Former Soviet prisoners of war intend to receive compensation from Germany for their time in camps and for slave labor. However, as Gazeta.Ru notes, the German government does not consider prisoners of war victims of National Socialism, so the parties will have to ascertain the truth in court.
Several hundred former Soviet prisoners of war intend to file a class action lawsuit with the Federal Administrative Court of Germany demanding that the compensation paid for forced labor be extended to them, as already paid to other former prisoners of the Third Reich. As reported by German lawyer Stefan Tashyan, who represents the interests of the prisoners of war, in May he will file a "class action on behalf of several hundred former Soviet prisoners of war now residing in Armenia."
As the lawyer clarified, the lawsuit will be addressed to the German Federal Ministry of Finance and the German foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future", which handles payments to victims of Nazism. The foundation was established on August 2, 2000. Since then, in accordance with a special law adopted by the German Bundestag, it has been paying compensation to victims of National Socialism who "were imprisoned in concentration camps... or were held in comparable conditions in other places of detention, were deported from their homeland to the territory of the German Reich... or to territory occupied by it and were forced to work there at industrial enterprises... or suffered damage as a result of racist persecution." Payments in the territory of the former Soviet republics are handled by the foundation "Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation", which represents the German side.
According to paragraph 3 of section 11 of the German law, "being in military captivity is not a ground for receiving payments." This provision is based on the international legal norm that allows prisoners of war to be used for labor. In addition, when drafting the law, it was also taken into account that all financial issues related to prisoners had been resolved through reparations agreements and the London Agreement on German External Debts of 1953, to which the Soviet Union did not accede.
However, as lawyer Tashyan explained in a letter to German Chancellor Schröder and Russian President Putin, the real basis for paying compensation to former Soviet prisoners of war is not their labor on the territory of the German Reich, but the cruel treatment and genocide committed against Soviet soldiers. As established at the Nuremberg trials and through research by Russian and German scholars, the fate of Red Army soldiers was highly tragic. Of the approximately 5.7 million soldiers who were taken prisoner during World War II, 3.3 million were killed, which is 58%. They thus become the second largest group of victims after the Jews.
The lawyer believes that Soviet prisoners of war were not simply held in captivity, but were deliberately exterminated as a result of the German state's bloody policy. This fact makes it possible to classify captured Soviet soldiers as victims of National Socialism, whom the "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" foundation assists. "This, however, does not prevent the foundation and the state's ministry of finance from treating these prisoners not as a special group of victims, but as ordinary prisoners of war, just like the American, French or Polish ones, who were under the protection of the International Red Cross and whose mortality rate was 5% (compare that with 58%!)," Tashyan wrote in his letter.
It was on the basis of these historical data that, in early November 2002, Tashyan filed a lawsuit with the Berlin Administrative Court on behalf of two former Soviet prisoners of war, now citizens of Armenia: 82-year-old Ishkhan Melkonyan and 79-year-old Pargev Zakharyan. The plaintiffs demanded that the court recognize their right to receive compensation for the time spent in German captivity. On February 28, 2003, however, the lawsuit was dismissed. According to the judge, "the payment of compensation by the 'Remembrance, Responsibility and Future' foundation is Germany's fulfillment of its moral and historical duty, but not a legal one. It cannot be forced to pay anything beyond the obligations it has voluntarily undertaken."
Currently, Germany is paying compensation to victims of the Third Reich. Payments are received by those who filed applications before December 31, 2001 (there are about 400,000 such people). Under German law, recipients are divided into several categories, on the basis of which money is allocated. Concentration camp prisoners receive about 7,700 euros each. Those whose labor was forcibly used at German enterprises receive about 2,100 euros. Initially they are paid 50% of the compensation, while those who were forced to work receive 35% of the amount. The first part of the program is expected to end in 2005.
As representatives of the foundation told Gazeta.Ru, there are currently about 50,000 former Soviet prisoners of war living in the CIS. If they demand compensation, it would cost the German government an additional 400 million euros. And if all relatives of deceased prisoners of war demand payments, the sum would skyrocket. German industry (which is where the German government takes funds for compensation) will not be able, and indeed will not want, to pay such money. Therefore, the foundation believes that lawyer Tashyan will never win the case.
Anastasia MAKRYASHINA.