Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Germany's shame

Huh?
A German court has rejected a demand for the return of thousands of acres of land to the family of an anti-Nazi aristocrat who was tortured by the Gestapo and stripped of all his property as punishment for taking part in the abortive Second World War plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Prince Friedrich zu Solms-Baruth was one of a handful of German aristocrats who took part in the failed attempt to blow up the Nazi leader on 20 July 1944. The Gestapo arrested him the next day and forced him to sign a legal contract formally handing over 17,300 acres of family estates and castles to Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo chief.

But a legal bid by the Prince's grandson, Prince Friedrich zu Solms-Baruth V, to have the properties returned failed yesterday. A court in the city of Potsdam rejected pleas for their restitution; arguing that the contract which led to their being relinquished to the Gestapo was legal because German law still recognised Nazi Germany as a constitutional state in which the rule of law prevailed.
Amazing ... amazing that the land wasn't given back within a decade of the war's end ... shamful that this ruling came out in 2010.

Germany has one more chance to do it right.
The case will now be heard by Germany's federal supreme court in Leipzig.
2010 Germany is better than this. Make this right.

18 comments:

UltiimaRatioRegis said...

"<span>2010 Germany is better than this."  I'm curious, Phib.  What makes you think so?  </span>

How many lands from Cromwell's crushing of the Irish Rebellion have been restored to the descendents of the Irish Lords, many of whom wound up in Jamaica as slaves?

UltiimaRatioRegis said...

Interesting coincidence:  Freya von Moltke, widow of another plotter, died recently in nextdoor Norwich VT at 90.

DeltaBravo said...

Kind of sad that this issue even had to be brought to the courts.

Worse that it failed.

Not good.  Probably some judge didn't want to set a precedent because then everyone who lost property expropriated by the Nazi government will storm the courthouses.

UltiimaRatioRegis said...

DB,

You hit the nail on the head.  First, this has been the way of European power struggles, political and religious, since Trajan.  Second, most every government, including our own, understood quickly that it was well nigh impossible to restore a land grab to status quo ante, even iof so inclined.

One other thing that takes a while to figure out about the Germans (and I'm German):
Beck, Goerdeler, Moltke, Canaris, and the others are not really heroes to the Germans.  Though they tried to kill a brutal dictator, there is always a taint of betrayal about them.  Not so in our eyes, but true enough in theirs.

cdrsalamander said...

URR,
By the time the Irish regained their independence - all those people and their "within living memory" descendants were dead.

If you are going to use that standard - then I own a fair chunk of Scotland, Ireland, England, South Carolina, and Mississippi.  You name the Anglosphere Civil War (English Civil War, Jacobite Rebellion, Tyrone's Rebellion, American Revolutionary War, US Civil War) - my family has been on the losing side and lost all their lands as a result.

Get in line big guy - get in line .... and when the next civil war starts, do your family a favor and find out which side I am on and get on the other.  Don't worry, I will shoot you last.   ;)

UltimaRatioRegis said...

"<span>By the time the Irish regained their independence - all those people and their "within living memory" descendants were dead."</span>

To clans that had claims to those lands since before the Dane Law, a few centuries make little difference.

"<span>If you are going to use that standard - then I own a fair chunk of Scotland, Ireland, England, South Carolina, and Mississippi."  Precisely the point.  As I commented to DB, </span><span>most every government, including our own, understood quickly that it was impossible to restore a land grab to status quo ante, even if there was sentiment to do so.  See: Western Poland, Gaza Strip, Ulster.</span>

One other thing, Sal.  It pays to be a winner. ;)

DeltaBravo said...

A toast to Phib:  Henceforth may all your battles be winning battles!

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Don't encourage him DB!  He's got an o-fer going with rebellions and civil wars.....

UltimaRatioRegis said...

<span>Or, perhaps, I should let someone else say it better than I.  Such sentiment does not exactly cultivate peaceful disagreement.</span>

DeltaBravo said...

Yeah, but my family history tracks in an amazingly similar fashion, so I'm partial.    ;)

ewok40k said...

Restoring land ownership is difficult thing, for example it might ended up in another country after Potsdam... Or have owners who bought it from the government in the meantime. My granddad's estate ended up in Byelarus, for example, while my own block is built on the grounds some German family probably owned before war. Still, the least that can be done is an fair compensation.

Z said...

"<span>Amazing ... amazing that the land wasn't given back within a decade of the war's end ... shamful that this ruling came out in 2010."</span>

Probably it is in the former GDR, which as a socialist country was maybe not to keen to restore things other (national) socialists did...............

DoesNotMatter said...

Potsdam means that this was land in the DDR.

Land which had been "verstaatlicht" under the DDR/Soviet occupation never gets returned - I'm not aware of a single case where the previous owners succeded in claiming back their property.

It not just that by now the court would have to tell a small village of people "You lose your homes/or jobs when the land in question houses a factory". The state would have to pay indemnities as well. Which they are loath to do.

Generally the only claims for compensation which are granted are made by slaveworkers/jews.
All others, even jews who "only" lost their property -art ususally-, are told to go pound sand.

AW1 Tim said...

yup.... my folks owned land in Bexar county, Texas prior to the start of the Civil War. It was just south of San Antonio. Their farmlands were lost after the war when the Federal Government demanded back taxes and the family couldn't pay. Feds just took the land. That parcel would now be in dowtown San Antonion.  Sigh.

On my mother's side their is land in County Cork, Ireland lost in a similar manner.

MR T's Haircut said...

Phib is the blogosphere's "LT Dan" a member was killed in every battle.....

Navymic said...

"The law was the law." Many descendants of slaves have been denied claims through these rulings.

Larry said...

Tories in the Revolution?

cdrsalamander said...

Yep.  South Carolina Tory Militia.