Provisional administration of western assets in the GDR
All assets of German nationals residing in West Germany or Berlin (West) located in the GDR and East Berlin were taken over by Section 6 of the Ordinance for Securing Assets of July 17, 1952 in so-called “Provisional Administration” .
The result of the "provisional administration" was that from 1952 on , the owners living outside the GDR and East Berlin no longer had the opportunity to influence their assets (in particular land , companies and bank balances). In land registers , the "preliminary administration" was usually recorded by means of stamped entries. Even if the administrations of the GDR emphasized that it was not a question of expropriations , the owners of land had no rights, with the exception of the owner entries in the first sections of the land registers. The administrators were selected by the city councils, the rent payments were deposited into blocked accounts and all decisions about construction work, rent amounts or tenants were made by the administrators. The sale of land was also hardly possible. For a sale, a permit was required according to the real estate traffic regulation, which was only granted in exceptional cases.
After the initial practice was only management and not expropriation of land, this has changed over the decades. From the 1960s onwards, to allegedly finance urgent repairs, large loans were often taken out without the consent of the owner and mortgages were entered in the land registers. This resulted in high debts that could not be borne by the rents frozen to values of the 1940s. Eventually, many such properties were expropriated and the compensation value was offset against the accrued unpaid debt interest so that no compensation was paid.
The "Provisional Administration" ended by law in 1990. The owners (or their heirs ) of the land or companies that had not been expropriated thus regained their ownership rights and were able to regain ownership of their property with restrictions (e.g. through special protection against dismissal for tenants) feature. The houses and companies were almost without exception in a worse condition than when the "Provisional Administration" was set up. There was no compensation for lost profits from the time of administration or for the deterioration in the condition of the assets.
The expropriations led to outstanding property issues , which were regulated after reunification by the law regulating outstanding property issues. Expropriated land was transferred back if the requirements of § 1 Property Act were met, provided that there was no exclusion (e.g. fair acquisition ). If such an exclusion existed or if the claimants opted for compensation instead of a transfer back, they were compensated in accordance with the Compensation Act.
Individual evidence
- ^ Regulations of the GDR on property rights and expropriations, published by the Federal Institute for All-German Tasks, 1984 [1] , p. 16
- ^ Regulations of the GDR on property rights and expropriations, published by the Federal Institute for All-German Tasks, 1984 [2] , p. 17
- ^ Regulations of the GDR on property rights and expropriations, published by the Federal Institute for All-German Tasks, 1984 [3] , p. 10
- ^ Regulations of the GDR on property rights and expropriations, published by the Federal Institute for All-German Tasks, 1984 [4] , p. 10
