Prisoner of War Compensation Act

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Basic data
Title: Law on Compensation for Former German Prisoners of War
Short title: Prisoner of War Compensation Act
Abbreviation: KgfEG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Social law , returnees law
Original version from: January 30, 1954
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 5 )
Entry into force on: 3rd February 1954
New announcement from: February 4, 1987 ( BGBl. I p. 506 )
Last change by: Art. 2 No. 22 G of December 20, 1991
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 2317, 2320 )
Effective date of the
last change: 		December 29, 1991
(Art. 4 G of December 20, 1991)
Expiry: January 1, 1993
(Art. 5 G of December 21, 1992, Federal Law Gazette I p. 2094, 2104 )
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Law on Compensation for Former German Prisoners of War (KgfEG) was a German federal law from 1954 which, after December 31, 1946 , granted compensation to prisoners of war released from foreign custody into the area of ​​application of the law during the Second World War .

Eligibility requirements

In addition to the provisions contained in the law itself, Section 44 of the KgfEG in its original version from 1954 contained the authorization of the federal government to issue statutory ordinances containing more detailed provisions on the prerequisites for entitlement to compensation. In the opinion of the Federal Constitutional Court , this authorization was not sufficiently determined in terms of content, purpose and extent and was therefore void due to a violation of Article 80.1 sentence 2 of the Basic Law.

A new version of the KgfEG was therefore announced on December 8, 1956. Section 44 of the new version only contained an authorization to issue statutory ordinances containing more detailed provisions on the requirements, amount, duration and security of the loans and on the granting of subsidies. The Third Implementing Ordinance to the KgfEG, which among other things defined the term "war event" in more detail, was repealed and § 1 KgfEG new version was specified accordingly.

Authorized

Eligible were prisoners of war who were detained beyond 1946, but not persons who had been convicted by German courts of crimes or offenses against other prisoners of war in foreign custody after May 8, 1945. Those convicted by Allied courts were therefore entitled to claim if they were able to present a clearance certificate from the Central Legal Protection Office . Numerous SS and Wehrmacht members who had been convicted as Nazi or war criminals by Allied courts received compensation payments.

Since around 70% of German Wehrmacht soldiers were deployed on the Eastern Front in World War II from 1941 onwards , the Soviet Union made between 3.2 and 3.6 million German prisoners of war. The roughly 2 million surviving returnees from Soviet captivity were thus the most important group of those entitled.

Services

Eligible beneficiaries received an amount of DM 30 for each calendar month in custody after January 1, 1947. For those released after January 1, 1949, the amount increased to 60 DM for each calendar month. The compensation settled any claims made by the beneficiaries against the Federal Republic of Germany for deprivation of liberty and work in custody abroad (§§ 3 ff. KgfEG).

In addition, loans and grants to build a new, secure livelihood could be granted in the case of need, for example for the procurement of living space and household items or for establishing an independent economic existence (§§ 28 ff. KfgEG).

People who were detained at the end of the Second World War not because of their military service but as a result of the political developments in the post-war period and the methods used to establish and secure the communist systems of rule, especially in the Soviet zone of occupation and those formerly under foreign administration German eastern regions , Danzig, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the former Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania or China could be compensated according to the prisoner assistance law.

The order in which the beneficiaries were compensated was based on social urgency. According to the statutory ordinance issued for this purpose, the year of discharge, the family income at the time of application, the size of the household and any war damage played a role.

The law was implemented by the states. The federal government reimbursed the states for the expenses for the benefits granted to the applicants.

The War Consequences Adjustment Act (KfbG) of December 21, 1992 repealed the POW Compensation Act on January 1, 1993. The regulations of the KgfEG on the Homecoming Foundation were incorporated into the Law on the Homecoming Foundation, which came into force on January 1, 1993 and was incorporated into the Homecoming Compensation Act in 2008. With the law, the former prisoners of war who had been released to the GDR and Berlin (East) and who had not been able to assert any claims under the KgfEG up to that point were also included in the group of beneficiaries.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BGBl. 1954 I p. 5
  2. ↑ BVerfG, decision of June 13, 1956 - 1 BvL 54/55
  3. ↑ BGBl. 1956 I p. 908
  4. ↑ Third Ordinance on Implementing the Prisoner of War Compensation Act of June 3, 1955 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 271 )
  5. ↑ Compensation for convicted war criminals ( memento of February 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on April 24, 2019
  6. ↑ K.-D. Müller: German prisoners of war. Comments on the state of research and future perspectives in: Soviet and German Prisoners of War in the Years of World War II, pp. 293-360, website of the Saxon Memorials Foundation , Documentation Center Dresden, accessed on October 3, 2016
  7. ^ German prisoners of war: Soviet Union released German prisoners of war Der Spiegel , July 22, 2008
  8. ↑ Law on relief measures for people who were taken into custody outside the Federal Republic of Germany for political reasons (Prisoner Assistance Act - HHG) of August 6, 1955
  9. ↑ Compensation for prisoners of war. Payment to the second to tenth urgency level Ostpreußenblatt , April 2, 1955, p. 4
  10. ↑ BGBl. 1992 I p. 2094
  11. ^ Prisoner of war compensation website of the Thuringian Ministry of Finance, accessed on October 3, 2016