Prussian trust
| Prussian Treuhand GmbH & Co. KGaA | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Limited partnership based on shares |
| founding | 2000 |
| Seat | Dusseldorf |
| management | Torne Möbius ( Managing Director ) |
| Website | prussische-treuhand.org |
The Preußische Treuhand GmbH & Co. KGaA is a company that has set itself the goal of enforcing property claims from residents of former eastern territories of the German Reich . The company is based in Düsseldorf and wants to legally clarify and enforce the possible property claims of individual displaced persons . It has no relation to the former Trust Agency of Federal . The Prussian Treuhand submitted a total of 23 individual complaints to the European Court of Human Rights . The claims were declared inadmissible by the Court in October 2008.
history
The initiative for the establishment came from the East Prussian Landsmannschaft . The Prussian Treuhand was initially conceived as a stock corporation, primarily to manage disputed property and to legally clarify ownership claims. For this purpose, as many interested parties as possible should be able to acquire shares at a price of DM 100 each (later EUR 50). The effort for the establishment turned out to be difficult - especially because of the necessary involvement of a notary. At the same time, a law firm was sought for the upcoming legal battle.
In November 2000, the articles of association for a limited liability company (GmbH) and a partnership limited by shares were adopted . The initial capital was 75,000 euros. In the GmbH, which was founded with a share capital of 30,000 euros and entered in the commercial register on March 13, 2001, the Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen initially held a 40 percent stake, in 2001 the Landsmannschaft Silesia acquired 10 percent of the shares. Until 2005, the chairman of the board was Rudi Pawelka, a politician for refugees .
Structure and goals
According to its own statement, the company is a " self-help organization for the displaced" that aims to secure and assert private and individual property claims. The Prussian Treuhand expressly does not demand any financial compensation, but the return of the goods and possessions expropriated after the Second World War .
The current goal is the "preservation or safeguarding of claims to property and other assets in the Prussian provinces on the other side of the Oder and Neisse". The accumulated share capital should not be touched.
The controversial English term "Prussian Claims Society" used at the beginning, which was intended to point out the parallel to the Jewish Claims Conference , is now only given in the company name. However, the Prussian Treuhand also advocates the return of Jewish property in the former eastern regions to Holocaust survivors or their heirs.
Torne Möbius is the managing director of Preußische Treuhand GmbH. The annual financial statements and the dates of the general meetings are published in the electronic Federal Gazette. The board of directors is the lawyer Gerwald Günter Stanko, Ulrich Penski is the chairman of the supervisory board. The subscribed capital amounts to 185,450 euros as of December 31, 2012, one share costs 50 euros, and a listing on the stock exchange is not planned. The "Preußische Treuhand GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien, Prussian Claims Society" has no tangible fixed assets.
Political argument
With its claim, the Prussian Treuhand is in conflict with the policy of the current federal government, which does not support the assertion of such claims. At the beginning of August 2004, the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) made this public on a state visit to Poland. The current Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) followed this stance.
The President of the Federation of Expellees (BdV), Erika Steinbach , has repeatedly distanced herself clearly from the Prussian Treuhand and its goals. In November 2004, however, the then Treuhand boss Pawelka assessed this as a “turnaround” for the BdV President: “Just a year ago the BdV Federal Assembly decided that in the course of the EU's eastward expansion, all legal options that the EU had to Offers healing of injustice, wants to exhaust it. In return, the Polish parliament threatened to demand war reparations against Germany and, in a unanimously passed resolution, called on the Polish government to take appropriate steps against Germany.
The organization's complaints strained German-Polish relations. After a misleading statement of the Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga , the Polish government due to the action may the 1990 closed border treaty would between two nations renegotiate the Polish Embassy in Berlin and the State Department denied in Warsaw this in a statement and shared over Spiegel Online with 'Fotyga did not mean the 1990 Border Treaty, but the July 1991 Neighborhood Agreement .
Unsuccessful action before the European Court of Human Rights
In December 2006, the Prussian Treuhand sued Poland for the return of the lost property in the former German eastern territories and for the violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights by initially filing 22 individual complaints with the European Court of Human Rights . Another complaint was made later. In October 2008, all 23 applications were declared inadmissible by the Court of Justice. Since the European Convention on Human Rights came into force in 1953 and Poland ratified it in 1993, actions against the State of Poland because of the confiscations from 1945 are inadmissible. With regard to the violations of the fundamental right to the protection of life and the prohibition of torture (Art. 3 ECHR) mentioned in the lawsuit, the court noted that at the time of the events Poland had neither legal nor actual control over the German territories in Poland and therefore the Acts could not be blamed on the current state.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.preussische-treuhand.org/de/JVerwirkigung.html
- ↑ http://www.preussische-treuhand.org/de/aktionaer.htm
- ↑ http://www.preussische-treuhand.org/de/PVerwirkigung.html
- ↑ Internet presence of the Prussian Treuhand
- ^ Report in DIE ZEIT of March 8, 2007
- ↑ Official information according to the Federal Gazette, accessed on December 26, 2013
- ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung, online edition, February 25, 2009: Poland, Steinbach and the press Excitement about the "blonde beast" ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ cf. Spiegel Online, December 19, 2006, Federal Foreign Office tries to appease Poland
- ↑ cf. Spiegel Online, December 20, 2006, Ambassador sees German-Polish relations in crisis
- ↑ tagesschau.de: Lawsuit against Poland for compensation - "Preußische Treuhand" fails with complaint , October 9, 2008. ( Memento from October 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
