German Restitution Law Becomes Effective; Claims Deadline Set

After many years of delay, the last major piece of West German legislation concerned with compensation for Nazi victims, the $360, 000, 000 Federal Restitution Law, entered into force today through publication of the text in the Federal Gazette.

The law, which deals with identifiable Jewish property confiscated by the former German Reich during the Nazi era in either West Germany or in Berlin, prescribes that claims must be submitted by April 1, 1958, and in certain cases within the following year.

Compensation will be paid for Jewish belongings “Aryanized” by the German Reich or by the former Prussian state, by the German state railways and by the state postal system. Mainly affected, in addition to real estate, are securities confiscated during the war, or else “sold” by the Jews of Germany and Austria to pay the billion-mark “fine” exacted by the Hitler Government in November 1938, after the Paris assassination of German Embassy Attache von Rath.

The jewelry, silver and gold that had to be delivered up for almost nothing at the same time is, as a rule, also within the scope of the law. Its provisions also apply to furniture, household effects or luggage shipped abroad by emigrants from Germany and, due to the German invasion of neighboring countries, later intercepted en route by the Nazis. Works of art and machinery seized in non-German countries by organs of the German state fall under the law if it can be shown that the looted objects were brought to Germany itself.

The law stipulates that all payments are to be completed before 1963. Amounts up to $4, 750 are due by the spring of 1959. Of claims running to higher figures, half the sum is payable before 1961. The second half of these larger claims will be scaled down in such fashion that the total expenditure for the West German treasury does not exceed $357,000,000, the level to which the Federal Republic has restricted its overall liability. A few million dollars more have been allotted to a “hardship fund,” from which awards can be made available to applicants who, because of technical reasons, are ineligible under the terms of the new law.

No claims can be submitted with respect to Jewish property confiscated in East Germany, the Saar, the areas now under Polish or Soviet administration and in the countries overrun by Hitler Germany. Nor does the law apply to “Aryanizations” whose beneficiaries were German individuals, corporations or municipalities. If such Nazi-era transactions were concluded under duress, they fall under restitution legislation imposed by the Western Allies nearly ten years ago, which compels the return of formerly Jewish-owned real estate, businesses, furniture, art objects, etc., either to the original owner, to his heirs or to a heirless-property organization.

This earlier restitution program encompassing all “Aryanized” Jewish property, with the exception of assets sequestered by the German Reich itself, has already been completed to the extent of better than 90 percent in West Germany and of about 65 percent in West Berlin, where the machinery was set in motion at a later date. Some 475, 000 restitution claims were filed by Jews and other Nazi victims and all but a few thousand have been settled.