By Mark Weber
Published: 1999-02-15
Since 1951 Germany has paid more than 102 billion
marks, about $61.8 billion at 1998 exchange rates, in federal government
reparation payments to Israel and Third Reich victims. In addition, Germans
have paid out billions in private and other public funds, including about 75
million marks ($49 million) by German firms in compensation to wartime forced
laborers, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported recently. These figures
are based on calculations by the German Finance Ministry, the influential paper
said.
Of the total,
Germany has paid out 78.4 billion marks ($47 billion) on the basis of the 1965
Federal Restitution Law (BEG) to persons, especially Jews, who had been
persecuted during the Third Reich era on the basis of race, religion, origin or
ideology.
While most of
those who were alive during the Second World War are now dead, in recent years
Germany was still paying out some 1.25 billion marks (about $75 million) to
106,000 pensioners in Israel, the United States and other countries on the
basis of the 1965 Restitution Law.
A substantial
portion of Germany’s reparations payments have been to the “Jewish Claims
Conference” for Jews who had persecuted by the Third Reich. Recipients include
former forced laborers and concentration camp internees, as well as individuals
deprived of rights or property under the Nazis. Based in New York City, the
Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) has operated for decades as a kind of
supra-national governmental agency for Jews around the world.
Between 1992
and July 1998, the German federal government paid out 1.1 billion marks (about
$647 million) to the JCC. During the first half of 1998, it made available 378
million marks (about $222 million) to the JCC in special one-time restitution
payments for Jews who had persecuted by the Third Reich, according to a German
government report issued on September 29, 1998. The JCC distributed up to 5,000
marks each to individual claimants.
In recent years
Germany has paid out nearly 1.8 billion marks on the basis of special bilateral
agreements concluded in 1991 and 1993 with Poland and three successor states of
the former Soviet Union – the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus (White
Russia) – even though in 1953 Poland and the Soviet Union each renounced any
further reparations payments from Germany.
Because there’s
no sign that German reparations payments will stop anytime soon, the Welt am
Sonntag wonders if they might be “bottomless.” In coming years, Finance
Ministry specialists estimate, Germany will pay out an additional 24 billion
marks (about $14.4 billion at a recent exchange rate) in Third Reich
reparations.
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