Glossary

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The Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future”

 a  “These payments are […] voluntary payments without any legal obligation. They are used […] in pursuit of the goal of creating a basis for facing the class actions in the USA and deflecting the threatened loss of image associated with them, as well as avoiding economic sanctions in the form of withdrawals of licenses and calls for boycotts. The contributions thus serve to secure and maintain the reputation of the business sector, that is, the competitive position of the firms. Thus the operational factual connection between expenditures and operation, as required under § 4 Par. 4 EStG [Income Tax Act], is present. [...] In particular, the payments do not represent a payment of wages ex post facto, as the previous forced employment did not constitute a ‘service’ within the meaning of the tax law.

(Circular from the Federal Ministry of Finance to the Finance Offices, February 3, 2000, cited in Ulla Jelpke /  Rüdiger Lötzer: “Geblieben ist der Skandal – ein Gesetz zum Schutz der deutschen Wirtschaft.” In: Ulrike Winkler, ed.: Stiften gehen. NS-Zwangsarbeit und Entschädigungsdebatte (Cologne: PapyRossa, 2000), pp. 235–250, here pp. 246–247. (Transl. KL))

“With a great relief at having salvaged the agreement, I met the German delegation in their holding room off the main hallway of the Foreign Ministry, expecting congratulations. Instead I was met with a stunning invective few American officials have ever heard from a negotiator in a friendly country, particularly one from the private sector. […] Manfred Gentz [CFO of DaimlerChrysler and a protagonist of the “German Economy Foundation Initiative”] concluded his bill of particulars against the U.S. government by a final insult. He was ‘heavily disappointed’, he said, and far from the partnership we had promised […] to secure legal peace, there had been ‘really a dictatorship of the U.S.’.”[1]

(U.S. mediator Stuart Eizenstat)

 

On July 6, 2000, the German Bundestag approved the Law on the Creation of a Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future,”[2] which had been introduced by the German government and coordinated with all the parliamentary parties. Count Otto Lambsdorff, who represented the federal government in the recently concluded negotiations, described the draft law on this occasion as a “great achievement” by an “all-party coalition” and formulated the FRG’s expectations as follows: “The class actions and single-plaintiff lawsuits brought together by a U.S. judge must be taken off the table.” Lambsdorff described as “a public scandal” the fact that the “majority of enterprises” had not yet joined the “German Economy Foundation Initiative”; there was, he said, “no reason to evade the overall responsibility of the German economy.”[3] The entire CDU/CSU Party delivered an official “comment on the vote,” in which it affirmed that “the question of reparations is not being restated by this law.”[4]

 

A few days later, on July 17, 2000, two documents were concluded in Berlin. First, the governments of the FRG, the United States, the Republic of Belarus, the Czech Republic, Israel, Poland, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, as well as the Claims Conference and the Foundation Initiative, issued a joint statement. The sum of 10 billion DM was set as the conclusive upper limit and the federal foundation was appointed as the sole and exclusive forum for assertion of claims by former forced labors; existence of a legal entitlement to payments from the foundation’s fund was denied. In a Berlin Agreement between the governments of the United States and the FRG, the U.S. government then declared that it would make no reparations demands of any kind on the FRG and would ward off recent compensation claims by third parties resulting from the events of World War II or from the persecutions of the Nazi era. In addition, the U.S. government announced the issuing of a statement of interest, saying that the settlement of the question of compensation for Nazi forced laborers that was set in motion by establishing the foundation was “in the interest of U.S. foreign policy.”[5]

 

Since the beginning of the conflict over the question of forced laborer compensation, there had been a quid pro quo for the West German “reparations payments”: the FRG’s economic, political, and military integration with the West. This “principle of something for something” is also named by the “German Economy Foundation Initiative” as a definitive structural element for the negotiations on forced laborer compensation.[6] Willingness to accept moral and financial “responsibility” was linked to the assurance of Rechtsfrieden (“legal peace,” closure), ensuring protection against class actions by former forced laborers in the United States.

 

Holocaust survivor Karl Brozik, for many years the representative of the Claims Conference in the FRG, described this as a “familiar pattern”[7] according to his experiences in the negotiations. In most cases, the firms concerned were willing to negotiate only after former forced laborers had sued them to obtain compensation. The goal of the firms’ representatives in the negotiations was always to keep the amount of compensation to be paid as small as possible. After years of consultation, payment usually was made only after the American press began dealing with the process and the economic interests of the firms concerned were affected directly. Basically, the firms concerned emphasized that their “willingness to compromise” was due to a “moral and humanitarian attitude” and refused any acknowledgment of a legal obligation to pay compensation monies, while insisting in return that the representatives of the Claims Conference must forego legal steps against them for all time.

 

More than a year before the first forced laborers received the first monies from the foundation’s fund, the incumbent German Finance Minister Hans Eichel (SPD) wrote a circular letter directing all the tax offices to classify payments by industry as tax deductible,[8] and used this occasion to make clear once again the German government’s legal opinion on the compensation of Nazi forced laborers.  a 

 

In the compensation debate, representatives of both German business and the German government had emphasized the nation’s interest in an agreement, the chief goal of which was described repeatedly as preservation of “Germany’s reputation” abroad. Suddenly firms that even months after the agreement had yet to make a single payment to the foundation were faced with the accusation that they were shirking the national responsibility.

 

Apart from the financing of educational projects through the “Remembrance and Future” Fund, the foundation discontinued its activity in 2006 as planned, once the payments to entitled applicants had been concluded.

(GK/PEH; transl. KL)



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[pdf] Peer Heinelt_Financial Compensation for Nazi Forced Laborers 

  

Literature

Brozik, Karl: “Die Entschädigung von nationalsozialistischer Zwangsarbeit durch deutsche Firmen.” In: Klaus Barwig / Günter Saathoff / Nicole Weyde, eds.: Entschädigung für NS-Zwangsarbeit. Rechtliche, historische und politische Aspekte. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1998, pp. 33–47.

Brozik, Karl / Matschke, Konrad, eds.: Luxemburger Abkommen. 50 Jahre Entschädigung für NS-Unrecht. Frankfurt am Main: Societäts-Verlag, 2004.

Eizenstat, Stuart E.: Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor and the Unfinished Business of World War II. New York: Public Affairs, 2003.

Hennies, Jörg Hagen: Entschädigung für NS-Zwangsarbeit vor und unter der Geltung des Stiftungsgesetzes vom 2.8.2000. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006.

Jansen, Michael / Saathoff, Günter, eds.: „Gemeinsame Verantwortung und moralische Pflicht“. Abschlussbericht zu den Auszahlungsprogrammen der Stiftung „Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft“. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007.

Jelpke, Ulla / Lötzer, Rüdiger: “Geblieben ist der Skandal – ein Gesetz zum Schutz der deutschen Wirtschaft.” In: Ulrike Winkler, ed.: Stiften gehen. NS-Zwangsarbeit und Entschädigungsdebatte. Cologne: PapyRossa, 2000, pp. 235–250.

Meng, Richard: “Bundestag billigt Entschädigung.” In: Frankfurter Rundschau, July 7, 2000, p. 1.

Spiliotis, Susanne-Sophia: Verantwortung und Rechtsfrieden. Die Stiftungsinitiative der deutschen Wirtschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2003.

[1] Stuart E. Eizenstat: Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor and the Unfinished Business of World War II (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), pp. 275–277.

[2] In the Bundestag, 556 members voted in favor, 42 members from the CDU/CSU Party voted against, 22 members from the ranks of the CDU/CSU, FDP, and PDS abstained; see Richard Meng: “Bundestag billigt Entschädigung.” In: Frankfurter Rundschau, July 7, 2000, p. 1.

[3] Cited in Meng: Bundestag billigt Entschädigung. (Translated by KL)

[4] Cited in Meng: Bundestag billigt Entschädigung.

[5] Berlin Agreement of July 7, 2000, Art. 2 Par. 1, cited in Jörg Hagen Hennies: Entschädigung für NS-Zwangsarbeit vor und unter der Geltung des Stiftungsgesetzes vom 2.8.2000 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006), p. 191. (Translated by KL)

[6] Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis: Verantwortung und Rechtsfrieden. Die Stiftungsinitiative der deutschen Wirtschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2003), p. 195. In his preface, Manfred Gentz writes that the “German Economy Foundation Initiative” had “assigned [Spiliotis] to review the history of this unique project.” (Ibid., p. 11.) (Translated by KL)

[7] Karl Brozik: “Die Entschädigung von nationalsozialistischer Zwangsarbeit durch deutsche Firmen.” In: Klaus Barwig / Günter Saathoff / Nicole Weyde, eds.: Entschädigung für NS-Zwangsarbeit. Rechtliche, historische und politische Aspekte (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1998), pp. 33–47, here p. 43. (Translated by KL)

[8] Because payments to the foundation’s fund were tax deductible, the actual share to be raised by business was cut in half, so that the government ultimately had to raise not half of the compensation sum, as originally agreed, but three-fourths of it, or 7.5 billion DM.