Greeks press Nazi damages claim

[Marcus]

Greece's highest court is due to examine on Wednesday whether the families of people killed by the Nazis during World War II can go ahead with claims for compensation from Germany.
It is thought about 65,000 claims depend on the ruling of the special supreme court.
The plaintiffs argue that Greek courts should be allowed to settle claims against a foreign government.
The claimants are mostly relatives of people killed by German soldiers during their occupation of Greece.
But they include survivors of wartime atrocities in dozens of Greek towns and villages.
Germany argues that it settled all claims in the 1960s.
Those seeking compensation have been backed by lower courts, which asked Germany to pay damages.
But efforts by court officials to seize German state property in Athens were suspended after Germany appealed, arguing that Greek courts had no jurisdiction in the issue.
...
Germany has repeatedly said it will not give more, having made a collective payment of $67m in the 1960s.
Last month visiting German Finance Minister Hans Eichel told reporters the reparations case was over as far as Germany was concerned.
But campaigners insist that Greece must allow the action to go ahead, and that Germany accept liability.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/ ... 934255.stm

/Marcus

[alsaco]

To Markus, 17/4

Thank you for the information given.

Greeks have heavily suffered from german troops, mainly SS, in 1944, after they lost control outside main towns. Numerous villages have seen a killing of male population, the plundering of properties, and the burning of houses.
This is probably not sufficiently known. Murders of civilians and partisans in Kreta are mentioned in relation with british commando expeditions, but the civil war in 1946 did mask with new atrocities the german ones, two years before.
However the demand for compensation seems in some ways a bad idea. No amount can cover the facts, murders in particular. Renewing the griefs after nearly 60 years is more political then human. Young greeks do not need to be remembered that the local grand-father fighted, and how, against the grand-father of the german tourist he sees now travelling around.
Remembering is one thing, but renewing the memories needs dignity. And the demand for money puts a veil of vulgarity on a valiant fighting. I dont like the idea that money can wish out and compensate undue killings, practised by both parties, in a gruesome, but historically existent war.

[Mark Alinsky]

The Second World War made Germany the world's cash cow.

[Davey Boy]

I'm not sure about the valididty of such a claim. It's not like the Slave laborers' case where the companies that used these people, and got rich on them, are still around to pay what they owe.