Greece Says Germany Owes It €162 Billion In War Reparations

The cash would help with Greece's debts

Πηγή: Huffington Post
April 9 2013

Greece is considering slapping a €162 billion invoice on Germany as compensation for the Second World War.

Athens has compiled a top-secret report that says the cash - enough to solve the Greeks' debt crisis - is owed in war reparations, Der Spiegel reported.

But the Greeks are said to be reluctant to take on mighty Germany over the debt, for fear of antagonising its Eurozone paymaster.

The Greek media is said to be more bullish, with the To Vima newspaper headlined: "What Germany Owes Us".

It set out a number of possible ways that Germany could repay the cash, after a panel of experts spent months preparing the 80-page classified report.

Details of its findings were leaked to To Vima, Der Spiegel said.

Its conclusion was that "Greece never received any compensation, either for the loans it was forced to provide to Germany or for the damages it suffered during the war."

A wealth of archive material was studied as part of the assessment, and the total includes cash for the reconstruction of infrastructure, and the repayment of 'forced loans'.

Athens, whilst reserving the right to take action in the future, was said to be wary of pressing ahead with a demand for payment.

Der Spiegel quoted a senior government official saying: "This is no time to pick a fight with Berlin."

Greece Names Nazi Reparations Panel

Πηγή: New York Times
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
Sept 11 2012

ATHENS — The Greek government has appointed a panel to determine whether Germany might still owe Greece money in reparations for Nazi war crimes, a move that indicates the extent to which the shaky coalition government in Athens is trying to appease lawmakers from the extreme right and left.

Christos Staikouras, a deputy finance minister, on Monday signed a decision appointing four members of the State Audit Council to scour historical archives “in relation to German reparations” and to issue a verdict by year-end.

The move comes as the so-called troika of Greece’s foreign creditors are scrutinizing the government’s books to determine whether the country will receive the next installment of rescue loans it needs to stay solvent.

Part of the challenge for the coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is to get his two restive coalition partners to approve a package of austerity measures worth €11.5 billion, or about $15 billion, that the foreign creditors are demanding, and appease vehement opposition to the measures from the other parties in Parliament.

The issue of reparations is a longstanding one for Greece, where thousands died at the hands of Nazi troops. Recently, it has been broached by lawmakers from parties of the ascendant far right and extreme left, which made big gains in the June general elections after campaigning on anti-austerity platforms.

Last week, Notis Marias, a member of Parliament from the right wing party Independent Greeks, declared, “Greece is borrowing from its debtors, at a time that the government is planning a social assault on our people.”

Mr. Staikouras responded that the inquiry would be handled with a “realistic and cool-headed approach.” At the Paris Peace Conference of 1946, he said, it was agreed that the amount due in reparations was $7.5 billion — for damages and for loans the country was forced to make to Germany — of which only about $100 million has been paid.

But it remains unclear what the legal basis for Greece’s claim may be. In April, German officials said Germany had already paid reparations as part of a 1946 agreement and that the matter was closed. And in February, the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, ruled that Germany had legal immunity from being sued in foreign courts by victims of World War II atrocities.

Even if there is a legitimate basis for the Greek claims, some say reparations will not be paid, as the initiative is for domestic consumption. It could also be a risky gamble at a time when Greece is more dependent than ever on the goodwill of its European partners.

“It’s a very clumsy move, probably the clumsiest since the crisis broke,” said Takis Michas, an analyst.

He added that the initiative would simply “annoy Germany and suggest that Greece is not willing to push reforms.”

Archivist tracks down the 'lost babies' of Cyprus' Jewish refugee camps

Cyprus-born Zehavit Blumenfeld and Yitzhak Teutsch at Tel Aviv’s memorial to the illegal immigrants.

Πηγή: Haaretz
By Ofer Aderet
August 24 2012

The infants' parents had been on their way to Israel after World War II when the British seized their ships and sent them to Cyprus.
Yitzhak Teutsch, director of the American Joint Distribution Committee's archives in Jerusalem, is trying to document more than 2,000 babies born to Jewish refugees interned in Cypriot camps between 1946 and 1949.

The infants' parents had been on their way to Israel after World War II when the British seized their ships and sent them to Cyprus. Until now, around 65 years later, no comprehensive list of the children's names and other details has been found.

"My theory is that someone decided, for some reason, to throw that list away," says Teutsch. "Perhaps they thought it wasn't important, or maybe nobody knew the camps would be in operation for so long and consequently the relevant documentation wasn't saved."

The Joint's Jerusalem archives hold records of its activities to help Jews worldwide since its establishment at the beginning of the last century. But only a handful of portfolios relate to the Jews in Cyprus.

Two years ago, a Joint archivist cataloging the Joint's activities in Cyprus noticed there was no comprehensive list of babies born in the camps. Teutsch decided to research the matter, assuming he would find other papers in the archives to help him complete the list.

From 1946 to 1949, over a course of 30 months, some 53,000 Jews immigrating to Israel in 40 ships were deported to Cyprus and interned in 12 camps. Some 80 percent of them were between 13 and 25 years old and almost all had survived the Nazi extermination camps.

Teutsch found reports sent by the British military hospital in Cyprus to the Joint, listing the childbirths in the camps. "The British sent weekly lists of the births. We have about 20 such reports, consisting of about 600 names," he says.

Teutsch then had to widen his search for the remaining names. He first tried Britain's National Archives and its Imperial War Museum, but in vain. He asked for the British parliament's help and a parliamentary question is expected to be submitted soon, obliging the government to provide access to the information.

At this point, a librarian from the University of Southampton in England contacted Teutsch and said he had traced a birth ledger from the Cyprus camps, compiled by a local rabbi. The list consists of 400 names, some of them in Hebrew, with birth dates and the names of the father and mother. Most of the names did not appear on the lists Teutsch had already found.

Teutsch traced other important documents in the Atlit National Heritage Site, where an immigrant detention camp had been located, the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem and the International Tracing Service in Germany, operated under the administrative umbrella of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Only then did it occur to Teutsch to check the Israel State Archives, located a 10-minute drive away from the Joint's offices in Jerusalem. There he found 400 additional names, as well as British police reports.

"When the immigrants came to Israel they were considered illegal and the British police opened files on them [before deporting them]. It's amazing. You open them and see the pictures and fingerprints they took from them," he says. In some cases, the "identifying marks" section includes the numbers engraved on the Holocaust survivors' arms.

'Moved to tears'

So far Teutsch has contacted several dozens of the "Cyprus babies," today about 65 years old. He has met some of them personally. They were all excited and wanted to find their birth certificates, he says.

One of them, Zehavit Blumenfeld of Ramat Gan, found her own birth certificate a decade ago. Blumenfeld, who assists patients from Cyprus who come for medical treatments in Israel, met a Cypriot at Sheba Medical Center, in Tel Hashomer, who works in Cyprus' Interior Ministry. "He asked me why I was helping Cypriots, so I told him I was born there," she says.

The man invited Blumenfeld to visit the ministry in Cyprus, where she found her birth certificate. "It moved me to tears. It had all the details - the camp where I was born, details of my parents and my mother's maiden name," she says.

Blumenfeld's parents were born in Romania. The ship they had boarded was seized by the British on the way to Israel after World War II and they were taken to Cyprus on January 1, 1948. Four months later she was born in the British military hospital in Cyprus. After the State of Israel was established, the family immigrated to Israel.

"As a child I didn't want to hear that story, but today it burns in my bones," she says. "In old age, people's identity becomes very important to them and they start seeking it again."

Teutsch has exchanged emails with the Cyprus babies he has traced so far. He now has 1,700 names on his list, and is busy tracking down about 500 others. He believes most of them live in Israel, but that some are based in the United States and Europe.

He says the documents he has found describe a critical period in Israel's history, which nobody has bothered to check before. "These people are the only living connection we have to that period," he says. "The British soldiers are long gone, the fences were removed and the camps have disappeared. Only these people remain."

Debt Crisis Twist: Does Germany Owe Greece 70 Billion From World War II?

Πηγή: Worldcrunch
By Sven Felix Kellerhoff - DIE WELT

Sep 19 2011


Germany continues to shoulder much of the load when it comes to Europe’s bailout of Greece. For some Greeks, that’s just as it should be. After all, Germany still has billions of euros in unpaid reparations bills from World War II. Die Welt takes a closer look.

BERLIN - In the current debate about the possible bankruptcy of the Greek state, one largely dormant argument has recently resurfaced with increasing frequency: the widespread damage inflicted by the Nazi regime during World War II means that Germany still owes Greece major outstanding wartime reparations.

While the claims for payment of damages are based on very real facts, one could likewise argue that over the course of 60 years or so, those claims have already been satisfied under international law.

What is at stake? Without having been provoked, the Wehrmacht – the Third Reich’s armed forces – took over both Greece and Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. In both countries, German soldiers set up a brutal occupation regime. As was usually the case in European nations invaded by the Germans, the high cost of the occupation was borne by the occupied country -- and the Greek economy was plundered through forced exports.

This resulted in galloping inflation and a radically lower standard of living for Greeks. Additionally, the Third Reich forced the Greek National Bank to lend Hitler’s Germany 476 million Reichsmarks interest-free.

After Germany’s surrender, the Allied powers organized the Paris Conference on Reparations in the fall of 1945. Greece laid claim to $10 billion, or half the total amount of $20 billion the Soviets suggested that Germany pay.

The suffering caused to Greece by the Nazis is undeniable. Yet at the same time, human suffering cannot really be measured. Independent historians unanimously agree that the total economically measurable damages suffered by Greece as a result of the German occupation, in both absolute numbers as well as proportionate to the population, put Greece in fourth place after Poland, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

At the Paris Conference on Reparations, Greece was finally accorded 4.5% in material German reparation and 2.7% in other forms of reparations. Practically, this meant that Greece received mainly material goods – such as machines made in West Germany – worth approximately $25 million, or 105 million marks, which in today’s money amounts to as much as 2 billion euros.

However, the stipulations made at the Paris conference were all but irrelevant given that the United States opposed heavy economic penalties. U.S. leaders recalled what happened after World War I, when Germany’s first democracy, the Weimar Republic, was massively weakened economically by having to pay off reparations. Indeed, one of the consequences of this policy was the rise of Hitler.

All four allies agreed

That is why under the terms of the 1953 London Debt Agreement, reparation payments were put off until a “peace treaty” was signed. That finally happened in 1990, which didn't require Germany to pay further reparations to other countries like Greece.

Greece accepted the treaty, though clearly it had little choice. After decades of partnership with Germany (Greece had been a member of NATO since 1952 and associated with the European organizations since 1961) it would have been politically difficult to demand huge reparations – although periodically the issue of compensation was raised by Greek politicians, mostly to score points in domestic politics.

And yet payments were made over the years – at different times and from different pots – probably as much as 30 billion euros since 1949, although given the variety of agreements that were reached it’s impossible to say with certainty.

Independent from all other claims, the Federal Republic of Germany did pay compensation to individual victims of Nazi crimes. On March 18, 1960, an agreement was signed between Greece and West Germany to the effect that Germany would pay 115 million marks to Greek victims of the Nazi occupation. The agreement was made under the stipulation that no further claims for individual damages would be accepted.

However, claims from the descendants of Greek victims continued to be made. The best known case was made by children of the residents of a village called Distomo who were killed on June 10, 1944 in what the Germans called a “retaliatory strike.“ In 1997, they received a verdict that they were entitled to 37.5 million euros in damages from Germany. After much legal wrangling, the case is now before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Another legal issue that has surfaced concerns the 476 million Reichsmarks lent against its will to Germany by the Greek National Bank during the war. If this were to be considered a form of war damage, then in principle it would be subject to reparation – except that according to the 1990 treaty Germany would not have to pay it. If the money were, however, to be considered a “normal” credit, then Greece would be entitled to get the money back.

Without interest, the amount in today’s money would amount to 10 billion euros. With interest at 3% over 66 years that would come to at least 70 billion euros. The problem is this: even just partial recognition of such a debt would create a precedent that could bring untold further claims in its wake.

Top secret: Terminators of the Soviet Union

Πηγή: Pravda ru

By Margarita Troitsina

19.07.2011

American historian Jeff Strasberg in his book provides considerable evidence that within the period from 1936 to 1941 the Soviet Union was working on top secret project to create super-soldiers. He argues that the experiment involved some 300 volunteers of young age and cites numerous eyewitness accounts.

The soldiers were not stuffed with chemicals or drugged out. They were implanted gold electrodes in their brains, eliminating the pain center. Their limb bones were replaced with titanium implants that protected the soft tissues against landmines or shells, as well as from gunshot injuries. In this case, any injury was not threatening and would not cause crushing bones and amputations.

Strasberg said that the experiment involved some 300 volunteers of young age (although participation was rather forced than voluntary). All the soldiers had to sign the non-disclosure, and the disclosure of the "military secrets" would result in death.

Half of the participants later left for the military districts, and the other half formed a special landing unit. A week before the start of World War II it was relocated to the Brest region, where on the first day of the war it was completely destroyed by the German artillery. Perhaps the Nazi intelligence reported about the "super-soldiers" in advance.

However, another 150 victims of horrific experiments on human flesh were still alive. Perhaps, there were more than 150. In 1945, American allies captured a secret medical facility in Germany. Inside there were dozens of autopsies that belonged to the Soviet troops. The bones in their bodies were replaced with steel prosthesis. There was a body of an officer with metal ribs. Several people were made dwarfs. They would become pilots, as stunted people were less vulnerable to the enemy and could take more fuel and ammunition on board the aircraft.

The work of the center for the production of the "universal soldiers" was interrupted with the outbreak of World War II. Nearly all of its employees had been mobilized into the army and died at the front. It is not ruled out that the intelligence agencies took care of it as such witnesses were dangerous if left alive.

After the war the project was shut down as non-beneficial. A nuclear bomb was created, and the idea of soldiers-terminators was deemed obsolete.

As it turns out, Strasberg's book was not the only source of information about the "super soldiers."

In 1994, Vitebsk physician Sergei Konovalenko found remains of a man at an old cemetery at the outskirts of the city. Obviously, one of the graves sapped the river water and the contents rose to the surface. He was surprised that a bony skeleton was connected with metal prosthesis on hinges. The prosthetics clearly replaced the human bones, not just arms and legs. Each of them displayed a star with hammer and sickle, and the inscription: "Kharkov. 05.39. ASCH."

Konovalenko did not touch his finding since he thought it to be sacrilege. Two days later he was passing by again, but the mysterious remnants have disappeared. They were either washed away by rain into the river, or picked up by someone.

Sergei could not forget about this story and decided to investigate. He found out that before the war there was a secret center of military prosthetics in the city of Vitebsk. At the center the limbs and joints of healthy Red Army soldiers were replaced by artificial ones.

During his "investigation" Sergei Konovalenko came across a copy of a video tape intended "for official use." The footage looked horrible: a soldier's leg is cut at the knee and the bone is pulled out, then something metallic is tucked in its place. At the same commentator says that the operation is performed without anesthesia, as the pain center was removed from the human brain. The soldier exposed to these brutal manipulations is smiling. In the second part the soldier's arm is cut off at the elbow - a fountain of blood is splashing. And again, the "volunteer" has a humble smile on his face.

According to Konovalenko, many died after such surgeries since foreign parts were rejected by the human body. The majority of the soldiers with disabled pain centers subsequently developed brain tumors or mental illnesses. The Soviet military surgeons did not manage to create an army of invincible soldiers, although still won the war.