A lawsuit filed by Germany against Italy has caused a stir. Berlin fears expropriations because of demands for Nazi compensation. But the lawsuit is withdrawn – even if only in part.
In the case of compensation for Nazi victims in Italy, Germany has partially withdrawn its lawsuit against the EU and NATO partner country. The International Court of Justice in The Hague announced at the weekend that the Federal Republic revoked its urgent application for preliminary legal protection.
Berlin no longer fears that prestigious institutions in Rome, such as the Goethe Institute or the German School, will be expropriated and foreclosed on by Italy. This was the last threat in the unusual case and was the reason for the appeal to the UN court – but the core of the actual complaint remains.
The legal dispute revolves around the fundamental question of whether Italian victims of German war crimes during the Second World War can sue the Federal Republic for damages. The International Court of Justice rejected this in a judgment in 2012 – but the highest court in Italy sees it differently and has repeatedly allowed victims and survivors to complain.
Italy sets up funds
This led to some courts ordering Germany to pay compensation. Because the Federal Republic refused, on May 25 it was threatened with the judicial expropriation and compulsory auction of real estate such as the buildings of the Goethe Institute and the German School, but also the German Archaeological Institute and the German Historical Institute.
Politically, such violent measures were not wanted in Rome either. That’s why the government recently passed a decree-law for a temporary – or possibly final – solution to the problem: a fund is being set up for the victims of Nazi crimes on Italian territory, from which claims for damages are to be paid. 20 million euros will be made available for 2023, and a good 11.8 million euros each for the three following years.
The decree came into force on May 1, after which Germany, in a letter received in The Hague on May 5, withdrew the application for interim legal protection. The first hearings in the extraordinary cause planned for Monday and Tuesday were canceled.
Years of litigation?
Germany interprets the decree in such a way that Italy’s courts must lift all currently pending enforcement measures and that no action may be taken against German state property on Italian soil in the future. That’s what the Foreign Office wrote in the letter to the court after talks between Rome and Berlin in early May.
Due to the impending expropriation, time was short, so the additional urgent application had to be submitted first. However, the proceedings for the actual lawsuit could drag on for years if Germany does not withdraw its lawsuit in its entirety.
The crimes of the Wehrmacht and the SS against the civilian population, especially during the retreat from Italy shortly before the end of the war, are still being worked up in many places in the Mediterranean country. In 2012, a German-Italian commission of historians came to the conclusion that up to 15,000 civilians were murdered at the time. Places like Marzabotto near Bologna, Fivizzano in Tuscany or the Ardeatine caves south of Rome have become symbols of the massacres of hundreds of civilians by the German occupying forces.
Source: Stern
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