Federal Compensation Act

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Basic data
Title: Federal Law on Compensation for Victims of National Socialist Persecution
Short title: Federal Compensation Act
Abbreviation: BEG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Special administrative law
References : 251-1
Original version from: September 18, 1953
( BGBl. I p. 1387 )
Entry into force on: October 1, 1953
New announcement from: June 29, 1956
( BGBl. I pp. 559, 562 )
Last change by: Art. 10 G of December 12, 2019
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2652, 2694 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		January 1, 2024
(Art. 60 G of December 12, 2019)
GESTA : G026
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Federal Law on Compensation for Victims of National Socialist Persecution ( Federal Compensation Law , BEG ) grants persons who were persecuted for political, racial, religious or ideological reasons during the time of National Socialism and who caused damage to life, body, health, freedom, property or property as well have suffered in professional or economic advancement, compensation in money. It is part of the German reparation policy after the Second World War .

The law was passed in the Federal Republic of Germany on June 29, 1956 with retroactive effect to October 1, 1953 , after the original proposal of September 18, 1953 had not been taken into account.

Numerous individual determinations were complicated. A decisive criterion was the residence requirement. Those persecuted by the Nazi regime who had their place of residence in the Federal Republic of Germany or West Berlin until December 31, 1952 (previously January 1, 1947), or who had lived there before their death or before their emigration, were eligible to apply .

This meant that all those persecuted from abroad were excluded from compensation. The application deadline of October 1, 1957, was also problematic. The persecuted were scattered around the world and it was difficult for them to get the necessary documents quickly enough.

Also excluded from compensation were all so-called anti - social people and a large part of the Sinti and Roma . The Federal Court wrote in its judgment of 7 January, 1956 (AZ IV ZR 211/55), Sinti and Roma were persecuted because of their "anti-social" characteristics and not on racial grounds.

As supposed enemies of the “free-democratic basic order”, communists could not receive any compensation payments. Since homosexuality was a criminal offense in the Federal Republic of Germany until 1973 ( Section 175 ), no payments were made to those persecuted for this reason either.

Many persecuted people failed to apply for compensation, also because they feared that the compensation proceedings would mean having to relive memories of the torments they had suffered in the concentration camp . Others did not want to appear as beggars to German authorities or get involved with the former persecutors.

Development of the BEG

On April 26, 1949, the South German State Council (1946–1949) passed the law on the reparation of National Socialist injustice as a uniform law for the zones , which was promulgated in August through special state laws in Bavaria , Bremen , Baden-Württemberg and Hesse . These state laws have been following the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany and the entry into force of the Basic Law in accordance 125 Art. GG as a federal law adopted. In the countries of the British and French occupation zones as well as in Berlin (West) , corresponding laws were now passed that basically regulated the same types of damage as the Compensation Act.

The first German Bundestag (1949–1953) took its time to standardize a compensation law in the federal territory. For years the negotiations got stuck on the question of the distribution of competences and costs between the federal and state governments. In 1951, official government talks between the Federal Republic and Israel were initiated. The third partner was the New York “ Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany ”, an umbrella organization of the most important Jewish organizations that represented Jews living outside Israel in the negotiations. The negotiations that took place in Wassenaar near The Hague and culminated in the Luxembourg Agreement in September 1952 are a milestone in the history of reparations. Konrad Adenauer ( CDU ) declared the Israel Agreement a top priority. With the help of the SPD parliamentary group, he prevailed against the resistance that arose in the federal cabinet, in the government coalition and in parts of the press. The opponents argued with the costs of such a legal regulation.

German post-war society

After the “shock of the first hour”, in which the National Socialist crimes against humanity came into the public eye, the willingness to take on political and moral responsibility decreased. In the consciousness of German post-war society, the victims were assigned a rather insignificant place. Against the background of the reconstruction , the cold war and finally the own suffering experienced during and after the war, many Germans began to see themselves as victims. The image of National Socialism also changed. The emphasis on the manipulative and terrorist character of the Nazi state and the view of a demonized Adolf Hitler helped to suppress complicity in the Nazi crimes. One began to offset one's own suffering with the persecution of Nazi victims - the cliché of well-cared for Nazi victims became a kind of political myth - and as the former Nazi functionaries were integrated into German post-war society, it was not the perpetrators but the victims who became felt as a burden for the new society. "What should you do when a whole people buck?" Is said to have said the committed advocate of the compensation laws and former negotiator of the Luxembourg Agreement, Franz Böhm (CDU).

Reparation was unpopular among the population, but apparently it had no negative impact on voter behavior. Böhm ran in 1953 and 1957 in a Frankfurt constituency that was very endangered for his party, and won the mandate both times.

On the other hand, top politicians like the Federal Finance Minister Fritz Schäffer (CSU) tried to collect votes against the reparation regulation. The climax of his campaign was a speech at a CSU event in Plattling in December 1957, when he was no longer finance minister. Since he claimed u. A., the reparation shook the stability of the Deutsche Mark . The press condemned this failure in the strongest possible terms; the Federal Cabinet distanced itself, including his successor in the finance department.

The view of the victims of the Nazi regime was not uniform. While the compensation of Jews and the politically persecuted was accepted by the public in spite of financial concerns, the acceptance of persecuted groups such as B. “ Gypsies ” and those who have been sterilized by force are significantly lower. During the Cold War, attitudes towards the politically persecuted also shifted from the communist-socialist resistance to the conservative-military one. Compensation was withdrawn again from persons who belonged to the Communist Party of Germany after 1945 .

Federal Supplementary Act 1953

The first nationwide Compensation Act of 1953, the so-called Federal Supplementary Act , which was passed shortly before the end of the legislative period of the first German Bundestag , laid down in 113 paragraphs the groups of people to be compensated, the damage to be considered, the satisfaction of compensation claims and the responsible authorities and procedural regulations firmly. This law was replaced three years later by the Federal Compensation Act of 1956.

The BEG expanded the group of beneficiaries to include legal persons as well as artists and scientists, the survivors of those who had been murdered, those who were persecuted by mistake and people who were persecuted because they were close to a persecuted person. In addition to a residence in the FRG, a former residence in the areas that had belonged to the German Reich on December 31, 1937 was now recognized . Special regulations for returnees , displaced persons , refugees from the Soviet occupation zone and so-called displaced persons have also been included.

BEG Final Act 1965

In 1965 the BEG was extended to the BEG final law. Through a regulation of the reinstatement in the previous status, the applicant could continue to file his claims if he had not met the deadline of April 1, 1958 through no fault of his own. With the law, however, it was also finally determined that after December 31, 1969 - even with reinstatement in the previous status - no more applications could be accepted. Therefore, today there is no longer any possibility of making new claims for compensation payments under the BEG. Under certain circumstances, requests for aggravation and the determination of so-called late damage are still possible. The BEG has been supplemented by special regulations over the decades.

In November 2010, Frank Schneider , President of the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology , pointed out in a speech on the coming to terms with the crimes committed against the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped under National Socialism that the Federal Compensation Act of 1965 still applies and that the forcibly sterilized and murdered psychologically sick people are therefore not explicitly recognized as victims of the Nazi regime and as persecuted for racial reasons. He demanded that this injustice be lifted and that the continuing suffering and fate of these victims be adequately recognized by the German state.

In 2012, according to information from the German Federal Government, around 53,000 pensions were still paid due to legal pension periods due to Nazi persecution, of which around 8,000 were paid to domestic residents and around 45,000 to foreign residents.

On April 8, 2015, the ordinance amending legal provisions for the implementation of the Federal Compensation Act of April 1, 2015 was promulgated ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 421 ).

literature

  • Federal Ministry of Finance , in cooperation with Walter Schwarz (Ed.): The reparation of National Socialist injustice by the Federal Republic of Germany. 6 volumes. Munich 1973 ff.
  • Klaus Barwig, Günter Saathoff, Nicole Weyde (eds.): Compensation for Nazi forced labor, legal, historical and political aspects. Baden-Baden 1998 ISBN 3-7890-5687-1 .
  • Hermann-Josef Brodesser u. a .: Reparation and liquidation after the war. History, regulations, payments. Munich 2000. ISBN 3-406-31455-4
  • Constantin Goschler , Ludolf Herbst (Ed.): Reparation in the Federal Republic of Germany. Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history . Special number. Oldenbourg, Munich 1989 ISSN  0506-9408 .
  • Hans Günter Hockerts : reparation in Germany. A historical balance sheet 1945–2000, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Vol. 49. H. 2, Munich 2001 ISSN  0506-9408 , pp. 169-214.
  • Christian Reimesch: Forgotten Victims of National Socialism? To compensate homosexuals, conscientious objectors, Sinti and Roma and communists in the Federal Republic of Germany. Berlin, 2003
  • No law yesterday, no justice today? The long road to compensation for Nazi injustice. Audio book. LWL media center and Villa ten Hompel , 2011 ISBN 978-3-939974-20-8 (2 CDs).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Ministry of Finance (Ed.): Compensation for Nazi injustice. Reparation arrangements as of November 2012
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Ayaß : The homeless persecuted under National Socialism have so far been refused any compensation. Expert opinion for the hearing of the Interior Committee of the Bundestag on June 24, 1987 on compensation for all victims of National Socialism. In: German Bundestag. 11th electoral term, Interior Committee, shorthand minutes of the 7th meeting of the Interior Committee. Appendix 6, pp. 283-291, published in: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy. Volume 5, Berlin 1987, pp. 159-163 ( urn : nbn: de: hebis: 34-2007020917102 ).
  3. ↑ literally in the judgment
  4. ↑ The BGH deliberately twisted the facts and claimed that the deportation of the Sinti and Roma began on March 1, 1943. Therefore there is no compensation for survivors or heirs. In fact, Heinrich Himmler ordered the deportation in 1940 and had it executed, which in 1956 was widely documented as a historical fact. In addition to this formal justification, the BGH also spiced up its judgment with insults: According to the BGH, the victims are themselves to blame for their deportation “through crime and migration”, they are “prone to theft and fraud”; they lack "in many cases the moral impulses of respect for property ", an "uninhibited occupation instinct" is their "like primitive prehistoric men ...". According to the BGH, the persecution and murder of the Sinti and Roma is one of the “usual police preventive measures” against the “Gypsy plague”. As evidence and literal quote source is a Nazi comment is for Blood Protection Law and Marriage Health Law , the first implementing regulation, by Franz Maßfelder, Herbert Linden and Arthur Gütt , of 14 November 1935. Lehmann , Munich 1936. Since Maßfelder, participants of the Wannsee Conference , now the Ministerial Having risen in Bonn, they could feel ideologically on the safe side. Walther Ascher , a former emigrant, also belonged to the judging chamber , he was even in charge, that is, the substantive grounds of the judgment come from him. Compare with the whole complex: Ingo Müller , Terrible Jurists. Kindler, Munich 1987; again Tiamat, Berlin 2014 ISBN 3-89320-179-3 ; and Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke . The 1956 judgment has not yet been overturned (2016).
  5. ↑ Federal Compensation Act (1956). Wollheim Memorial, accessed June 12, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Minutes of the Bundestag session on May 8, 2008, Compensation for Victims of Nazi Persecution (PDF; 2.1 MB), accessed on May 30, 2010.
  7. ↑ Psychiatry under National Socialism - Remembrance and Responsibility. (No longer available online.) German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology, November 26, 2010, archived from the original on January 8, 2011 ; Retrieved January 30, 2011 .
  8. ^ German Bundestag: Pensions and benefits for Nazi victims abroad are tax-free. (PDF; 144 kB).