West Germany’s Federal budget for 1955-56, submitted today by the Ministry of Finance to the parliament for approval, appropriates the equivalent of $74,000,000 for Israel reparations, $39,000,000 for indemnification. $7,000,000 for restitution of identifiable property, $2,900,000 for pensions to former German rabbis or communal officials, and $48,000,000 for the victims of Nazi medical experiments. The total of these payments constitutes just under two percent of the Bonn Treasury’s anticipated tax revenue.
When allowance is made for benefits accruing to non-Jewish victims of Nazism, the Federal Republic’s 1955-56 budget provides an aggregate total of about $90,000,000 for Jewish claims of all categories, not counting the $14,000,000 in reparations funds that have already been spent. This constitutes an increase of $20,000,000 over the current fiscal year.
More than $14,000,000 out of the $74,000,000 designated for reparations purposes, has been included in the new budget only as a bookkeeping device, to cover earlier Israel purchases for which no appropriation had previously been asked or made. For actual deliveries, only $60,000,000 will be available in the forthcoming fiscal year.
The reparations agreement sets $74,000,000 as the “normal” rate, but West Germany, in spite of her unprecedented economic boom, is for the second year in succession taking advantage of an escape clause permitting her, as a last resort if she should find herself in economic straits, to restrict payments to a minimum of $60,000,000 per year.
FIRST PAYMENT FOR NAZI-CONFISCATED JEWISH PROPERTY
The $39,000,000 provided to furnish the federal treasury’s share of disbursements under the Federal Indemnification Law for individual victims of Nazism, compares with but $16,000,000 set aside for the same purpose in the current budget.
In giving its reasons for the higher figure, the Bonn Ministry of Finance expressed its belief that total expenditures for indemnification will run to $950,000,000 which must, in accordance with the 1952 Hague Protocols, be defrayed by 1962. Therefore, one-tenth of this sum should be made available next year, but the Ministry further indicates that West Germany’s constituent states will have to shoulder three-fifths of the indemnification cost, something to which the states have never agreed. The $950,000,000 estimate is deemed too high by Jewish experts.
With respect to the restitution of Jewish property confiscated by the former German Reich, the Federal Republic of Germany has not so far paid out anything, even though it has taken over all Reich assets; thousands of Nazi victims are unable to collect on the court judgments they have obtained. The $7,000,000 allocation in the budget is predicated on the assumption that a “Reich Liability Law” will be adopted in 1955.
For the pensions of former German rabbis and congregational officials, $1,800,000 is required annually. The extra $1,000,000 allocated in this year’s budget will be used for back payments prescribed by the law.
The program to compensate crippled victims of medical experiments conducted by Nazi “doctors,” for which $600,000 has been spent since 1951, is now drawing to a close. This year, $48,000 has been provided so as to take care of belated applicants, mainly from Israel, France and Yugoslavia.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
