Poland Wants Germany Property Claims Made Illegal

Poland Wants Germany Property Claims Made Illegal
Reuters Jul 01, 2007



WARSAW—Poland wants Germany formally to declare private German claims to Polish property illegal, Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga was reported as saying on Sunday.

"We are striving for a high-level government statement declaring German claims to property in Poland as groundless in the light of international and German law," the online version of the right-wing Wprost weekly quoted her as saying.

"That would greatly help us, particularly in the suit the Prussian Trust has filed against us with the European Tribunal of Human rights," she added.

Last year, a group of 23 German refugees or their descendants filed claims to property left behind in Poland through a pressure group known as the Prussian Trust.

They argue that they were unlawfully deprived of their land when they or their ancestors were forcibly evicted from Poland after the World War Two.

In response to fears expressed by Poland over the claims, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Germany would not support any Prussian Trust claims against Poland but stopped short of calling them illegal.

Some German claimants have succeeded in regaining such property by means of civil suits, largely because of ambiguities in Polish land records.

Say NO!! TO ANY GERMAN RESTITUTION FROM POLAND

Hello from Lech Bajan polish american Washington DC.


Say NO!! TO ANY GERMAN RESTITUTION FROM POLAND

Government in Germany has to pass the law to block any claims from any radical German citizens to ask Poland from any restitution.

How the german organizations dare to ask Poland and individual polish citizens or local authorities in Poland for any compensations to the members of the Prussian Trust and any other radical organizations in Germany.

Update from today news:
Hanover, Germany - A key ally to Chancellor Angela Merkel was jeered on Sunday when he criticized moves to seek compensation from Poland by Germans expelled at the end of World War II.

'I am convinced that this form of material accountability will only lead to a harding of positions between Germany and Poland,' Lower Saxony state Premier Christian Wulff said.

Wulff, deputy chairman of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was addressing a rally of the Silesian Association representing Germans born in a former Prussian region of what is now Poland.

The leader of the organization is Rudi Pawelka, a controversial figure who is also a member of the supervisory board of the Prussian Trust that is seeking restitution of seized property which today belongs to Poland.

Some 12-14 million ethnic Germans were victims of mass expulsions from Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of World War II.

Many are represented by expellees' groups with ties to the Prussian Trust, which in November lodged a compensation claim against Poland in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Merkel and her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder have repeatedly said that the German government would not make claims against Poland, but was powerless to stop individuals or organizations from taking action.

The activities of the expellees' associations have been an irritant in Germany's relations with Poland, which sees them as seeking to portray Germans as victims of the war.


© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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