German court rules for Jewish claimants

LEIPZIG – Setting a major legal precedent, Jewish claimants won restitution this week of a plot of land that their ancestors sold in 1936 at what was termed a token price.

The case went all the way to Germany’s Federal Administrative Tribunal in Leipzig, with a local authority in Teltow-Seehof arguing the land situated in the Berlin suburbs had been sold at a fair price, and could not be returned.

More than 700 other claims by the Jewish heirs for other plots are now likely to succeed, following years of legal argument.

Judges said even lacking proof the land had been sold too cheaply, it had to be assumed the Jewish owners were disadvantaged because the Nazis had been in power at the time.

Previously officials said German rules on restitution of Jewish property did not apply because the land was sold, not appropriated.

The Jewish owners subdivided the former farm for housing in 1933, the same year the Nazis came to power, and 1,000 lots were gradually sold to up to 1940. The case was brought by 18 heirs, who won an earlier case in 1999, only to be rebuffed afresh in 2002.

DPA
Subject: German news