No End in Sight
Germany Has Paid Out More Than
$61.8 Billion in Third Reich Reparations
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.
Sources:
J. Kummer, "Wird die Wiedergutmachung ein Fass ohne Boden?" Welt
am Sonntag, Oct. 4, 1998, p. 54;
Reuters' dispatch, Bonn, Oct. 3, 1998;
The Week in Germany, published by the German Information Center in
New York, Oct. 2, 1998;
Focus on "German Restitution for National Socialist Crimes," May
1995 special report by the German Information Center;
"Milliardenloch Wiedergutmachung," D. National-Zeitung
[Munich], Nov. 20, 1998, p. 7.
See also: "West Germany's Holocaust Payoff to Israel and World
Jewry," in the Summer 1988 Journal, pp. 243-250.)
Reprinted from
The
Journal of Historical Review,
(Volume 17, number 6, November/December 1998)
The Journal of Historical Review:
P.O. Box 2739 , Newport Beach, CA 92659, USA. Subscription: $40 per
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