Auf Deutsch: Die Regelung der Reparationsfrage (Griechenland fordert Reparationen für die NS-Aggression – GFP 19.08.2016)
ATHEN/BERLIN (Eigener Bericht) - Der griechische Ministerpräsident Alexis Tsipras stellt eine neue Initiative zur Erzwingung deutscher Reparations- und Entschädigungszahlungen an Griechenland in Aussicht. Wie Tsipras am Dienstag während der Gedenkfeier für die Opfer eines Wehrmachts-Massakers in dem westgriechischen Dorf Kommeno ankündigte, wird Athen "auf diplomatischer und falls nötig auf gerichtlicher Ebene" gegen Berlin vorgehen, sollte die Bundesregierung sich weiterhin weigern, in Reparationsverhandlungen einzutreten. Anfang September soll das griechische Parlament über einen kürzlich fertiggestellten Bericht diskutieren, der die deutsche Reparationsschuld auf 269 Milliarden Euro beziffert. Behauptungen der Bundesregierung, die Reparationsfrage sei "erledigt", treffen nicht zu: Tatsächlich ist die Zahlung einer 1946 verbindlich anerkannten Reparationssumme mit dem Londoner Schuldenabkommen vom Februar 1953 zwar gestundet, aber nicht aufgehoben worden; nur ein Bruchteil von ihr wurde beglichen. Wie Horst Teltschik, ein ehemaliger Berater von Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl, bestätigt, hat Bonn sich der Reparationspflicht zu entziehen versucht, indem es den Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag explizit nicht als "Friedensvertrag" einstufte. Man habe befürchtet, mit einem Friedensvertrag plötzlich "Reparationsforderungen von über 50 Staaten auf dem Tisch" zu haben, erklärt Teltschik...
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/59422
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/59422
Resolution of the Reparations Issue
2016/08/19
If Necessary, at the Judicial Level
The Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, has announced a new initiative to force German reparations and compensations payments to Greece for crimes committed during the World War II German occupation of that country. Tsipras reiterated that his government would do "everything necessary" to impose reparations - "at the diplomatic, and, if necessary, at the judicial level."[1] He made this announcement in the course of a memorial service for the victims of a massacre committed by the German Wehrmacht on August 16, 1943 in the western Greek village of Kommeno. Within a few hours, 317 defenseless civilians aged from one year old to 90, where abruptly awakened and murdered by the German occupiers. Referring to the Greek parliamentary committee's final report, completed in late July, the Prime Minister explained that this represents the first time that a "national strategy" for dealing with the issue of reparations and compensation payments exists, and is scheduled to be debated officially in parliament at the beginning of September.
269 Billion Euros
The committee's final report has listed the reparations and compensation claims still pending. According to the list, Athens can raise claims for "reparations for material war damages and confiscated property," along with the restitution of the forced loan, the German occupiers extorted from Greece. In addition, reparations are demanded for the victims and their families of German war crimes, and not least of all, the demand for the return of hundreds of stolen archeological artifacts.[2] It is reported that private individuals' claims for reparations is already calculated "at more than 107 billion Euros - before interests." Germany also still owes Greece 9.2 billion Euros in World War I reparations. The forced loan to the Nazi government is usually valued in today's currency at more than 10.3 billion Euros. Altogether, the parliamentary committee arrives at a total of 269 billion Euros in reparations and compensation payments.
To The Hague and the UN
The final report also proposes measures the Greek government could take. According to the authors, a Greek parliamentary delegation should inform parliamentarians of the German Bundestag and the parliaments of other nations of the claims. In a note verbale, the government in Athens should call on Berlin to enter negotiations, they write, and the European Parliament should be called upon to intervene. The conflict could be taken to the United Nations.[3] Should the German government remain intransigent, the case must then be taken before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Athens must also consider the possibility of executing the rulings already handed down by Greek courts and confiscate German property in Greece. Greek courts, in principle, have awarded surviving victims of German war crimes in Distomo, Egio and Rethymno reparations, however, cannot impose the execution of the ruling. The only possibility would be to nationalize the Goethe Institute's Athens' subsidiary and compensate the victims from those proceeds. Under massive German political pressure, the Greek government, so far, has not taken this step.
Berlin's Double Strategy
Since some time, Berlin has been responding to Athens' demands for reparations with a sort of double strategy. On the one hand, Germany claims that there is no legal basis for reparations. The case is "closed." On the other, Berlin offers cheap concessions, from its cultural policies abroad reserves, destined to strangle any further reparations demands. Thus for example, the German government is officially promoting the German-Greek Future Fund - which began functioning September 12, 2014, during a visit of Greek President Karolos Papoulias - as "serving reconciliation and historical analysis between Germany and Greece."[4] This project does not cost 269 billion Euros, but rather annually a million, only the smallest fraction of which actually reaches the victims and their descendents. However, selected historical projects are supposed to give the impression that finally Germany's historical crimes will be comprehensively dealt with. Projects, such as these, are usually administered in the context of cultural policy abroad, not only for the purpose of promoting the image of an alleged "reflective" Germany, but primarily to stave off reparations demands - at the expense of the victims of the Nazis.
Confirmed, then Postponed
Berlin is particularly interested in subduing reparations demands because, contrary to the official German standpoints, these demands remain applicable under international law. The fundamental necessity of reparations payments was confirmed in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference. The first general guidelines were laid down in the Potsdam Agreement on August 2, 1945. November 9, 1945, negotiations began in Paris on their concretization, during which, Greek reparations claims valued at US $7.1 billion - based on the 1938 buying power - were confirmed. Today, this is worth a multiple of that value, even without interests. Experts estimate the value - in 2010 currency - at around US $106.5 billion.[5] In the January 14, 1946 Reparations Agreement of Paris, Greece had been allocated a certain percentage of Germany's available reparations reserves. In fact, Athens received non-cash benefits with an estimated value of only US $25 million.[6] Since signing the London Debt Agreement on February 27, 1953, Bonn has refused to pay any reparations at all. That agreement made an indefinite deferment of reparations for the Federal Republic of Germany. However, it explicitly also provided for a future "final ... settlement of the reparations issue."
Demands from 50 Countries
Throughout the cold war period, the Federal Republic of Germany had turned down demands for the payment of reparations, using the London Debt Agreement as reference, and declaring that reparations claims can only be negotiated after the "reunification" with the German Democratic Republic and the ensuing finalization of a peace treaty. However, Bonn has deliberately qualified the 2 + 4 Treaty, signed September 12, 1990, not as a peace treaty, "not least of all, because of the risk of reparation demands," as former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's advisor Horst Teltschik explained in March 2015. "Not only Greece" could be demanding reparations. "As is known, the Nazi regime was at war with over 50 countries around the world. ... Just imagine, in the context of a peace treaty, we would have had reparations demands from over 50 countries on the table."[7] That is what had to be avoided. However thereby, the "final ... settlement of the reparations issue," stipulated in the London Debt Agreement, which for decades the Federal German government made conditional on a formal peace treaty, was simply postponed further into the future. Should the Greek government carry out Prime Minister Tsipras' announcement, it would now be placed on the agenda.
More on this topic see: Legacy without a Future.