East Germany were not compelled by these arguments. They argued that all Germans were human beings but that the war-damaged did not have any special claims to a Lastenausgleich or rights beyond that of any East German citizen. [1]
The Finnish law of 1945 that made restitution to Karelians was the only case law studied in preparation for the Laustenausgleich law enactment. [3]
At the same time as arguments for a Lastenausgleich law, the German courts and legislature were highly recalcitrant to implementing a method of restitution for Jews whose property had been seized. [2] The law's original intention was stated as compensating only expelled German Volkszugehörige (ethnic Germans). [4] In 1939, the Reich Ministry of the Interior had explicitly banned German Jews from claiming to be Volkszugehörige and identified Jews as "people of alien blood". [4] Some German Jews made claims under the German Restitution Laws, namely the Bundesgesetz zur Entschädigung für Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung (BEG), which went into effect in 1953. [4] Jews who had moved to Israel or the West were eligible to claim compensation under the BEG provided they met the so-called expellee criteria - the same cultural and linguistic features as ethnic Germans who made BEG claims. [4] The German government had seemingly assumed that only a small number of German Jews would be eligible for BEG payments under these criteria, but underestimated the extent to which German Jews identified as Germans and that German was used as a language at home prior to the war. [4]
The restitution of German Jews was also a provision of the Luxembourg Agreement between West Germany and Israel, signed in 1952. [4]
The Lastenausgleich law (Lastenausgleichsgesetz) was passed on 14 August 1952 after three years of debate in the Bundestag. [5] [3] The law required all "undamaged" Germans to pay the equivalent of one-half of their property value, as assessed on the day of the 1948 currency reforms, payable in installments, over thirty years. [2] Payments were spread out from 1954 to 1979. By the end of 1954, the plan had paid nearly 3 billion Deutsche marks (DM), mostly to new arrivals; one-tenth of the Lastenausgleich payments went to people in the state of Hesse. [6]
Half of the funds from the Lastenausgleichsgesetz passage went to integration and social support measures, while the other half went to direct payments as compensation for war losses. [2] It offered assistance such as absorption loans, housing help, and war-damage pensions. [4] Compensation payments were inversely linked to the cost of the damage. [7]
The Lastenausgleich was one of the largest transfer operations in German history. [7] The amount paid by 1978 was more than 110 billion DM. [7]
The law was a powerful tool in the integration of expelled Germans into West German society and contributed greatly to the West Germany economic success. [4] In terms of compensation schemes following forced migration, West Germany was one of the few countries that paid money to refugees on a widespread scale. [3] However the law also contributed to a great deal of envy and anti-newcomer sentiment, particularly among groups such as the Schutzverband der Westdeutschen (Protection Association of the West Germans). [7]
However the Lastenausgleich system had two major shortcomings: first, that the fund did not track with inflation; therefore contribution to the fund remained the same, despite rising property values and increased inflation such that recipients received less and less over time. [3] Secondly, and as a result, roughly half the contributions to the Lastenausgleich fund came from taxes on the general population, including the recipients themselves. Tax revenue was utilized from the fund's inception to balance its chronic deficit because of the gradual and increasing undervaluing of property and effects of inflation. [7]
Following the ratification of article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles at the conclusion of World War I, the Central Powers were made to give war reparations to the Allied Powers. Each defeated power was required to make payments in either cash or kind. Because of the financial situation in Austria, Hungary, and Turkey after the war, few to no reparations were paid and the requirements for reparations were cancelled. Bulgaria, having paid only a fraction of what was required, saw its reparation figure reduced and then cancelled. Historians have recognized the German requirement to pay reparations as the "chief battleground of the post-war era" and "the focus of the power struggle between France and Germany over whether the Versailles Treaty was to be enforced or revised."
War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. War reparations can take the form of hard currency, precious metals, natural resources, industrial assets, or intellectual properties. Loss of territory in a peace settlement is usually considered distinct from war reparations.
The Prussian Trust, or Prussian Claims Society, is a corporation registered in Düsseldorf, founded in 2000 as Preußische Treuhand GmbH by some descendants of German expellees, and supported by some officials of the Landsmannschaft Schlesien organization. It seeks to claim compensation from Poland and the Czech Republic, among others, for property confiscated from Germans expelled from territories which after World War II became parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953. According to the Agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of "resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees" after the war, and to compensate individual Jews, via the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, for losses in Jewish livelihood and property resulting from Nazi persecution.
Restitution and unjust enrichment is the field of law relating to gains-based recovery. In contrast with damages, restitution is a claim or remedy requiring a defendant to give up benefits wrongfully obtained. Liability for restitution is primarily governed by the "principle of unjust enrichment": A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution.
Wiedergutmachung after World War II refers to the reparations that the German government agreed to pay in 1953 to the direct survivors of the Holocaust, and to those who were made to work at forced labour camps or who otherwise became victims of the Nazis. The sum would amount, through the years, to over 100 billion Deutsche Mark. Historian Tony Judt writes about Wiedergutmachung:
In making this agreement Konrad Adenauer ran some domestic political risk: in December 1951, just 5 percent of West Germans surveyed admitted feeling ‘guilty’ towards Jews. A further 29 percent acknowledged that Germany owed some restitution to the Jewish people. The rest were divided between those who thought that only people ‘who really committed something’ were responsible and should pay, and those who thought ‘that the Jews themselves were partly responsible for what happened to them during the Third Reich.’ When the restitution agreement was debated in the Bundestag on March 18th 1953, the Communists voted against, the Free Democrats abstained and both the Christian Social Union and Adenauer’s own CDU were divided, with many voting against any Wiedergutmachung (reparations).
Bava Kamma is the first of a series of three Talmudic tractates in the order Nezikin ("Damages") that deal with civil matters such as damages and torts. The other two of these tractates are Bava Metzia and Bava Batra : originally all three formed a single tractate called Nezikin, each "Bava" meaning "part" or "subdivision." Bava Kamma discusses various forms of damage and the compensation owed for them.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, represents the world's Jews in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs. According to Section 2(1)(3) of the Property Law of Germany, the Claims Conference is a legal successor with respect to the claims not filed on time by Jewish persons. This fact was reasserted in decisions of some lawsuits which attempted to redefine the Claims Conference as a "trustee" of these assets. These lawsuits were dismissed. The Claims Conference administers compensation funds, recovers unclaimed Jewish property, and allocates funds to institutions that provide social welfare services to Holocaust survivors and preserve the memory and lessons of the Holocaust. Julius Berman has led the organization as chairman of the board, and currently president, as of 2020.
The German Restitution Laws were a series of laws passed in the 1950s in West Germany regulating the restitution of lost property and the payment of damages to victims of the Nazi persecution in the period 1933 to 1945. Such persecution included widespread theft of art and antiques and property owned by German Jews as well as aryanization of Jewish companies in the early 1930s after the Nazis came to power. The crimes escalated throughout their rule and culminated in the Holocaust from about 1939 on as Jews in Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia were isolated and deported to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps, Nazi ghettos and death camps. Their remaining personal property such as wedding rings were stolen before their murder.
The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees, as well as their descendants, have a right to return and a right to the property they themselves or their forebears left behind or were forced to leave in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories, as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, a result of the 1948 Palestine war, and due to the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Hungarian Gold Train was the German-operated train during World War II that carried stolen valuables, mostly Hungarian Jews' property, from Hungary towards Berlin in 1945. After American forces seized and looted the train in Austria, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary, their rightful owners, or their surviving family members.
Reparations are broadly understood as compensation given for an abuse or injury. The colloquial meaning of reparations has changed substantively over the last century. In the early 1900s, reparations were interstate exchanges that were punitive mechanisms determined by treaty and paid by the surrendering side of conflict, such as the World War I reparations paid by Germany and its allies. Reparations are now understood as not only war damages but also compensation and other measures provided to victims of severe human rights violations by the parties responsible. The right of the victim of an injury to receive reparations and the duty of the part responsible to provide them has been secured by the United Nations.
The Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce or Project HEART (2011-2014) was a Holocaust restitution project that was created by a decision of the Israeli Government to locate Holocaust victims and their heirs and the property that was taken from them during the Holocaust and to assist in obtaining restitution for that property. Restitution would have been sought using databases containing the data submitted by Holocaust victims and their heirs and information about the property that was taken from them. Those who were interested in participating were directed to fill out a questionnaire to determine their eligibility and may also have accessed a website and call center for assistance. Questionnaires had been collected and processed by an administrator and then forwarded to the Israeli Government, which had planned to negotiate with the relevant Governments, companies and others who hold Holocaust assets. This project used innovations, such as the Internet, not used in previous restitution attempts and marked the most serious attempt at obtaining restitution for aged Holocaust victims and their heirs. By April 2014 the project lost 95% of its funding, is accepting no requests, and it has eventually been absorbed into the Israeli Ministry of Senior Citizens, from which the funding into the project were coming.
After the Second World War in 1945, issues surrounding wartime loss and compensation started to arise. Cultural valuables were taken from Germany and placed in the Soviet Union. Years later, at the break up of the USSR, the said cultural valuables came to attention as the issue of ownership arose. Following, the debates between the Russian Duma and the Yeltsin government began, with the Duma focusing on compensation to Russia for wartime loss, and Yeltsin focusing on maintaining international relationships and agreements. Arising from the debate, were many struggles, but ultimately the enactment of the Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation.
The General Government was the German zone of occupation in Poland after the invasion by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, at the start of World War II. The General Government represented the middle portion of occupied Poland, with originally the West being under German control and the East under Soviet control. The basis for this split was to eliminate the Polish state and to turn all Polish nationals as stateless subjects, disregarding international law.
Freedom of religion in Romania refers to the extent to which people in Romania are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.
The Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017 is US legislation that requires the State Department to report to Congress on steps that 47 countries in Europe have taken to compensate Holocaust survivors and their heirs for assets seized by Nazi Germany and post-war communist governments.
The Judenvermögensabgabe was an arbitrary special tax imposed on German Jews under the Nazi dictatorship. The tax was only a part of a larger series of actions taken by the Nazis to systematically plunder Jewish assets.
The Holocaust in Austria was the systematic persecution, plunder and extermination of Jews by German and Austrian Nazis from 1938 to 1945. Part of the wider-Holocaust, pervasive persecution of Jews was immediate after the German annexation of Austria, known as the Anschluss. An estimated 65,000 Jews were murdered and 125,000 forced to flee Austria as refugees.
After World War II and coming to power of the communist government in Poland, large scale nationalization occurred. Following the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, some of the formerly nationalized property have been subject to reprivatisation and restored to previous owners, their heirs or other claimants.
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