16 October 2003

What many Polish politicians did not want to believe a few months ago may become a reality: expelled Germans are preparing to pursue indemnity claims in Polish courts for their confiscated or abandoned
properties after WWII in Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia.

All allegedly wronged Germans who visit the legal company Prussian Trusteeship (PT-Preussiche Treuhand GmbH & Co.) can obtain legal assistance. PT is an initiative of associations from Silesia, Eastern Prussia and Pomerania. The president of PT's supervisory board, Rudi Pawelka, and his deputy, Hans Günter Parplies-who is also the deputy chairman of the Union of the Expelled (BdV)-say it is a private initiative which aims at assuring the "equal treatment of Germans in the process of re-privatization in Poland." Pawelka says his goal is to "heal the wounds of the expelled."

Following through with the Union of the Expelled's initiative to create the Center for the Expelled in Berlin, the new project seeks to redefine the history of Germany in the 20th century. Several hundred people from German circles of the expelled have already shown interest in PT.

Opinions are divided in Germany when it comes to the grounds of raising these claims, and different views on the matter can be found within the BdV itself. BdV's spokesman Walter Stratmann says there are "no legal grounds to raise indemnity claims." BdV's official documents, in turn, contain demands to take expelled Germans into consideration in the process of returning property confiscated by the communist authorities. Chair of BdV Erika Steinbach is clearly expecting a "symbolic gesture" from Poland concerning this matter. Many Germans are demanding the right to pursue their indemnity claims in Poland. The trusteeship institution would be the Prussian Claims Society, modeled on the Jewish Claims Conference. The task of the institution would be to finance future court cases.

There are two governments at the two extremes. The German government believes that the expropriation of land, carried out without paying indemnities, was in violation of international law; whereas the opinion of the Polish government directly disagrees with this view. When considering Poland's future accession to the European Union, German lawyers believe Poland should be preparing for suits brought to Polish courts by Germans. The expelled also hope that if their suits are dismissed by Polish courts, they will be able to pursue their claims before the European Court of Justice. It is also possible that PT will act on behalf of those Germans who did not leave Poland in 1945, but much later.

The German claims would be impossible if the state of Germany resigned, on behalf of its citizens, from pecuniary claims in Poland. Any complaints would then have to be directed to the German government and indemnities would be paid from Germany's state treasury.

In 2000, the German Constitutional Tribunal in Karlsruhe passed a judgment concerning real estate which was expropriated by the Russian authorities and the authorities of East Germany in 1945-49. Compensation paid for this type of real estate is considered symbolic, and it could be similar in this situation as well. The German government, however, is not going to change its legal interpretation of the expropriation of land from Germans who used to live in the former eastern territories of the Third Reich.

In a comment concerning the issue made to The Warsaw Voice, a Warsaw lawyer, who wishes to remain anonymous, compared the grounds of the lawsuits prepared by the Germans to claims "made by a driver of a car who hit a pedestrian at a crosswalk and is now laying a claim that the paint on his car got scratched."

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