Istria on the Internet - Property Restitution - News - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 14, 2000

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Properties Restitution

January 14, 2000

The other scandal
by Klaus Peter Krause “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, 14^th January 2000

Chancellor Helmut Kohl used party donations in order to maintain secret accounts, violating thereby the Constitution and the Law for Political Parties of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The media, the other political parties and the German people consider this affair a scandal. Oddly enough, the latter never picked up another scandal for which Helmut Kohl is also responsible.

It came about with the German reunification in 1989/90 and regards Kohl's Government assertion concerning the Soviet “condition”. According to Helmut Kohl the Soviet Union allegedly only agreed reunifying Germany provided that all property confiscated during the Soviet Occupation between 1945 and 1949 would not be returned to the former owners who were politically persecuted at that time.

The real truth is: The Soviet Union wanted to secure their own impunity for the unlawful actions they committed during the occupation of East Germany. They wanted to elude compensation claims which were likely to derive from their past actions. Nothing more.

Kohl and his government construed this desire for their own purposes claiming that the Soviet Union had prohibited the restitution of confiscated property.

Under this pretence the Kohl Government made the Federal Parliament, the German people and the Federal Constitutional Court believe a lie. The pretext was made up in order not to be forced to return confiscated property to the former owners, and through the liquidation of the properties be able to finance the up-coming costs of the German unification. If somebody pretends that something which untrue to be the true, although he/she is aware of the truth it is called lying. Likewise incorrect is the statement that the German Democratic Republic made the same condition: no restitution.

In an extensive interview with a German newspaper reporter shortly before the parliamentary election 1998 Kohl answered to the question if politics and human nature in his life are really separable: “ My experience in life is: everything what is right in your private life is also right in your political life. I do not believe in the separation of political and private morals. If you lie in your private life it will come out sooner or later”. How true and – if Kohl's private morals corresponds with his political ones, the ones which have been revealed in connection with his secret accounts and the alleged Soviet condition – how depressing. It is also distressing that Kohl feels more bound by a word of honour regarding the donors than by the law which he just puts off as “ formalities”.

Both scandalous events have one thing in common: For money Kohl indulges injustice.

In contrast, however, to the violation of the law he (Kohl) still has not admitted the truth about the alleged Soviet prohibition of restitution.

On the contrary, he and his henchmen still suppress the facts, even though the evidence is overwhelming.

Kohl and latter not only accept this, but obviously wish that laws which conceal the truth to stay valid and be executed accordingly by the administration and the courts, because no word has crossed their lips which could penetrate the gush of laws. Now as then they consider the objective of their deceit sacrosanct: namely to ensure that the treasury benefits from the liquidation of the stolen assets.

This scandal exceeds by far the scandal regarding the party donations

In its financial dimensions.

In its severe economic damage to the reconstruction in the “new federal states”.

In its dangerous disregard to private property rights.

In its corrosive effect on the division of powers which in this case becomes a fusion of powers.

In its now obvious doubtfulness of Germany as a constitutional state.

As for the victims of the violations during the time of the Soviet occupation the Kohl administration has turned the re-unification into a re-expropriation. It has stopped considerable investments in (former) East Germany which the majority of the victims would have undertaken had they been given back those properties, which are still in the hands of the government. Kohl and his office pretended that it is irrelevant that Russia has rehabilitated those innocent victims of persecutions who had applied for rehabilitation. Through rehabilitation Russia allowed confiscated properties to be retituted.

Kohl and his government have also subjected themselves to the suspicion to have caused Russia to suddenly discontinue issuing rehabilitations. They even have to bear the responsibility for laws which appear to make rehabilitation of the innocent impossible in such a way that the Administrative Court of Dresden has now turned to the Federal Constitutional Court about this.

As the chancellor, Kohl swore in his oath of office to obey the laws and apply the principles of justice. He bluntly neglected these principles regarding those who were politically persecuted in the Soviet Occupation Zone. He and his government have contributed to perpetuating this injustice through laws.

Is an oath a formality too? Even the Greek philosopher Plato recognised “No one commits a greater injustice than the one he commits through an unjust law”. The law scholar Gustav Radbruch stated “ Law has to be founded on truth. The application of law by the Kohl government with respect to the loss of property by those persecuted during the years 1945 to 1949 is not founded on truth. What is the penalty for the violation of the oath of office made by a chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany?

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