On the 70th anniversary of the Luxembourg Agreement between the Jewish Claims Conference, Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) last year, the topic of reparations for National Socialist injustice gained media, political and cultural presence, which is being carried forward this year by the anniversary of the Federal Supplementary Act on Compensation for Victims of National Socialist Persecution (BErgG) of the FRG of 1953. Originally enacted to standardize and simplify individual compensation nationwide, it became apparent that many non-Jewish victim groups were neither recognized nor compensated; similar developments can be traced in the German Democratic Republic. To evaluate the German process of coming to terms with the past, it is necessary to examine not only the post-war trials and denazification since the 1980s, but also compensation and restitution policies. With the expiry of compensation payments to the last survivors and easier access to (digitized) individual case files by the archives, a new, international interest in reparations and provenance research is emerging.

The Research Center on Antigypsyism at the University of Heidelberg and the Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies dedicated an all-embracing symposium to this complex of topics with the participation of international scholars. The productive and interdisciplinary dialogue between historians and archivists not only opened valuable approaches for new research perspectives and source potentials, but also discussed central challenges in mutual research practice.

Greetings were given by the academic director of the Research Center on Antigypsyism, Tanja Penter, and the director of the University of Jewish Studies, Werner Arnold, as well as the organizers of the event, Verena Meier, Joey Rauschenberger and Philipp Zschommler, who emphasized the relevance, motivation and comparative background of the conference.

In his keynote lecture, CONSTANTIN GOSCHLER (London/Bochum) reflected on the history of research and the future perspectives of reparations for National Socialist injustice as a subject of academic research. While the Federal Ministry of Finance considered the compensation of victims of National Socialism to be completed in the 1980s, an initial research interest in compensation practice developed. Goschler emphasized that the research results produced were primarily not disclosed by historians, but by lawyers and actors from the civil society. The history of reparations research is understood as a complex of interactions between individual victims, representatives of the perpetrators and bureaucratic guidelines and must be dealt with in academic research by including neighboring disciplines such as cultural or memory studies. According to Goschler, in order to promote productive approaches, it is important to not categorize people according to their victim group, so that the fixation on identities and discrimination constructed by the Nazis is not perpetuated.

JENS KOLATA (Frankfurt am Main) opened the first panel by noting that survivors of the Gestapo’s “Arbeitsscheu Reich” campaign in April 1938 in Württemberg and Hohenzollern – apart from gender and social background (male and mostly from the working class) – had no unifying characteristics and did not establish a group identity or representation of interests after the end of the war. Furthermore, it could be observed that the State Offices for Reparations (Landesamt für die Wiedergutmachung Stuttgart and Tübingen) often distanced themselves from the applicants, did not recognize them as persecutees of the National Socialist regime or processed their cases in standardized application procedures. Moreover, as “asocials” marked by the National Socialists, they were not entitled to claim compensation because they were not persecuted for racial, political or religious reasons, as the “Bundesgesetz zur Entschädigung für Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung” (BEG) presupposed in 1956.

CLAIRE TOPSOM (London) focused on the treatment of young people stigmatized as “asocial” during National Socialism and the post-war classification of the victim group, which has hardly been considered in English research. Topsom not only questioned whether the template of the “asocial” constructed by the National Socialists could be applied to young people, but also examined individual biographies of adolescents who deviated from the National Socialist ideal. She illustrated everyday life in the euphemistically titled “youth protection camps” and, in addition to internment, put a spotlight on female prisoners who were forced into prostitution in camp brothels. She concluded that the social self-image and the persistent condemnation of juvenile deviance against supposed norms had long prevented an examination of the topic and the recognition of the victim group but could thus provide information about contemporary attitudes in post-war society.

JULIA ROOS (Bloomington, IN) described the largely unexplored history of discrimination and the lack of compensation for the descendants of French colonial soldiers of the First World War in the Rhineland, the so-called "Rhineland bastards". Although Prussian authorities had been drafting a legal basis for forced sterilizations since the 1920s, which had been incorporated into the applicable law by the National Socialist “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring” since July 1933, these regulations had not been applicable to the forced sterilizations of the descendants in the summer of 1937. Although Nazi-specific injustice is to be assumed and a claim for compensation should have existed, half of the applicants received no compensation at all, whereas many perpetrators of medical crimes benefited from the superficial denazification.

The themes touched on earlier condensed in the second panel under the overarching topic of medical crimes in the Nazi period. TIARRA COOPER (Amherst, MA) identified the importance of lack of fertility for female survivors as a recurring motif: although lack of fertility was considered a gender-specific characteristic and a reason for restitution claims, affected women were not compensated in numerous cases due to the supposed difficulty of proving their forced infertility.

BORBÁLA KLACSMANN (Dublin) pointed out that Jewish survivors of Hungarian origin had to prove health damages they had suffered through human experimentation in elaborate procedures with the submission of numerous documents to be able to participate in compensation programs of the FRG in the 1960s. While no compensation programs were developed in socialist Hungary immediately after the war, the FRG extended its programs to several Eastern European countries. Klacsmann used the files to outline individual stories of persecution, the living conditions in the post-war period and the individual coping mechanisms of the victims.

PAUL WEINDLING (Oxford) accentuated the systemic differences between East and West in the German compensation policy for National Socialist human experiments. The human experiments on twins under Josef Mengele, for example, were not compensated because they were not considered to be Nazi medical crimes and no long-term damage to the test persons could be determined. In conclusion, Weindling emphasized the importance and potential of the compensation files as biographical sources. However, access to sensitive, diagnostic data, which represent important testimony for the scientific reappraisal of the persecution, use of violence and murder of victims, is still associated with complex obstacles under data protection and archival law.

The third panel, which asked about access to compensation programs for victims from Central and Eastern European countries, was introduced by SARAH GRANDKE (Regensburg) with her observations on the treatment of displaced persons from Poland. They were often denied the right to compensation because they were not recognized as politically persecuted. In addition, language barriers, the fact that the victims’ center of life had moved abroad or was unknown, or the lack of support from the former communist homelands were major obstacles to coming to terms with the situation. Even though the BEG Completion Act of 1965 had established a legal basis for dealing with so-called national victims, Polish origin was not recognized as a reason for National Socialist persecution.

PETRE MATEI (Cluj-Napoca) focused on the reparations policy of communist Romania for persecuted Roma and examined the extent to which Romanian activists used the victim narrative at the time of the compensation talks around 1981 to obtain compensation payments from the Federal Republic. He shed light on the initial intentions of the activist, predominantly international movement and examined whether they participated in the discourse because of material and political benefits for the Romanian government or their own minoritized Roma community. Matei hypothesized that the movement did not so much want to construct its own frame of identification for Romanian Roma, but rather sought the attention of the national-communist dictatorship in order to act in the future as a representation of interests and mediator in the dialogue with the Federal Republic for compensation.

At the beginning of the fourth panel, FRIEDERIKE APELT and DAVID PAUL (both Wolfenbüttel) presented the ongoing research project of the Wolfenbüttel Prison Memorial. The subject of the project are Western European prisoners who were imprisoned because of their political opposition against the Nazi regime. In dealing with the marginalized group of victims of the justice system, the project aims to work out, from a cross-national and comparative law perspective to what extent special regulations in compensation practice for those affected existed, whether gradual distinctions were once again made in the victim group or whether conclusions can be drawn about a post-war evaluation of resistance.

MAGDALENA GEBHART (Frankfurt am Main) presented the legal-historical background of the Federal Compensation Act. The practicing lawyers had placed the law – contrary to the formulations of the legislator – in the existing legal tradition of the law. Gebhart illustrated this by referring to civil law constructs. Despite the Federal Supreme Court’s practice of abstracting perpetration and identifying it with the chain of command accordingly with the National Socialist leadership, she assessed this as underestimating the omnipotence of the Nazi state and trivializing state cruelty, which worked as an accumulation of private crimes. Nonetheless, a dogmatic view allows insights into the assumptions of the actors involved and the legal historical background, especially in the context of dealing with newly introduced legal constructs such as a claim for compensation in the case of suicides of persecuted persons.

PHILIPP DINKELAKER (Frankfurt an der Oder) presented the project “Law without Law” on the restitution practice of Nazi looted property. The project aims not only to examine the terminology and legal-historical background of the “Handreichung zur Umsetzung der Erklärung der Bundesregierung, der Länder und der kommunalen Spitzenverbände zur Auffindung und zur Rückgabe NS-verfolgungsbedingt eingezogenen Kulturgutes, insbesondere aus jüdischem Besitz”, but also to produce a legal commentary and to set up a training program to ensure the long-term results of the interdisciplinary working group. In his lecture, Dinkelaker addressed numerous difficulties in restitution practice: recognition limited to persecution within the legal framework, the “priority principle” as a construct of possession law, which has made restitution more difficult with reference to the (potential) “first claimant”, as well as the unclear definition of “cultural goods”.

The fifth panel, devoted to individual cases in restitution processes, was opened by ANNE ROTHFELD (Washington D.C.) with an analysis of Austrian restitution practice, revealing the extent to which the transitional government failed in its obligation to organize restitution channels. Despite the enactment of restitution laws with the approval of the Allies and the recognition of the Luxembourg Agreement, the laws failed in practice, as the identification of Jewish property and owners and restitution were often delayed, if not stopped. Unclaimed property was retained as state property and constituted a second expropriation for the Jewish community.

JANA STOKLASA (Hannover) then looked at the limited restitution payments to workers’ organizations, exemplified by the SPD, KPD and the Konsumgenossenschaft Hannover, which were hindered not only by economic interests, ties to the West and democratization during the German unification process, but also by entanglements with the Nazi regime. The Konsumgenossenschaft, which presented itself as a victim after the war due to the forced partial liquidation and privatization from 1935, had profited directly and indirectly from the Nazi system, for example by employing forced laborers or supplying the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, without coming to terms with this in the post-war period.

KAROLA FINGS (Heidelberg) dealt with the loss of cultural property of German Sinti and Roma as well as the persistent defamation of the victims after the end of the war, which decisively prevented the restitution of property. Due to racist narratives such as the supposed “aculturality” of the victims as well as the insufficient documentation of the looted objects, especially the cultural loss, exemplified in the musical field, was not identifiable. In conclusion, Fings emphasized the importance of examining museum collections to close gaps in research and to anchor the described unmeasurable loss in the public consciousness in the long term.

At the beginning of the final panel, which focused on working with sources, LARA RAABE (Heidelberg) explained that despite their bureaucratic-formalized characteristics, West Berlin restitution files can be read as partial biographical sources and self-testimonies of Sinti and Roma. Based on individual case files, Raabe illustrated not only that the files can provide information about personal status data and property relationships, but also that documents such as correspondence, affidavits and witness statements allow a tracing of individual life stories, agency and individual perspectives of the persecuted.

THÉOPHILE LEROY (Paris) also emphasized the relevance of the compensation files for the reconstruction of the genocide of the Sinti and Roma in the Upper Rhine region. Since a large part of the evidence was destroyed by the National Socialist criminal police immediately before the end of the war, historians are confronted with the methodological challenge of extracting information from restitution files. Using archival material from the Ludwigsburg State Archives, the Karlsruhe General State Archives and the Saarland State Archives, Leroy reconstructed the course and mechanism of the racial identification procedures and deportations of Sinti and Roma by state institutions such as the Rassenhygienische Forschungsstelle (Racial Hygiene Research Center), evaluating victims’ statements.

JÖRN PETRICK (Koblenz) from the Federal Archives presented the online topic portal “Wiedergutmachung” of the Archivportal-D, through which more than 550 holdings of the archives of the federal states and the federal government can be researched via a central access. The holdings are to be supplemented with municipal as well as international holdings and converted into a searchable research platform. The retrieval of digital sources without access restrictions, a topic-related search engine, the development of a “digital reading room” for sensitive documents with access restrictions and additional user services such as podcasts and films are intended to support research and attract new interested parties.

NASTASJA PILZ (Stuttgart) laid the keystone of the symposium with the presentation of the promising and ambitious pilot project of the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg for the digital evaluation and accessibility of restitution files in the Archivportal-D. The project is based on the idea of a “digital reading room” for sensitive documents. Using artificial intelligence and other technical methods, digitization, indexing and text recognition are to revolutionize the work with the vast amounts of restitution files. At the same time, Pilz problematized the sensitive content of the files, which precludes extensive public participation beyond the initial stages of the project.

The interdisciplinary character of the conference can be seen as particularly profitable: This not only enabled an interdisciplinary exchange on the diverse research approaches and subjects, but also the networking and open communication of needs on the one hand and of legal and technical possibilities on the other in the joint engagement with reparation and provenance research. This was reflected in the final discussion, in which the importance of access to files and their source value for social and discourse history was once again highlighted.

Conference overview:

Opening remarks

Constantin Goschler (London): Keynote-Lecture

Panel 1: Compensation of Marginalized German Groups

Chair: Wolfgang Schneider

Jens Kolata (Frankfurt am Main): Reason for Rejection: “Asocial”. The Compensation Practice towards those Affected by the Gestapo’s “Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich” Wave of Arrests in Württemberg and Hohenzollern

Claire Topsom (London): The ‘Silence’ Surrounding Juvenile ‘Asocials’ post World War II

Julia Roos (Bloomington, IN): Forgotten Victims of the National Socialist Forced Sterilization Policy: The German Descendants of French Colonial Soldiers

Panel 2: Compensation for Nazi Medical Crimes

Chair: Sarah Kleinmann

Tiarra Cooper (Amherst, MA): Postwar Claims of Reproductive Damage in Comparative Perspective

Borbála Klacsmann (Dublin): “She Asks for Aid due to Her Health Damage” – The Female Victims of Medical Experiments and their Compensation Claims

Paul Weindling (Oxford): The Mythology of Compensation. The Non-compensation of Mengele Twins and Sinti and Roma Victims of Coerced Medical Experiments

Panel 3: Compensation Struggles in East Central Europe

Chair: Paula Simon

Sarah Grandke (Regensburg): Blank Space Displaced Persons. Political Concentration Camp Prisoners from Eastern Europe, their Struggle and (Non)Compensation for Nazi Injustice

Petre Matei (Cluj-Napoca): The Roma Discourse on the Holocaust compensation in 1980s Communist Romania

Panel 4: Judiciary and “Wiedergutmachung”

Chair: Birgit Klein

Friederike Apelt / David Paul (Wolfenbüttel): „Eternal prisoners?“ Compensation for Convicts during the Nazi Period and its Individual and Social Consequences

Magdalena Gebhart (Frankfurt am Main): Nothing Exceptional? Historical Assumptions in Compensation for Suicide Cases, 1953–1959

Philipp Dinkelaker (Frankfurt an der Oder): Law without Law. Restitution of Nazi Looted Property after 1945

Panel 5: Case Studies of Restitution

Chair: Johannes Heil

Anne Rothfeld (Washington D.C.): Double Expropriation of Stolen Property. United Restitution Organization, Postwar Claimants, and the Luxembourg Agreements

Jana Stoklasa (Hannover): Blindness to the Past in Restitution. Proceedings for Labours’ Organizations in the Young Federal Republic of Germany

Karola Fings (Heidelberg): An Unmeasured Loss. Cultural Assets of German Sinti and Roma

Panel 6: Ad fontes: Potentials and Accessibility of the Sources

Chair: Maria Bogdan

Lara Raabe (Heidelberg): Romani Voices in West Berlin Restitution Proceedings. On the Potential of Compensation Files

Théophile Leroy (Paris): “We were Summoned Family by Family”. Documenting the Sinti and Roma Genocide through German post-war Reparation Files. A Case Study on the Upper Rhine Area

Jörn Petrick (Koblenz): New Opportunities for New Research – The Online-Portal “Compensation of National Socialist Injustice” in the Archive Portal-D

Nastasja Pilz (Stuttgart): Enabling Access through New Approaches of Digitization, Description and Indexing. A Pilot Project on Compensation in the State Archives of Baden-Württemberg