Returnees Compensation Act

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Basic data
Title: Law on one-off compensation for returnees
from the acceding area
Short title: Returnees Compensation Act
Abbreviation: HKEntschG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Social law , returnees law
References : 84-4
Issued on: December 10, 2007
( BGBl. I p. 2830, 2831 )
Entry into force on: July 1, 2008
Last change by: Art. 1 G of June 24, 2008
( BGBl. I p. 1074 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		July 1, 2008
(Art. 2 G of June 24, 2008)
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The returnees Compensation Act should after German reunification, East German former returnees and late returning from a prisoner of war and interned as a result of World War II compensation. It came into force on July 1, 2008.

Compensation in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1950

After the end of the Second World War, the Association of Returnees, Prisoners of War and Members of Missing Persons in Germany (VdH) was founded in 1950 by former prisoners of war and internees to represent their interests. In the Federal Republic of Germany late returnees were reintegrated into society by the state and financially supported by the Homecoming Act of June 19, 1950 and the Prisoner of War Compensation Act in the version of February 4, 1987. Compensation up to DM 12,000 was paid.

Fight for the compensation law

With the end of the GDR in 1990, compensation was also demanded from the former prisoners of war and internees in the accession area from the VdH, which was founded here in 1992. A draft law by the CDU / CSU fell through in 1991 because it was incomplete. The then Federal President Johannes Rau expressed his understanding for the concerns of the association in 2000. A petition to the Petitions Committee of the Bundestag was also unsuccessful. In 2003 representatives of the returnees' association in the German Bundestag were heard. The VdH found support in the former CDU member of the Bundestag Hartmut Büttner and the Staßfurt mayor Martin Kriesel.

In 2007 the German Bundestag passed the Returnees Compensation Act. On December 17, 2007, the law on the repeal of the Homecoming Foundation and on the financing of the Foundation for Former Political Prisoners (Homecoming Foundation Repeal Act ) came into force. Article 3 of the law contains the law on one-off compensation for returnees from the acceding area (Returnees Compensation Act).

The law was originally supposed to come into force on January 1, 2009; following an amendment by the coalition factions, the date was brought forward to July 1, 2008.

The law provided for a one-off compensation payment for former German prisoners of war, civil internees and civilian deportees (so-called validity war prisoners ) who were released into the Soviet occupation zone or the German Democratic Republic from 1947 .

Amount of compensation

Former prisoners of war still alive and late returnees in East Germany received a one-off payment of a maximum of 1,500 euros, staggered according to the duration of detention:

  • 500 € for those released in 1947 and 1948
  • € 1,000 for those released in 1949 and 1950
  • 1,500 € for those released from 1951

Applications for compensation could be submitted within one year of the law coming into force. 46,079 applications for compensation were submitted within the one-year period. 4,736 of these were rejected and 3,876 proceedings were discontinued.

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