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.)
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