Wall Land Act

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Basic data
Title: Law on the sale of masonry and border land to previous owners
Short title: Wall Land Act
Abbreviation: MauerG
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Special administrative law
References : 105-27
Issued on: July 15, 1996 ( BGBl. I p. 980 )
Entry into force on: July 19, 1996
Weblink: Text of the law
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Wall Land Act (MauerG) regulates the repurchase of land required for the purpose of establishing or strengthening of fortifications at the former border between the Federal Republic of Germany, including Berlin (West) and the German Democratic Republic including Berlin (East) in public property were transferred to the former owners or their legal successors (beneficiaries).

Regulations in the Unification Treaty (1990)

According to Art. 21 Para. 1 Unification Treaty (EV), the administrative assets of the GDR, which were used for purposes that are federal tasks according to the Basic Law, were transferred to the federal government . The border installations served military purposes which, according to the Basic Law, are to be fulfilled by the federal government. The army took over the reunification of these areas, the separation barrier was mine and at great expense free of mines . After that, it handed over the land to the Federal Property Administration in the General Real Estate . The Federal Property Administration had the task of making these properties available for public purposes (e.g. traffic facilities on motorways) and - if such a purpose did not exist - to sell them in accordance with the requirements of the Federal Budget Code.

The question of whether public property of the GDR was to be restituted to previous owners or whether it should remain public property (of the federal government, the federal states, municipalities or other carriers) became, in accordance with the joint declaration of the governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic Regulation of open property issues of June 15, 1990 decided. The law on the regulation of open property issues (VermG) based on this was basically justified as follows: “For the period after the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (October 7, 1949), the principle of restitution [...] applies to the extent that assets are held by their owners contrary to the rule of law Way have been withdrawn. The law therefore does not aim to correct all interventions in private property that have been carried out within the last 40 years under the domestic law of the GDR on the basis of a socialist economic and social order. ”The decisive factor was therefore whether the transfer of real estate into public ownership was legal or unlawful for border security purposes under the law of the GDR (based on the Defense Act ).

Since the use of border properties for public property - voluntarily or through expropriation - was generally not reversed according to the provisions of the Unification Treaty and the Property Act, those border properties that were not needed for public purposes after reunification were sold by the federal government. This met with criticism from conservationists who wanted to keep the border strip as a green belt and therefore opposed a fragmentation of property relations. Above all, however, the previous owners expressed massive criticism that the land was not returned to them. From the entry into force of the Unification Treaty, it took another six years before a legal regulation was made that at least partially corresponded to their concerns.

The legislative process (1994-1996)

History: Back in 1992, the country had Berlin to a law regulating the legal relationships draft plots on the inner German border and the land of forced evacuees introduced to the Federal Council. The reason was primarily on a moral-political level: According to Art. 14 GG, expropriations are only permitted for the common good. The expropriation of border properties, on the other hand, was carried out in order to secure an unjust state in its existence. Therefore, these measures would have to be reversed. Berlin's application was ultimately unsuccessful.

On the initiative of the State of Berlin on May 11, 1994, the Federal Council introduced a draft law on November 2, 1994 to include the wall and border properties in the property law . The content was the inclusion of transfers of border properties into public property in the regulations of the property law. The initiative was justified with the violation of human rights and international law of the building of the wall and the border regime. Even in the regulation of property relations, a sign worthy of the social rule of law must be set against the injustice of the SED state. Against these arguments, the objection was made that the parties to the Unification Treaty did not want a total revision of 40 years of GDR measures. In addition, it was feared that the restitution of border properties would constitute a prejudice for other matters which would then also have to be restituted due to the principle of equal treatment. It is noteworthy that the initiative in favor of the former owners of border properties came from Berlin, although the wall properties around the former West Berlin were only eight square kilometers, compared to around 700 square kilometers on the inner-German border.

However, land prices in and around Berlin are many times that of agricultural land in Thuringia. The main beneficiaries of a discount were therefore the previous owners of properties in and around Berlin. The advocates of the interests of the previous owners did not accept fiscal arguments that the federal government's sales proceeds were needed to help finance tasks in the accession area .

A compromise was reached during the legislative process. The former owners or their legal successors (beneficiaries) were given a right of repurchase at 25% of the market value. This claim was excluded if “the federal government does not want to use it for its own urgent public purposes or sell it to third parties in the public interest.” In this case, the beneficiaries were granted a payment claim of 75% of the market value against the federal government. In addition, a fund was set up to promote economic, social and cultural purposes in the accession area (Section 5 of the Act), which is administered by the Federal Ministry of Finance. The fund is entitled to the income from the sale of wall and border properties minus the payments to the beneficiaries. It is to be dissolved as soon as all applications made under the MauerG have been processed or all wall plots have been sold.

For public budgets, this means: Without the Wall Act, all sales proceeds would have flowed into the federal budget in accordance with the federal budget regulations. According to Article 21 (4) of the Unification Treaty, the federal government should have used this income "for the performance of public tasks in the area named in Article 3 [...]". As a result of the MauerG, on the other hand, 75% of the proceeds or (if used for federal public purposes) of the market value benefited the beneficiaries. Only the remaining 25% flowed into the above-mentioned fund, which in turn supports projects in the new federal states and Berlin and thus relieves their state budgets.

MauerV

On the basis of an authorization in Section 6 of the Wall Act, the Federal Ministry of Finance issued the ordinance in accordance with Section 6 of the Wall Land Act (Wall Land Ordinance - MauerV). There it is regulated that the new federal states and Berlin propose projects that are to be funded from the fund. In agreement with the finance ministries of the federal states named in Article 1 of the Unification Treaty and the Senate Department for Finance of the State of Berlin, the Federal Ministry of Finance proposes that the budget committee of the German Bundestag support the priority projects in the accession area. Section 2 (3) of the Wall Ordinance specifies the following key for the percentage distribution across the federal states, unless a transnational project is specified:

State of Berlin 08.11%
State of Brandenburg 16.10%
State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 11.98%
Free State of Saxony 29.63%
State of Saxony-Anhalt 17.88%
Free State of Thuringia 16.30%

Administrative regulations

  • The provisional guidelines of the Federal Ministry of Finance on the sale of wall and border land that were transferred to public property for the purpose of building or expanding barriers (VorlRichtlMauerG) were issued to the regional finance directorates (federal property departments ) in Berlin with a decree of the Federal Ministry of Finance of July 31, 1996 , Chemnitz, Cottbus, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Rostock and Hanover announced. It stipulates that all proceeds from the sale of former Wall and border properties that are achieved after the Wall Act has come into force should be allocated to Chap. 0807 title 131 02 of the federal budget are to be collected. The current budget item is Chapter 6003 of the 2016 federal budget (Annex 2: Fund's business plan according to Section 5 Wall Land Act (6094)).
  • Tax treatment of the sale of masonry land (Senate Department for Finance, March 17, 1999, III B 11-S 1901-11 / 96, FMNR251150099) - no longer in force since July 30, 2013.

Jurisprudence

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Proclaimed as Article 1 of the Act on the Sale of Wall and Border Properties to the Previous Owners and on Changes to Other Regulations of July 15, 1996 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 980 ).
  2. ↑ This is not contradicted by the fact that the border regime of the GDR per se, according to the standard of the Basic Law, was contrary to human and international law.
  3. ↑ Bundestag printed paper 11/7831 v. September 12, 1990, p. 1.
  4. ^ Minutes of the plenary session of the 648th session of the Federal Council. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
  5. ↑ BT-Drs. 12/8427. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
  6. ↑ Bundestag printed matter 12/8427, p. 5.
  7. ↑ statement Senator Peter Radunski before the Federal Council plenary session of the 648th on 6 November 1992 560 D .
  8. ↑ BMF: Budget accounts of the federal government 2013. p. 43.
  9. ↑ Accession area .
  10. ↑ VorlRichtlMauerG. Retrieved May 28, 2014.