Reparation claims of the Republic of Greece against the Federal Republic of Germany

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This section needs to be revised: the question certainly arises as to whether reparations payments should not be made for the systematic plundering of Greece, which led to the great famine of 1942 . This aspect is completely absent here. - Coyote III ( discussion ) 17:19, Feb. 8, 2015 (CET)

The revision is still necessary because other circumstances are not included: No distinction is made between occupation costs (troop maintenance), war damage, damage during the occupation, damage to state, municipal or private property. A distinction is necessary with regard to Art. 49 Hague Land Warfare Regulations. After that, the occupation costs can be imposed on the occupied country. Private damage must be compensated, but it is questionable whether the state can demand this as reparations for itself. The figure of 476 million RM also comes from a document from 1945 and shows a payment status. An agreement / coercion about this sum - as implied in the article - has not yet been proven .-- Hoshi1967
Please help to improve it and then remove this marking.

Under reparation of the Hellenic Republic against the Federal Republic of Germany claims are understood by the Greek State for compensation for losses and damages of German troops and occupation authorities on Greek territory during the Second World War caused unlawfully. The German reparations payments to the Greek state consisted of payments in kind and payments. The Paris Treaties of 1954 ended the reparations payments of the Federal Republic of Germany to former opponents of the war.

Allied reparations agreement

In the Paris Reparations Agreement , the Allies stipulated which reparations Germany was to pay and how these should be distributed among the countries. Greece's share of the German reparations payments was estimated at $ 7.181 billion in 1938 prices. Greece was also to receive shares in the reparations payments of the occupying powers Italy and Bulgaria . The participating states agreed to regard all demands from the war situation on German government agencies as having been settled. This also affected occupation costs and claims against clearing accounts and “Reichskreditkassen”. It was signed by the Greek representatives on January 24, 1946, by the Greek parliament only on December 30, 1955. Greece was able to use German foreign property in Greece as a reparation payment. An Inter-Allied Reparations Agency oversaw the reparations process and payments.

Situation in occupied Greece

After the German Reich and the Wehrmacht occupied Greece in the Balkan campaign (April 1941), a collaboration government was set up on the German side. In fact, they were representatives of the occupying rulers. Therefore, obviously harmful acts like the great famine in Greece or the extreme increase in banknotes were also supported. The installed government took the initiative in August 1941 to ask for a moderation of the tax payments and to achieve a certain acceptance or legitimation of the people, but this was not in the interests of the occupiers. DEGRIGES (German-Greek goods equalization company) was founded to secure the outflow of goods and assets . In all three zones of occupation the economic exploitation lay with the German side.

The outflow of goods was legitimized by collecting "occupation costs", which the Hague Land Warfare Regulations allowed. However, since the real expenditures in Greece were not sufficient, expenditures of other occupied countries were included. When, according to calculations by the Reichsbank, at 78 Reichsmarks per capita, the highest occupation costs were reached by far, a new pretext was sought for the plunder. On the recommendation of Hitler, the “occupation costs” were partly converted into “construction costs”, since the Greeks themselves were responsible for the economic destruction of their country.

The Bank of Greece was compelled to grant the Deutsche Reichsbank a loan of 476 million Reichsmarks and to cede its foreign exchange reserves to the German Reich . The "occupation costs" / "construction costs" or the "loan" have not been repaid.

When the end of the occupation was in sight, acts of vandalism by the German occupation forces broke out. The Corinth Canal was blocked by throwing locomotives and wagons of the Greek state railways into it.

Reparations payments after 1945

Italy and Bulgaria undertook to make reparation payments to Greece. The Dodecanese archipelago was ceded by Italy to Greece in 1947, and until the 1960s Greece ordered new material goods from Italy, including rail vehicles and machines, which were offset as reparations.

The Allies dismantled numerous production facilities in Germany and assigned them to different countries. According to Spiegel, Greece was awarded 30,000 tons of valuable machine material, including several large rolling mills, a larger number of machine tools, crane parts, foundry and paint factory facilities , of which 11,500 tons were shipped to Piraeus, the remaining 18,500 tons were scrapped in Germany. In one case it is recorded that Greece did without an already dismantled turbine system from Bremen and that the reinstallation secured jobs in the city.

The federal government has always rejected further demands from Greece with reference to the Paris Charter and the Two-Plus-Four Treaty . In an answer to a question from the Left Group on February 10, 2010, she wrote: “Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has made a large number of reparations payments that the states concerned should use to compensate their nationals according to general international law. Through reparations and other services alone, a multiple of the reparations originally envisaged at the Yalta conference amounting to $ 20 billion have been made. "

Germany's reparation

In addition to the reparations payments, Germany undertook to provide further compensation. As part of the contract with the Federal Republic of March 18, 1960 on benefits in favor of Greek nationals who were affected by National Socialist persecution measures , Greece received payments of 115 million  D-Marks “in favor of those for reasons of race, belief or worldview National Socialist Persecution Affected Greek Nationals ”and their survivors. This treaty was part of a series of global reparation agreements with eleven western states such as France , Italy and the Netherlands, as well as with Austria . The Agreement and the Act of Consent were promulgated in the Federal Republic of Germany on September 21, 1961, the Greek law on August 24, 1961 - it came into force on October 21, 1961. Resistance fighters were also eligible for the services provided for in the Greek ratification and distribution law . According to the knowledge of Ernst Féaux de la Croix in 1985 "details of the distribution procedure remained in the dark". The signing of the contract was accompanied by an exchange of letters between the Foreign Office and the Greek Embassy in Bonn. In the letter from the Greek side, however, the Greek side reserved the right to “request the settlement of further claims arising from National Socialist persecution during the war and occupation during a general examination in accordance with Article 5, Paragraph 2 of the Agreement on German Foreign Debt of February 27th To approach [to the German government] in 1953 ”.

Further demands after 1961

In the spring of 2013, a commission of Greek state lawyers examined whether Greece could still direct legitimate reparations claims from the period of the First and Second World Wars to Germany. In particular, it was about an alleged compulsory loan to Germany during the occupation. The Greek government at the time did not make a corresponding official demand on Germany.

In March 2015, international lawyer Andreas Fischer-Lescano expressed the view that Greece's reparation claims were definitely justified. There was never a final clarification of this question.

Manolis Glezos , a former Greek resistance fighter and politician, campaigned for decades, among other things, for compensation and reparation payments by the Federal Republic of Germany to Greece and to Greek victims of National Socialism .

According to a Greek expert commission, it is up to € 290 billion. The Greek Parliament has decided on 17 April 2019 to demand official channels and payments for damages caused by the German war damage and Crimes. On June 5, 2019, the Greek government sent a corresponding verbal note to Berlin.

Civil actions

The Republic of Greece was responsible for distributing the reparations that the German state made to the Greek state. The Greek government had to decide who received how much according to its own standards. Individuals or corporations from Greece who received either no or low compensation payments attempted to obtain compensation from Germany through legal action in civil courts. So far this has not been successful.

Demand from the Jewish community of Thessaloniki

Another concern is the demand of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki for repayment of the money including interest on the Auschwitz tickets. The Deutsche Reichsbahn was involved in the extermination of the Greek Jews by deporting the victims from Thessaloniki to the concentration camps . Over 58,000 Jews were deported from Greece. At the same time, the SS forced their victims to pay tickets for their abduction. Together with the initiative Train of Remembrance , the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki is committed to ensuring that Deutsche Bahn AG, the legal successor to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, pays compensation to the victims and their descendants for the injustice committed .

Furthermore, the Jewish community of Thessaloniki sued the ECJ against the Federal Republic in order to get back the ransom that members of the community then paid to the Nazi occupiers in order to redeem their relatives. Despite the payment, which was part of an agreement with the occupiers, the Jews were deported. The ECJ and Germany rejected this lawsuit.

Claims from private individuals

Greek and Italian plaintiffs sued for compensation payments in Italy and won the case in local courts. As a result, Germany lost two lawsuits in Italy, most recently in October 2016.

See also

literature

  • Mark Mazower : Greece under Hitler. Life during the German occupation 1941–1944. 2016; German translation by Anne Emmert, Jörn Pinnow and Ursel Schäfer, S. Fischer, 528 pages.
  • Kateřina Králová: The Legacy of the Occupation. German-Greek relations since 1940. Böhlau, 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-50362-8 , p. 283.
  • Karl Heinz Roth & Hartmut Rübner: Reparations Debt - Mortgages of the German Occupation Rule in Greece and Europe. Metropol, 2017. ISBN 978-3-86331-265-7 , 645 pages.
  • Martin Seckendorf: A unique raid. The Wehrmacht in Greece 1941–1944. In: Wehrmacht as a model? Wehrmacht crimes, right-wing extremism and the Bundeswehr. Ed. Christian Gerlach , Reinhard Kühnl and Johannes Klotz. Papyrossa, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-894-38162-0 , pp. 96-124.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulf-Dieter Klemm, Wolfgang Schultheiß (Ed.): The crisis in Greece: origins, course, consequences , Campus 2015, Frankfurt, ISBN 978-3-593-50308-0 , p. 305 ff.
  2. ↑ Kateřina Králová: The Legacy of the Occupation: German-Greek Relations since 1940 , Böhlau, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-50362-8 , p. 187.
  3. ↑ keep your mouth shut . In: Der Spiegel 43/1952, p. 5.
  4. ^ Contract text in the government draft of the Approval Act, BT-Drs. 3/2284 (PDF).
  5. ↑ Cf. Féaux de la Croix, pp. 201 ff .; Rumpf, p. 333 ff.
  6. ^ A b Féaux de la Croix: State Contractual Supplements to Compensation , 1985, pp. 227–231.
  7. ↑ International lawyer criticizes the policy of drawing a line . Neues Deutschland , March 16, 2015, accessed on March 17, 2015.
  8. ↑ Manolis Glezos: An injustice must be atoned for . Die Zeit , 40, September 29, 1995
  9. ↑ Interview with Manolis Glezos: “It's about justice” . taz.de , May 8, 2015
  10. ↑ Greece demands negotiations on reparations from the federal government, Handelsblatt, June 5, 2019
  11. ↑ Text of the note (Greek)
  12. ↑ Steven B. Bowman: The Agony of Greek Jews, 1940-1945. Stanford University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8047-5584-9 .
  13. ^ Train of Memory / Thessaloniki .
  14. ↑ Rena Molho : La politique de l'Allemagne contre les juifs de Grèce: l'extermination de la communauté juive de Salonique (1941-1944) , in: Revue d'histoire de la Shoah 185, 2006, pp. 355-378.
  15. ↑ Germany's new defeat before an Italian court , Tagesspiegel, accessed on December 6, 2016.