Land reform in Germany

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The term land reform generally refers to a change in the ownership or usage rights to land or in general the legal system in this area, which usually aims at a more even distribution of land ownership. This article deals with the history and actors of land reform in Germany .

Land reform ideas

Adolf Damaschke: The Land Reform (1913)

In Germany at the end of the 19th century there was a land reform movement based on the American land reformer Henry George . In 1888 Michael Flürscheim , the founder and director of the Gaggenauer Eisenwerke , founded the German Federation for Land Property Reform . Other influential reformers were Silvio Gesell and Adolf Damaschke .

See also: Land reform movement

Free land reform

Silvio Gesell, who developed ideas for a free-economic land reform, referred to the land reform theory of Henry George , which provided a property tax for land that should be at a level to neutralize the land rent appropriately. However, Gesell considered Freiland to be the systemically superior solution.

Through a land reform, the free economy should combine public property on the land with its private use. To this end, she called for all land to be transferred to public ownership, for example owned by the municipalities, for full compensation to its previous owners. The previous owners retain the right to use their properties against payment of a regularly recurring license fee to the public sector . Land that was previously publicly owned and not expressly used for public purposes should be given to the highest bidder for use.

Land reform ideas of Adolf Damaschke

The land reform ideas of Adolf Damaschke and his German Federation for Land Reform were inspired by the economist Adolph Wagner and were published in 1913. You had a strong influence on the political thinking and actions of his contemporaries. The Weimar National Assembly of 1919 decided to introduce the following article into the Reich constitution:

"Article 155. [Land distribution and use]

The distribution and use of the land is monitored by the state in a way that prevents abuse and strives to ensure that every German has a healthy apartment and that all German families, especially those with many children, have a residential and business home that meets their needs ... the acquisition of which is necessary to satisfy housing needs, to promote settlement and reclamation or to improve agriculture, can be expropriated. The Fideikommisse are to be dissolved. The cultivation and exploitation of the land is a duty of the landowner to the community. The increase in the value of the land, which arises without any labor or capital expenditure on the property, must be made usable for the whole. All natural resources and all economically usable natural forces are under the supervision of the state. Private shelves are to be transferred to the state by way of legislation. "

Damaschke's land reform ideas also became the basis of the German land reform law of 1920 and were also incorporated into the constitution of the Free State of Bavaria of December 1946:

"2. Section. Ownership

Article 161

(1) The distribution and use of the land is monitored by the state. Abuses are to be stopped.
(2) Increases in the value of the land that arise without the owner having to invest particular labor or capital must be made available to the general public. "

Land Policy in National Socialism

Land policy during the National Socialist regime was then largely shaped by the blood-and-soil ideology . The Reichserbhofgesetz was enacted on September 29, 1933, two days before the first Reichserntedankfest .

The law declared around 35 percent of the agricultural and forestry holdings in the German Reich to be “hereditary farms ”. Legally fixed were it as "... the inalienable and incorruptible, indivisible on the Anerben transitioning agricultural and forestry property of a farmer ...". The size of the yard had to be at least 7.5 hectares and could not exceed 125 hectares. The hereditary farm owner was referred to by law as a farmer, all others as farmers .

Goals of a land reform after the end of the Second World War

In addition to the goal of permanently ending the influence of the strongly conservative large estates on politics, economic and social reasons were particularly important for the demand for the expropriation of large estates. Land reform measures should help to master three tasks:

One goal was the integration of the displaced, refugees and bombed out into society with an even distribution of population density in order to avoid desocialization of these groups.

Small farms were expected to be more flexible and efficient, i.e. better short-term food supplies, than large farms.  

Since it was mainly the bombed-out townspeople and the East German resettlers who suffered the actual material losses from the war, a kind of burden compensation should be created through the land levy.

Land reform in the Soviet occupation zone from 1945

Relocation of the parishes of Rockau, Cunnersdorf and Helfenberg near Dresden to subdivide the former "royal manor" Helfenberg on September 11, 1945
Postage stamp on land reform in the province of Saxony in 1945

In the years 1945/1946 a land reform was carried out in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ), in the course of which large landowners with more than 100 hectares and owners of smaller businesses who were classified as war criminals and active NSDAP members were expropriated without compensation. The expropriated property was first transferred to the respective local land fund, which redistributed it. The Soviet military administration interned a considerable number of large landowners regardless of their political past in special camps , often still used concentration camps .

background

Especially the north-eastern areas of the former German Empire , z. B. the East Elbe areas were characterized by a high proportion of agricultural land owned by a few (and sometimes noble) families, who were referred to as Junkers .

In 1882 the large estates were concentrated in the eastern provinces of Prussia and Mecklenburg. The proportion of farms with an area of ​​over 100 hectares was 44% in East Elbe, 23% in Saxony, Anhalt and Braunschweig, 12% in Thuringia and 9% in the Kassel administrative region. In all other regions it was below 5%.

Land reform monument in the Uckermark : "Junkerland in peasant hands"

The East Elbe landowners in the Weimar Republic were predominantly hostile to the republic because of their basic monarchist attitude and were one of the main groups of the German Nationalists . This was also evident in their role in the aid scandal of 1931–1933, in the context of which two German Chancellors had to resign. These were Heinrich Brüning on May 31, 1932 and, after he became Reich Chancellor on December 3, 1932 through an intrigue against Franz von Papen, who had been in office from June 1, 1932 , Kurt von Schleicher on January 28, 1933. Adolf was appointed Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the takeover of the Nazi Party.

The East Elbe landowners were largely aloof from National Socialism , not only out of class , but also because of a value-oriented Christian attitude . Some of the landowners, like large parts of society, joined the National Socialist movement. On the other hand, resistance fighters of July 20, 1944 also came from this class of society. (For more on this ambivalent position, see Nobility and National Socialism .)

The land reform in the Soviet occupation zone resulted in the dissolution of the property of this social group, whose existence was perceived by the socialist governments as a continuing threat to the republic. Even if the personal impact on those affected was significantly milder, the Allies in the western occupation zones also pursued plans for land reform, although these had less of a socialist character.

Land reform document 1947 (because seedlings are delayed)

aims

According to Dieter Felbick, the “democratic land reform” had political and social goals. With the distribution of property, the rural social structure should also be fundamentally changed. Therefore, all large landowners with over 100 hectares were completely expropriated without compensation and, starting in autumn 1945, were driven from their places of residence. On the new farmer sites, poor or landless farmers, small tenants and so-called resettlers were given their own livelihoods and attempts were made to maintain the supply of food despite the massive interference with functioning operational structures, as the situation was dramatic in the post-war period. A total of around 560,000 "land recipients" received land from the land reform.

execution

From September 3 to 11, 1945, the provincial and state administrations of the Soviet occupation zone issued similar ordinances to implement land reform in the Soviet Zone, first in the province of Saxony. The implementation of the land distribution extended until 1948.

In total, around 30% of the agricultural area was affected by the land reform. 7,160 farms were expropriated from large landowners with over 100 hectares of land (76.3% of the total area). Among the largest expropriated goods were a. the possessions of Prince Stolberg-Wernigerode (22,000 hectares), the Duke of Anhalt (20,000 hectares), Count Malte zu Putbus (18,800 hectares) and Count von Arnim (15,800 hectares). In addition, 4,537 farms below 100 hectares were expropriated. These were businesses owned by people who were classified as war criminals and (so designated in the relevant ordinances) “Nazi activists” (on 4.0% of the total expropriated area). This classification was not subject to any judicial review. State, communal and institutional land ownership including forest was also included in the land distribution: 1,288 state-owned companies with 337,507 hectares, 169 settlement societies and other institutions from the period from 1933 to 1945 with 22,764 hectares, 384 companies with 200,247 hectares of state and forested areas and 551 companies with 88,465 hectares from other property. This was 19.7% of the brought in agricultural land of 3.298 million hectares.

This total of 3.298 million hectares has been redistributed. That was about 35% of the agricultural area at that time. About two thirds of this land was distributed to farm workers, resettlers and small farmers as personal, inheritable, inalienable property. 51% of the area went to new farmers , 11.5% of the area went to poor farmers and 3.5% went to self-sufficient workers and employees. The land recipients were in detail: 183,261 new farmers, 119,121 agricultural workers and landless farmers, 91,155 resettlers, 82,483 poor farmers, 43,231 small tenants and 39,838 old farmers who received a forest allowance. The new farmers had to pay an annual pension over several years to receive land reform land. The remaining third of the land reform country - approx. 33% - became state property, i. In other words, with effect from July 1, 1949, People's Own Goods (VEG) were formed under the central management of the Association of People's Own Goods (VVG) in Berlin (East).

Ecclesiastical land ownership should not fall under the land reform, but was withdrawn on various occasions and distributed to "new farmers". Agricultural research institutions and goods operated by cities to supply their populations were also excluded from the redistribution.

The previous owners of over 100 hectares not only lost their land, but also all other property. From houses and financial assets to furniture and clothing, everything was stripped from them, and in many cases they were looted. The dispossessed were expelled from their home districts. These politically motivated district expulsions of the Communist expropriated persons are today recognized by the highest court of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig as serious wrongdoing . The farmers with up to 100 hectares, however, were not expelled, but were often denounced as National Socialists or war criminals, even if they were not involved in the crimes of the Nazi regime - for the documented procedure, see the "White Paper on the 'Democratic Land Reform' in the SBZ" From 1952 onwards they had to bow to the forced collectivization of their landed property by the SED government or they joined an agricultural production cooperative (LPG) .

The low average farm size of less than 10 hectares at the time is explained on the one hand by the medium-term intended collectivization. On the other hand, it was based on an attempt to enable as many displaced persons as possible (they soon made up about a quarter of the total population of the Soviet occupation zone) to build a new life. From 1945 until the end of the land reform in 1948, 43.3% of all new farmer jobs and 34.9% of the land distributed were given to displaced persons (see above). Despite the reluctant intention to collectivize agriculture later, the political leadership insisted from 1946 to 1948 on the strict breakdown of farms into small businesses, even where the new farmers would have preferred to work together, such as the use of agricultural machinery they had taken over and building easier.

While the new farmers' lack of equipment and cattle was already significantly alleviated in 1946/1947, more than half of the start-ups had to do without their own farm buildings for several years, which meant they were dependent on old farmers and long distances to the fields. In 1945 a need for around 100,000 new houses, barns and stables was calculated, but it was not until autumn 1947 that a larger building program began, which occupied a large part of the building capacity of the Soviet zone in the following months. To remedy the catastrophic shortage of building materials, mansions and other manor buildings were demolished due to SMAD order No. 209 , which on the one hand produced less material than hoped, and on the other hand worsened the housing situation of the displaced among the new farmers, as they were largely quartered in these mansions. The destruction of outward signs of manorial rule was a welcome side effect of the SED. Criticism of the demolitions published today goes in different directions: where (only) the farm buildings were demolished in order to protect the mansions, which are often highly valued by the villagers, which corresponded to the wording “manor buildings” of the SMAD order, this was already affected by those affected back then lamented because urgently used company buildings were destroyed before a replacement was secured. On the other hand, where manor houses were demolished in order to protect the farm buildings, the destruction of cultural assets is lamented. It is also criticized that most of the building capacity of the Soviet Zone was tied up at a time when the destruction of the war meant that there was an immense need for construction for cities, industry and transport for a property structure that was only temporary according to the will of the political leadership.

Political positions

The opposition to National Socialism and militarism was the consensus of the four parties approved by the SMAD . The economic power of the big landowners was to be broken and war criminals punished. Therefore, the political campaign for land reform began at the beginning of August 1945, with the German People's Daily of the KPD vehemently advocating the expropriation of "Junkers" in favor of the farmers.

As early as 1934, the SPD , which was then banned in Germany, demanded in its Prague manifesto :

“The smashing of the old political apparatus must be secured against its previous social supporters. This requires: Immediate expropriation of large estates without compensation, conversion of the forests into imperial property and imperial administration, use of the arable land to create viable farmers' settlements and cooperative farms of agricultural workers with sufficient support from state funds. "

In 1945 the SPD also had the opportunity to implement land reform in the Soviet occupation zone. So the SPD representatives stopped in the deliberation of the provincial bloc committee of the parties in the province of Saxony on September 1, 1945

"... a modern land reform to eradicate Nazism in the countryside and to eliminate the dominance of large landowners as the strongest economic support of militarism is necessary."

On 14 September 1945, Otto Grotewohl , one of the chairmen of the central committee of the SPD , politically justified the land reform in front of officials on this line :

“The political side of the land reform is the removal of the harmful influence of the Junkers on the destiny of Germany. For centuries the large estates were the bearers of the reaction. "

The intention of expropriating large estates was very popular in the SPD. However, the prevailing idea in the SPD was that the country should be nationalized and converted into cooperatives. In contrast, the KPD advocated the creation of small-scale farming structures. The CDU had fundamental concerns about expropriation. The LDP intended to raise the limit of the land to be expropriated.

Due to his demand for compensation for the dispossessed, the chairman of the CDU in the Soviet Zone , Andreas Hermes , was forced by the SMAD to resign. Many opponents of the land reform within the CDU were arrested anyway. The poorly ill Vice President of the Thuringian government Max Kolter (CDU) died in Jena University Hospital , where he was under Soviet guard until his death because of the resistance to the land reform.

After these measures, the resistance in the CDU was broken. Siegfried Suckut writes about the successors of Hermes and the general attitude of the CDU to land reform:

“Since the CDU did not take a fundamentally different position on the question of land reform, the members did not see the conflict as a political existential question: Significantly, Ernst Lemmer was immediately ready to take over the leadership of the party, Jakob Kaiser after a short period of reflection. The SMAD succeeded in adapting the CDUD to this point, which is significant for further social development, without creating lasting conflict within the party. "

collectivization

The economic power of the new farms remained limited. Some of the new farmers capitulated after a short time to the economic difficulties. The first agricultural production cooperatives (LPG) were founded in 1952. To a large extent - under considerable state pressure, especially against the economically successful medium-sized and large farmers - the collectivization of agriculture in the GDR did not take place until 1960. Following the Soviet model of the collective farms , the farmers had to bring their land into the newly established LPGs as productive assets. At the end of 1960 the LPGs cultivated over 85% of the agricultural area. Formally, however, the cooperative members remained owners of their landed property.

See also: Association of Mutual Farmers Aid

Dealing with the land reform from 1945/1948 until reunification

As far as the communist persecuted, their home district referenced and forced expropriated land reform victims were able to escape in time to West Germany, they were there as political refugees recognized, received the refugee card C and received by the Federal Republic after the Load Balancing Act at the request of compensation for the from expropriation of property and financial losses incurred by other business assets. However, these compensations were made in accordance with the preamble to the Burdens Equalization Act with the express reservation that the granting and acceptance of benefits did not mean a waiver of the assertion of claims and the return of the property left behind by the political refugees and displaced persons. Federal governments before 1990 had promised the victims of communist expropriation that their assets would be returned in the event of reunification.

In 1989, after the political upheaval in the GDR , there were increasing calls for compensation for the victims of land reform. In addition, in the so-called Modrow Act of March 16, 1990 (Act on the Rights of Owners of Land from Land Reform), the previously restricted labor property of land reformers was transferred to full civil property.

According to the view that prevailed in the main constitutional court proceedings , the retention of the land reform results was a condition for regaining full sovereignty for Germany in the so-called 2 + 4 negotiations . According to the advocates of this view, this is evidenced by several written pleadings that were taken into account in court judgments that rejected requests for restitution by former landowners or their heirs. One of the first of these documents is the Aide-mémoire of April 28, 1990 ( see below ). According to another view, supported by the then GDR negotiator Günther Krause and the then President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev , this precondition did not exist. In this view, domestic political considerations and the idea of ​​financing reunification by selling the former owner's assets led to the attitude of the federal government .

Controversies and what happened after the reunification

Controversies after 1990 particularly revolve around the so-called Russian aide-mémoire of April 28, 1990 (unofficial translation, VS-NfD; BK, 213 - 30100 Fr 6 Volume 4) and its correct German translation or interpretation. In “Documents on Germany Policy” it is listed as an (existing) quoted “non-paper”. On the other hand, this aide-mémoire (as the all-important Soviet precondition for the restitution prohibition on the part of the previous owners) was again viewed as controversial, especially in a work from 2004. However, the statement “A submission by Chancellor Advisor Horst Teltschik to Kohl” on the youngest Soviet Comments on the German question 'of March 9, 1990 do not provide any indication of a Soviet precondition for unity. "The documentation on the 2 + 4 treaties , because it says:

“The following were not dealt with: - The 'Potsdam issues' addressed in the memorandum of April 28, 1990 (denazification, demilitarization, etc.) as well as other predominantly political questions (legality of the decisions on land reform, etc.). ... In the Aide-mémoire (ibid.), The government of the USSR warned against “questioning the legitimacy of the measures taken by the Four Powers jointly or by each of them in their former zones of occupation on the issues of denazification, demilitarization and democratization were seized. The legality of these decisions, in particular on property and land issues, is not subject to any re-examination or reassessment by the German courts or other German state organs. '... "

Advocates of restitution cite in particular statements by Gorbachev in which he denied the documented preconditions after the unification and his abdication.

A public petition to the 16th German Bundestag for the purely moral rehabilitation (here: restoration of honor and reputation) of all victims of political persecution unencumbered by National Socialism (and expropriated in the course of the Stalinist implementation of the land reform) was not complied with in a resolution of June 26, 2008 . The two statements of the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ) on which this Bundestag resolution is based are based on the provisions of the land reform. In the course of the implementation of the SBZ land reform, the former landowners were evicted from the districts in 2009 by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig as a grave wrongdoing.

For those who had already been compensated under the Burden Equalization Act, the end of the GDR generally did not give rise to any entitlement to renewed compensation. An application for restitution by Ernst August Prinz von Hannover before the Federal Administrative Court with the argument that his family's assets were on a release list of the Soviet military administration at the time was rejected on September 1, 2006 on the grounds that the validity of the evidence provided ( Documents) are not sufficient.

The action to reverse the land reform was rejected in December 1990 (Federal Constitutional Court, decision of December 11, 1990, 1 BvR 1170, 1174, 1175/90, BVerfGE 83, 162). At that time, as a first step, an application was made to issue an interim order, with the aim of suspending the contractual provisions on expropriations in the course of the land reform. The action to reverse the land reform was finally dismissed in March 2005 before the European Court of Justice. 71 previous owners had sued. The plaintiff's attorney was Albrecht Wendenburg, the chairman of the Working Group on Agricultural Issues (AfA).

In 1992 the Second Property Rights Amendment Act was passed. This was supposed to fix an alleged loophole in Modrow's law. The consequences of the implementation of this law led to fierce disputes between the land reform recipients and the state governments, because they had expropriated land reform recipients on the basis of this law by 2000. The initial justification was that land reform land was not "real" land ownership, i.e. there was a "regulatory loophole". Later it was said that the land reform land owners had not been identified (by the state authorities) and therefore the land was used as a "representative" in the Land registers used. In Brandenburg it was about 10,000 owners with around 18,000 hectares. The Federal Court of Justice accused the State of Brandenburg of immoral damage in a fundamental judgment on December 7, 2007 (Az. V ZR 65/07 = NJ 2008, 122). A reversal of these expropriations was not yet completed in 2010. The procedure of the state of Brandenburg - on the grounds that the land register owner could not be found, to enter itself in the land register - also took place in Mecklenburg / Western Pomerania. For Thuringia, however, this was not the case.

In September 1994, a Compensation and Compensation Act was passed ( Act on Compensation under the Act to Regulate Unresolved Property Issues and State Compensation for Expropriations on the Basis of Occupation Law or Occupation Authority of September 27, 1994, Federal Law Gazette I 2624, in short: EALG). The EALG primarily means that the owners whose land expropriated in the course of the land reform cannot be returned (see above judgment of the Federal Court of Justice), are compensated. Claims for compensation are met through the allocation of transferable bonds, which are due in full on January 1, 2004 and bear six percent annual interest from then on.

See also: assets of parties and mass organizations of the GDR

Land reform in the western zones of occupation

Before the end of the war, the Allies had plans to fragment Germany and transform it into a purely agricultural state ( Morgenthau Plan ), but these were not implemented. After the war, there were efforts to reform the land in the French occupation zone. The Reichserbhofgesetz was repealed by the Allied Control Council in 1947 .

Instead, the court rules were issued for the British occupation zone . In Ordinance No. 103 of September 4, 1947, the British military government laid down the framework for land reform and mandated the federal states to draft and pass land reform laws within three months. As a result, however, there were significant delays in the drafting by the state governments, as the positions of the various parties were difficult to reconcile. Schleswig-Holstein was the first country in the British zone to pass an agrarian reform law in December, which, however, was referred back to the state parliament by the military government because of the violation of the framework conditions and was finally passed again in a different form on March 12, 1948. In North Rhine-Westphalia , the "Law on the Implementation of Land Reform and Settlement" was not announced until May 16, 1949. In Lower Saxony the parties did not come to an agreement at all, so that on June 17, 1949, the military government itself decided in Ordinance No. 188 the “Land reform in the state of Lower Saxony and in the Hanseatic City of Hamburg”.

The North Rhine-Westphalian law stipulated that a large landowner (more than 100 hectares) of his land used for agriculture, forestry or horticulture may only keep 100 hectares and the remaining part - against compensation in the form of bonds or redemption mortgages from the state. These were set at an interest rate of 3.5% (at that time 3% was common for savings accounts), which was mostly much lower than the actual previous economic interest rate on the agricultural land. The previous owners had to expect less income as well as less effort.

A distinction was made between German and foreign citizens who owned agricultural and forestry land in Germany in the implementing ordinances of this law. Foreign citizens also had to surrender land, but they were allowed to sell them freely within a year and were not forced to surrender this land in exchange for low-interest (and therefore mostly below market value) government bonds. In order to subject German aristocrats with dual citizenship in particular to the hardships of the Land Reform Act applicable to Germans, the Allied High Commission also determined that they should be treated like Germans regardless of their second nationality (in Law No. 34 of the Allied High Commission ) .

When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded , however, the land reform plans were largely shelved, as they met with a negative attitude from the population due to the experience in the Soviet Zone.

In West Germany, 700,000 hectares had been earmarked for redistribution. Ultimately, 230,000 hectares of land were redistributed to around 7,000 farmers with an average of 24 hectares and to around 50,000 new settlers with less than 3 hectares. In the Federal Republic of Germany the land reform and settlement measures did not bring about any decisive change in the agricultural structure. They covered less than 5% of the agricultural area.

See also

literature

  • Jens Schöne : Agriculture in the GDR 1945–1990. State Center for Civic Education Thuringia, 2005, ISBN 3-931426-90-4 ( digitized ; PDF; 195 kB)
  • Sebastian Felz: Rival regulatory rationalities. The discussion of the housing issue in the “Verein für Socialpolitik” and the “Bund deutscher Bodenreformer” around 1900. In: Peter Collin (Ed.): Meeting rooms of legal and economic regulatory rationalities (= studies on European legal history. Publications of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History Frankfurt am Main Volume 286). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-465-04210-5 , pp. 139-164.
  • Klaus Schmidt (Ed.): Agriculture in the GDR - VEG, LPG and cooperations; how they became, what they were, what has become of them. Agrimedia, Clenze 2009, ISBN 978-3-86037-977-6 .
  • Book of fate of the Saxon-Thuringian nobility 1945. CA Starke Verlag, Limburg an der Lahn 1994, ISBN 3-7980-0689-X .
  • Udo Madaus: ... so that the truth is not forgotten! Collection of quotations on the expropriations / confiscations 1945–1949 in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany and the consequences after 1990. Frieling-Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-8280-3180-7 .
  • Boris Spix: The land reform in Brandenburg 1945-47: Construction of a society using the example of the West and East Prignitz districts. Vol. 2, Lit Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-8258-3609-6 .
  • Peter Hermes: The Christian Democratic Union and the land reform in the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany in 1945. Verlag der Saarbrücker Zeitung, Saarbrücken 1963, DNB 573762759 .
  • Joachim von Krause (Hrsg.): White paper on the 'democratic land reform' in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, documents and reports. 2nd Edition. Verlag Ernst Vögel, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-925355-10-3 . (Explanation and experience reports on land reform, first published in 1955)

Web links

Commons : Land reform in Germany  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theodor Häbich: The right of the landless in the US zone . Frankfurt am Main 1947, p. 6 .
  2. ↑ August Bode: Land reform . Offenbach 1947, p. 14th ff .
  3. ↑ August Bode: Land reform . Offenbach 1947, p. 6th f .
  4. ↑ Meyer's Large Conversation Lexicon. Volume 8, Leipzig 1907, pp. 449–452, keyword: "Real estate (statistical)" (online)
  5. ^ Federal Agency for Civic Education on the bourgeois parties of the Weimar period
  6. ↑ Parties in the Weimar Republic - program items in comparison
  7. ^ Mario Niemann: On the political behavior of Mecklenburg large landowners in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. In: On the causes of the fall of parliamentary democracy in the Weimar Republic - an attempt to take stock of Mecklenburg and Pomerania. Rostock / Greifswald 2002, pp. 32–41.
  8. ^ Uwe Bastian: Socio-economic transformations in the rural areas of the new federal states. Dissertation , 2003, p. 88 (online)
  9. ^ Mario Niemann: The position of the Mecklenburg landowners towards National Socialism and membership in the NSDAP. In: Ernst Münch, Ralph Schattkowsky (Ed.): Studies on the history of society in the East Elbe. Volume 1: Festschrift for Gerhard Heitz on his 75th birthday , Rostock 2000, pp. 309–335.
  10. ^ A b Dieter Felbick: Keywords of the post-war period 1945–1949. de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-11-017643-2 , p. 129.
  11. ↑ Arnd Bauerkämper (Ed.): Junkerland in peasant hands? Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06994-1 , p. 51 ff.
  12. ↑ a b Volker Klemm: From the bourgeois agrarian reforms to socialist agriculture in the GDR. Berlin 1978, p. 154.
  13. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Henning: Agriculture and rural society in Germany. Volume 2, Paderborn 1986, p. 232.
  14. ↑ Volker Klemm: From the bourgeois agrarian reforms to socialist agriculture in the GDR. Berlin 1978, p. 154.
  15. ^ Tim Möhlenbrock: Church and Land Reform in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (SBZ) 1945-1949. Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-631-32149-X .
  16. ↑ a b Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, press release No. 88/2009 of December 10, 2009, Moral Rehabilitation after a district expulsion in connection with the GDR land reform
  17. ↑ Joachim von Kruse: White Paper on the “Democratic Land Reform” in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany. Documents and reports. Munich Stamsried 1988.
  18. ^ Prague Manifesto, basic program of the SPD leadership in exile from 1934
  19. ↑ Arnd Bauerkämper (Ed.): Junkerland in peasant hands? 1996, p. 94.
  20. ↑ a b Arnd Bauerkämper (Ed.): Junkerland in peasant hands? 1996, books.google.de p. 40.
  21. ↑ Arnd Bauerkämper (Ed.): Junkerland in peasant hands? 1996, pp. 110 ff. And 128 ff.
  22. ^ Siegfried Suckut: On the change of role and function of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDUD) in the party system of the Soviet Zone / GDR (1945–1952), in: Party system between democracy and people's democracy. Edited by Hermann Weber, Cologne 1982, p. 119.
  23. ↑ Public opinion of the Schwerin state parliament Henning von Storch (CDU) from 14 August 2006 ( Memento of 28 July 2012 in the Web archive archive.today ) on secondment watch .
  24. ↑ Hanns Jürgen Küsters et al.: Documents on Germany policy: Special edition from the files of the Federal Chancellery 1989/90. Oldenbourg, Munich, p. 1902.
  25. ^ Constanze Paffrath: power and property. The expropriations 1945–1949 in the process of German reunification. Böhlau, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-412-18103-X .
  26. ↑ Torsten Hampel: The unit yield . In: Der Tagesspiegel . March 10, 2004.
  27. ^ Bonn - Teltschik's submission to Kohl . In: 2 + 4 chronicle
  28. ↑ Gorbachev: "There were no conditions for German unity" Lecture at the Berlin ICC on March 1, 1998.
  29. ↑ epetionen.bundestag.de
  30. ↑ Public statement by the chairperson of the Petitions Committee in the 16th German Bundestag ( memento from October 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Kersten Naumann ( Die Linke ) from September 2, 2008 in parliament watch .
  31. ↑ Decision BVerwG 8 B 121.05 . In: BVerwG / decisions
  32. ^ Thomas Giegerich: German jurisprudence in international law issues 1990. In: Journal for foreign public law and international law (ZaöRV), Volume 52, 355-827, here p. 459 (PDF)
  33. ↑ Land reform question finally decided. In: Handelsblatt , March 30, 2005.
  34. ↑ Birgit Iris Fischborn: Expropriation without compensation under the ECHR? Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-16-150184-5 , p. 132.
  35. ↑ Katrin Kuester: The East German farmers and the turn. Kassel 2002, ISBN 3-933146-96-8 , p. 113 ff.
  36. ↑ Torsten Hampel: The unit yield. In: Der Tagesspiegel , March 10, 2004.
  37. ↑ Thorsten Purps: Disinherited from the state: The land reform affair - a scandalous chronicle from the state of Brandenburg. Halle 2009, ISBN 978-3-89812-675-5 .
  38. ↑ Compensation and Compensation Act (EALG). In: Gabler-Lexikon online.
  39. ↑ Federal Law Gazette No. 65/1994 (online)
  40. ^ Karin Graf: The land reform in Württemberg-Hohenzollern after the Second World War . Tectum-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-8288-8568-3 .
  41. ^ Karin Graf: The land reform in Württemberg-Hohenzollern after the Second World War. Tectum-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-8288-8568-3 , p. 131. Quoted in part from Günter J. Trittel: The land reform in the British zone 1945–1949 (= series of quarterly journals for contemporary history no. 31). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1975, ISBN 3-421-01730-1 , p. 125.
  42. ^ Gerhard Henkel: Land reform settlements of the 20th century in Westphalia . In: Westphalia Regional . 2007, p. 108–109 ( lwl.org [PDF; 2.8 MB ]).