For many years now, victims of wartime repression living in Italy, who were deported from the country after the overthrow of Benito Mussolini in 1943 and used by the fascists as slave labor, have been trying in court to assert their right to receive monetary compensation from the German government. However, under the pretext that they were all classified as ‘prisoners of war’ and not as ‘convicts’, Germany has so far refused to satisfy their claims. In addition, the German side, appealing to the norm of international law on state immunity, has so far managed to avoid mass lawsuits of this kind. The so-called state immunity guarantees modern countries a kind of ‘inviolability’: citizens of one state do not have the right to sue another state.
But the Italian Themis ruled differently. The other day, the Italian Court of Cassation – the highest court of the country for civil cases – made a precedent-setting decision on the legality of individual citizens of Italy filing lawsuits against Germany as a state. The judges' main argument: the deportation of the plaintiffs by the Nazis is a crime against humanity, therefore an especially grave crime, which deprives the German leadership of the right to hide behind state immunity. The Italian court not only accepted for consideration the claims of 50 Italians previously deported by the Nazis, demanding fair compensation from Germany for the suffering inflicted on them. It also did not rule out that, in the event of a positive outcome for the plaintiffs on the compensation due to them, the funds could be obtained through the forced sale of German property in Italy – for example, the buildings of the Goethe Institute.
The German leadership so far refrains from commenting on the delicate situation that has arisen. Initially, it intends to carefully study the decision made by the Italian judge.
The consequences of this decision for Germany could be the most unpredictable. There are two most likely scenarios. If Germany decides to accept its fate and agree to resume compensation payments, then, most likely, encouraged by the success of their comrades in misfortune, many other holders of the status of ‘prisoners of war’ will also seek justice in court. And there are at least 100,000 such people living in Italy alone today. If citizens of other countries join them, Germany could simply drown in this inexhaustible stream of lawsuits.
A more sparing scenario for German finances is also possible. The Federal Government retains the right to challenge the Italian court's decision in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In this case, experts predict, Germany has every chance of winning the case. Another question is how the German government will look in the eyes of the world community if it decides to take such a step, and how this will affect Italian-German relations in general.
Incidentally, another fact indicates that court hearings against Germany could become not only massive but also international. By decision of the same High Court for Civil Cases of Italy, the property of the Villa Vigoni cultural center, owned by the German state, has already been encumbered with a compulsory mortgage. At the same time, the funds received were to be used as monetary compensation not for the Italians themselves, but for their Greek neighbors (a total of 100 people), who survived the massacre perpetrated by the SS in 1944 in the village of Distomo. After Germany refused to pay the compensation awarded to them in their homeland in the amount of €28 million, their lawyers tried to obtain the necessary amount through the forced sale of German property in Greece. But the Greek government opposed this. Then the Greeks decided to seek enforcement of the court decision in Italy. Fortunately, this does not contradict European law.
The Italian Themis did not stand on ceremony with its powerful European neighbor and finally gave the green light to the imposition of a mortgage on German property in Italy in favor of the Greek plaintiffs. Truly justice without borders!
In 2000, an all-German foundation ‘Remembrance, Responsibility and Future’ was established with funds from the federation and German industrialists, with a capital of €5 billion. During the foundation's existence, 1.7 million people, mainly living in the former Soviet republics, received compensation totaling €4.4 billion. Former prisoners of concentration camps, ghettos and other places of detention located both in territories occupied by fascist troops and in Germany and its allied countries where slave labor was used, as well as, in the event of their death, relatives or heirs of victims of forced labor, could apply for a one-time compensation ranging from €2,500 to €7,500, depending on the conditions and nature of the work. However, in accordance with a decision of the Federal Court of Justice of Germany in 2003, victims of Nazi war crimes, including prisoners of war, did not have the right to compensation from the foundation's funds.
On June 11, 2007, the foundation ‘Remembrance, Responsibility and Future’ officially announced the end of monetary compensation payments to victims of Nazi persecution.
Elena GROMOVA.