Karlsruhe, Germany – The top court dismissed a claim today for the return of land seized by the Nazis from its Jewish owner in 1933.
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Jewish businessman Adolf Sommerfeld, who owned nearly 80 percent of a company building a housing estate in the Berlin suburb of Kleinmachnow, was beaten up and shot at by Nazi thugs and fled Germany in 1933, the year the Nazis came to power.
The Nazis later sold the homes to their occupants, who are now the owners.
Seizures of property from Jews continued through the 1930s, culminating in the Holocaust. A 1997 German law that ordains the return of property unfairly seized by the Nazis from Jews specifically excludes housing estates.
The German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe said this exclusion was constitutional, even if it discriminated against certain ex-owners.
Christian Meyer, a Berlin lawyer representing about 20 heirs of Sommerfeld, said about 700 other similar land claims had depended on the case. They are now all likely to be dismissed.
In the fundamental ruling, the court said reparations were up to the government to decide and were not dictated by the constitution. Excluding housing estates from claims was not “arbitrary” in the legal sense.
Meyer attacked the ruling, saying the heirs were left with nothing. He said he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Ratzachta v’gam yarashta! in english , You murdered and you stole his property.
I always wondered if the “vidergutmaching” that the Nazis offered after the holocaust will ever ease their punishment, I know my grandparents refused it and they sure could have used the money! but because they required you sign that you forgive them they couldn’t bring them self to do it. Not that they could be forgiven in anyway even if they would pay a billion dollars per person, but the thought of easing their punishment in the world to come they refused it.
What more do you expect for the children of the Nazi’s?
They would make the holocaust all over again,, a daitch blabt a daitch yemach shemum. Allthough to their credit when amidinajad yemach shemo gave his ramble(speach)at the UN the german delagation walked out.
Personal feelings should not trump the constitution of the land. The judges based their decision on the clear interpetation of the law. While its painful to the family, its the Constitution that they based their ruling on.
The homes were not their personal homes but business. Businesses were never repatriated.
My family had apartment complexes taken by the Nazis and the apartments were later individually sold. In that case too the court ruled against our family.
At the same time, the EU which includes Germany has the chutzpah to demand that Israel should return land to the Palestinians… Besides the fact that jews always lived in the West bank.
This is messed up. The just thing to do would be to return the property that they stole.
Besides being the biggest murderers in history, the germans also committed the largest theft in history as well.
To assuage their guilt, they instead provide tiny miniature reparations payments to living victims. Meanwhile, the descendants of these monsters are living in the lavish homes that were pillaged, passing laws to protect their ill-gotten gains.
Was any property ever returned to the Jews at war end?
Are there any descendants of nazis living in property seized during the nazi era?
If so, why have they not been evicted?