Nach Der Verfolgung: Wiedergutmachung Nationalsozialistischen Unrechts in Deutschland?'

H-German Schroeder on Hockerts and Kuller, 'Nach der Verfolgung: Wiedergutmachung nationalsozialistischen Unrechts in Deutschland?'

Review published on Thursday, December 1, 2005

Hans Günter Hockerts, Christiane Kuller. Nach der Verfolgung: Wiedergutmachung nationalsozialistischen Unrechts in Deutschland? Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2003. 288 S. EUR 20.00 (broschiert), ISBN 978-3-89244-625-5.

Reviewed by Gregory Schroeder (Department of History, St. John's University/Collegeville) Published on H-German (December, 2005)

Making Things Right Again: A Very Broad Subject Indeed

This remarkable collection of essays, emerging from the third Dachauer Symposium zur Zeitgeschichte sponsored by the city of Dachau in October 2002, addresses one of the most important yet controversial concepts in post-National Socialist Germany: reparations (Wiedergutmachung) for victims of the Third Reich. One of the pioneers of Wiedergutmachung, Franz Böhm, suggested that a person's views of the Third Reich were reflected in his stance onWiedergutmachung (p. 205); we might say in similar fashion that one's views onWiedergutmachung reflected the sort of postwar Germany he wanted to create. "Making things right again," or the reluctance to do so, has been in many respects at the heart of postwar German identity.

Most readers will likely associate Wiedergutmachung with German-Israeli relations in the 1950s, and this should be no surprise. In his introduction, Hans Günter Hockerts argues that, with the exception of the 1952 agreement with Israel, the history of Germany'sWiedergutmachung has been largely neglected and unwritten, a "straggler" among postwar investigations (p. 9). This collection does much to correct that imbalance. Hockerts's title refers toWiedergutmachung as "ein weites Feld," thus bringing to mind Theodor Fontane's masterpiece, Effi Briest. In that novel, Effi's father habitually halts uncomfortable discussions with the assertion, "Das ist ein weites Feld." Unlike Effi's father, the authors of this collection have explored many different aspects of Wiedergutmachung rather than cite the vastness of the subject as an excuse to avoid unpleasant topics. They have demonstrated that Wiedergutmachung is a broad subject indeed, worthy of much study.

The collection covers the period 1945-2003, and its organization is generally chronological. Most essays pertain to the Federal Republic, although two address the German Democratic Republic and two examine the post-unification period. Several essays examine aspects ofWiedergutmachung as official, state-administered programs, whereas others investigate non-state initiatives or offer the perspectives of the victims/applicants. The source bases for the essays include, among others, records from federal agencies, state finance offices, church archives, letters from victims/applicants, and professional legal journals pertaining to Wiedergutmachung.

In two introductory essays, editors Hans Günter Hockerts and Christiane Kuller provide the framework and foundation, respectively, for the collection. In "Wiedergutmachung: Ein umstrittener

Begriff und ein weites Feld," Hockerts addresses the problematic termWiedergutmachung , which draws criticism because of the impossibility of undoing the crimes of the Third Reich. He argues that the term is better understood in a "semantic context" of associated ideas: to replace (ersetzen), to pay (bezahlen), and to atone for (sühnen) (p. 10), each of which is part of the concept "to make good again" (wiedergutmachen). Hockerts differentiates the various forms Wiedergutmachung has taken in the period 1945-2003: restitution (Rückerstattung) for the loss of material property; compensation (Entschädigung) for personal damages such as the loss of or damage to one's health, freedom, or professional existence; privileges and special regulations in areas such as social insurance; judicial rehabilitation, such as the restoration of citizenship; international treaties; efforts to promote remembrance; and initiatives emerging from non-state entities. In addition, Hockerts identifies recognized and "forgotten" victim groups. This introductory essay provides the necessary framework for understanding the significance of all the other articles (excepting the other introductory piece by Kuller). Hockerts's assertion that Wiedergutmachung has always been "very closely interwoven with the structures, ideas, and interests" prevalent in society at any given time (p. 8) is supported admirably throughout the collection.

Kuller sketches the historical background in "Dimensionen nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung." Its contents will be familiar to most readers who have a solid understanding of the Third Reich, but Kuller's emphasis on the vastness of National Socialist persecution directs attention to aspects that would shape and complicate Wiedergutmachung after 1945. She identifies various "arenas" of persecution (pp. 37-39): in places such as concentration camps, prisons, and medical facilities, and in interactions with officials, within one's profession, and in public life. The victims were persecuted by party, state, and "mixed" agencies, with varying degrees of public support. Kuller emphasizes the great importance of the Second World War, which radicalized persecution within the Reich and transformed Nazi persecution into a European phenomenon. In occupied territories, the ideologically determined character of the war blurred the boundaries between persecution of civilian populations and legitimate acts of war. Persecution took many forms, ranging from personal humiliation to murder. Most important are Kuller's observations about the difficulties in defining persecution in the postwar era, especially with respect to the legal concept of "victim of National Socialist persecution" (Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung). For example, it was often difficult to determine eligibility for compensation and, beyond that, the nature and extent of damage and suffering. Furthermore, Wiedergutmachung was designed to address the needs of German citizens, so it excluded the large majority of non-German victims of the Third Reich. The subsequent articles elaborate the difficulties Kuller sketches in her essay.

Jürgen Lillteicher's essay "Die Rückerstattung in Westdeutschland: Ein Kapitel deutscher Vergangenheitspolitik?" deals with the restitution component ofWiedergutmachung , the one-time payments for the loss of property. Lillteicher has found a great deal of resistance and a lack of understanding of Nazi crimes on the part of Germans, arguing that British and U.S. influence was essential to keep the program on track (p. 68). Occupation-era restitution laws, reaffirmed in a treaty in 1952 between the Allies and the Federal Republic, formed the basis for the Bundesrückerstattungsgesetz (BRüG) of 1957. Lillteicher documents the resistance of German officials, in particular those in the finance offices and the Bundesfinanzhof, who attempted in the early 1950s to collect back taxes on restored property; the Allied High Commission intervened to reverse this policy. Lillteicher finds further resistance in connection with the Rückerstattungsgeschädigte or "restitution-damaged": Germans who had acquired the property of

In "Der Beitrag der Rechtsprechung zur Entschädigung von NS-Unrecht und der Begriff der politischen Verfolgung," Cornelius Pawlita demonstrates that, in the absence of clear guidelines, implementation of compensation Entschädigung( ) laws depended greatly on the courts' interpretations. The concept of political persecution as stipulated in the Bundesergänzungsgesetz (BErG) of 1953 posed many problems, and it fell to the courts to determine who had been persecuted and who had not. The courts established that to be considered a political persecutee, one had to have acted specifically against the Third Reich because of a genuine, inner conviction (Überzeugung), and this conviction had to have been the cause of the persecution (p. 84). The Bundesentschädigungsgesetz (BEG) of 1956 addressed the subjective character of political "conviction" and changed the criterion to political "opposition" (Gegnerschaft). Now it was important whether the regime considered a person to be a political enemy: real, imagined, or entirely "innocent" (pp. 86-87). Important groups fell through the cracks for various reasons. For example, non-Germans were excluded from the start; victims of sterilization programs were considered subject to legitimate eugenics policies; actions against the Sinti and Roma were interpreted as justified police measures; and actions against Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to take part in the war were considered necessary for the state in time of war. There was no uniform practice for determining whether acts of resistance were worthy of compensation, and communists were typically excluded because it was determined that they had worked in the service of another totalitarian system. Pawlita argues that the courts acted subjectively and served a state-supporting (staatstragende) function in the early years of the Federal Republic. A relatively restrictive understanding of persecution served not only fiscal but also political ends; reducing the range of "typical National Socialist injustice" allowed the actions of the German Reich or nation to be separated from the actions of the Third Reich (pp. 99-101).

In "Zwei Wege der Wiedergutmachung? Der Umgang mit NS-Verfolgten in West-und Ostdeutschland im Vergleich," Constantin Goschler compares Wiedergutmachung in East and West with respect to the political decision-making processes behind the compensation, the legal foundations and ideological assumptions of each system, and the functioning of the two approaches in action. Goschler's approach illuminates two vastly different approaches to Wiedergutmachung, each clearly rooted in its emerging postwar political system. West Germany approached Wiedergutmachung with an arcane, bureaucratized structure executed by experts and designed to reestablish bourgeois social relations on the basis of support to individuals. The judicial, bureaucratic character of the procedure in the West often pitted victims against the bureaucracy. In contrast, East Germany's Wiedergutmachung was dominated by the SED in an attempt to construct and reinforce a socialist society. Western Wiedergutmachung went largely to Jews as victims of the Nazis, whereas eastern policy favored communists as anti-fascists. Despite enormous differences, each state constructed a system of Wiedergutmachung that reflected its interpretation of the past and its socio-political goals in the present. Of all the essays in the collection, this one will likely provide the greatest stimulus to further research, because it opens fundamental questions in both Germanies.

The essays by Lillteicher, Pawlita, and Goschler emphasize Wiedergutmachung as an official project of the German state, whether East or West. This perspective suggests that the interests of the German state and society were as important as, if not more important than, the interests of the victims when it came to developing and implementingWiedergutmachung . In his introduction, Hockerts cites the work of Norbert Frei,[1] who interprets the West German Vergangenheitspolitik in the early 1950s as an effort to blur the boundaries between perpetrators and victims in pursuit of integration and normalcy (p. 8). Lillteicher interprets Rückerstattung explicitly in these terms (p. 62), Goschler points to the integrative function in both states (p. 121), and Pawlita's subject lends itself to similar considerations.

Christian Staffa and Dietmar Süß examine efforts by members of the Protestant and Catholic churches, respectively, to foster reconciliation and Wiedergutmachung directly, without intervention by or sponsorship of the government. In these cases, the self-critical impulse came from a small group within the church that recognized the need to focus attention on non-German victims. Both efforts faced some cynicism on the part of victims, however, who feared that relatively "inexpensive" private, religious acts might be substituted for more substantialWiedergutmachung on the part of the German state (pp. 150, 162). Staffa's "Die 'Aktion Sühnezeichen': Eine protestantische Initiative zu einer besonderen Art der Wiedergutmachung" investigates the foundation and work of a group that organized itself on the theological concept of atonement (Sühne) toward the nations and peoples who had suffered under Nazi rule (p. 146). The group was organized in both Germanies in the late 1950s, but Cold War politics after the construction of the Berlin Wall prevented coordinated activities. The western group was named Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ASF), the eastern group simply Aktion Sühnezeichen (ASZ); Staffa emphasizes the ASF and leaves the reader wanting to know more about the ASZ. An important component of this work was the volunteer service to peoples victimized by the Germans during the war. ASF groups traveled to and worked in Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, the USSR, Israel, France, Yugoslavia, and Crete, whereas the ASZ was initially restricted to work within East Germany but later allowed to serve at concentration camp sites in Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia (pp. 150-152). Staffa offers a view of the ASF/ASZ that combines theological motivations and self-understanding with practical deeds on behalf of victims.

In "Wiedergutmachung von unten? Katholische Vergangenheitsbewältigung und die Entstehung des Maximilian-Kolbe-Werkes," Süß explores a Catholic counterpart to the ASF/ASZ. The Maximilian- Kolbe-Werk (MKW), founded in 1973, was shaped by the discussions, membership, and initiatives of the Pax Christi peace movement in the early postwar era (pp. 159-164). Süß argues that by the early 1970s, the Catholic milieu had shifted attention from its own suffering under Nazism to the suffering of foreign victims of Nazi terror. As an act of solidarity, the MKW directed its efforts toward providing material support to Polish victims, whether Jewish or Christian, of the concentration camps (p. 165). Süß demonstrates that the MKW worked not only to provide material aid, first to Poles and then to victims in the former Soviet states, but also to address the moral and ethical questions arising from the crimes of the regime. The MKW was therefore involved in efforts to achieve reconciliation by stressing the perspective of victims and organizing youth trips to sites of Nazi terror and encounters with survivors.

The case studies by Staffa and Süß open a fascinating set of possibilities for research into areas such as the work of other private groups, the motivations of citizens, and relations between Germans and non-Germans below the level of official government actions.

Despite their different emphases, the next two contributions offer important insights into the personal, rather than only bureaucratic, side of the persecution and postwar Wiedergutmachung. In "Konfrontationen: Biographische Zugänge zu Verfolgern und Verfolgten zwischen Raub und Rückerstattung," Alfons Kenkmann explores the lives of two individuals to explain how finance offices took part in the persecution of German Jews. Irmgard Baer and her family in Bielefeld were systematically impoverished by restrictions on their wealth, and all were murdered by 1942. Kenkmann demonstrates that between 1936 and 1940, the Baer family dealt repeatedly with the Westphalian State Finance Office, especially the section for foreign exchange headed by Heinrich Heising. Heising was appointed during the Weimar era, continued to serve through the Third Reich, and remained in place in the Federal Republic, enjoying a successful career path and promotions. Kenkmann argues that Heising and his office facilitated the Nazi persecution of Jews and then participated in the "second mocking of the victims" (p. 187) by challenging their claims for Wiedergutmachung after 1945. As a member of the post-Nazi bureaucracy involved with restitution, Heising, like many Germans, equated "German suffering" in the war with the crimes against the victims of the Third Reich. This essay offers important insights into the continuity of the German bureaucracy and its ability to foster Nazi criminality even in the absence of a commitment to Nazi ideology (p. 189). Compared to the other contributions, however, its connection to Wiedergutmachung is the most tenuous, for the emphasis of the article clearly falls on the period of the robbery (cf. title). Given its content and the era under discussion, it probably should precede the essays by Lillteicher and Pawlita.

Tobias Winstel's "Über die Bedeutung der Wiedergutmachung im Leben der jüdischen NS-Verfolgten: Erfahrungsgeschichtliche Annäherungen" explores the impact ofWiedergutmachung from the perspective of the Jewish victims who received support. He offers a framework of three interrelated concepts to evaluateWiedergutmachung : reconciliation, rehabilitation, and compensation. Reconciliation as a process of engagement and understanding in the early postwar years was made difficult by a general unwillingness on the part of West German society to acknowledge guilt and by the reluctance of many victims to accept "blood money" from the perpetrators. Furthermore, the very process of Wiedergutmachung transformed the individual, lived experiences of victims into bureaucratic, legal confrontations that often left victims unsatisfied. Winstel argues, however, that the process of Wiedergutmachung actually served to rehabilitate victims, for the legal proceedings acknowledged the victims' suffering and reestablished their membership in a system of law and justice (pp. 210-211). Despite the many disappointments for applicants, Wiedergutmachung did offer the possibility of "repairing" their damaged identities. Finally, Winstel argues clearly that the material compensation was enormously important for the Jewish recipients, for in the context of postwar devastation and poverty, the payments, pensions, and services provided stability and security that should not be underestimated. It is, therefore, the totality ofWiedergutmachung as examined here, argues Winstel, that constitutes the effect of Wiedergutmachung for the victims (p. 220).

The last two essays examine the expansion of the official program of Wiedergutmachung in the 1990s to include foreign forced laborers. Barbara Distel presents cases of eastern European appeals in "Hilferufe nach Dachau: Lücken im Netz der Entschädigung," characterizing the fate of the Soviet KZ prisoners as a topic that vanished from the consciousness of West Germany and the West in general after 1945 (p. 229). After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, eastern Europeans began to contact Germany to gain compensation for their forced labor under the Third Reich. Distel examines appeals made to the KZ Dachau by Soviet survivors of the camp, citing

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Schroeder on Hockerts and Kuller, 'Nach der Verfolgung: Wiedergutmachung nationalsozialistischen Unrechts in Deutschland?'. H-German. 09-30-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/35008/reviews/44444/schroeder-hockerts-and-kuller-nach-der-verfolgung-wiedergutmachung Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 5 H-German letters in the 1990s from post-Soviet states such as Ukraine. These letters describe the often pitiful circumstances of the authors, who returned to a destroyed land and lived under suspicion because of their time in Nazi Germany. After the collapse of Soviet social security structures, these people found themselves in untenable circumstances and turned to Germany (pp. 230-231). Distel outlines early efforts by the Förderverein für Internationale Jugendbegegnung in Dachau and the staff of the memorial site at Dachau to sponsor visits by former prisoners to the camp, provide material aid, and collect money for those in need in their home countries. She argues convincingly that the recognition of the victims' suffering was an important part of the effort. With the creation of the foundation "Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft" in 2000, the federal government and industry established formal compensation (Entschädigung) for KZ victims. The foundation has functioned successfully, but its work has been hampered by significant problems such as incomplete records for many victims and questionable distribution of funds to the victims in their home countries. Distel's work provides an essential and humane perspective into the lives of victims who had been truly marginalized if not entirely ignored in postwar discussions of guilt, responsibility, and "making things right again."

Günter Saathoff's "Entschädigung für Zwangsarbeiter? Entstehung und Leistungen der Bundesstiftung 'Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft' im Kontext der Debatte um die 'vergessenen Opfer'" continues where Distel's essay leaves off and characterizes the creation of the foundation in 2000 as long overdue. The foundation resulted from debates over "forgotten victims" in the mid-1980s, increasing pressure on behalf of forced laborers, the new SPD-Green coalition government in the late 1990s, and the threat of class-action lawsuits in the United States. Saathoff argues that the central point of the agreement to create the foundation was the combination of humanitarian aid for the victims and legal guarantees for the state and German industry that no further claims would be made; the declaration by the United States to make no more reparations claims against Germany was decisive (pp. 243-244, 248). The primary beneficiaries are civilian forced laborers, but other damages and victims are included as well: Jews, Sinti and Roma, victims of medical experiments, and KZ and ghetto prisoners. The aid is distributed by the International Organization of Migration, the Jewish Claims Conference, and agencies in several eastern European countries. Saathoff estimates that by the end of 2002, 1.95 billion euros will have been paid to 1,135,000 victims in 73 countries (pp. 251-252). In addition, the foundation created a fund named "Erinnerung und Zukunft" to keep alive the memory of victims and to promote understanding among peoples, international cooperation, and the "interests of survivors of the National Socialist regime" (p. 255).

Saathoff concludes his essay with a set of nine theses pertaining to the larger project of Wiedergutmachung, and in many respects, his theses serve well as a conclusion to the entire collection. He comments upon the fundamentally moral aspect of the debates, the ideological currents that defined positions, and the expanding understanding of "victims." Perhaps his most important conclusion concerns the "change of values" (Wertewandel) that occurred over the course of the postwar era: whereas the Germany of the 1950s did not support compensation of victims of National Socialism, the Germany of the late 1980s and 1990s had undergone a political transformation and sought to compensate those who had been passed over after decades of Wiedergutmachung (pp. 263-264).

The collection is not exhaustive, nor does it claim to be. It does not, for example, discuss the 1952 agreement with Israel, although some greater attention to this subject would have provided a fuller

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Schroeder on Hockerts and Kuller, 'Nach der Verfolgung: Wiedergutmachung nationalsozialistischen Unrechts in Deutschland?'. H-German. 09-30-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/35008/reviews/44444/schroeder-hockerts-and-kuller-nach-der-verfolgung-wiedergutmachung Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 6 H-German overall picture of Wiedergutmachung. More emphasis on the victims' perspective, beyond the valuable insights by Winstel and Distel, would be welcome as well. The collection does, however, offer an intriguing definition ofWiedergutmachung . By considering topics far beyond the 1952 accord, the authors argue that Wiedergutmachung is a long-term process that has manifested itself in many ways. Beginning with state-sponsored programs, many of them executed without public support or interest, it developed into a more widely accepted set of initiatives that strove both to expand the understanding of National Socialist persecution and to respond morally and humanely to the crimes of the past. Hockerts's notion of the broad "semantic context" underpins this understanding of Wiedergutmachung, and several of the other authors (e.g., Staffa, Süß, Winstel, and Saathoff) demonstrate clearly the interaction of replacement, payment, and atonement in specific cases. Although the collection supports Frei's arguments about Vergangenheitspolitik in the 1950s, it also documents the sorts of developments that enabled the Wertewandel posited by Saathoff.

Nach der Verfolgung is a fine collection whose individual components fit together very well. It provides a valuable overview and maps important directions for other scholars.

Note

[1]. Norbert Frei, Vergangenheitspolitik: Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1996). In translation: Norbert Frei, Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration, translated by Joel Golb (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

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Citation: Gregory Schroeder. Review of Hockerts, Hans Günter; Kuller, Christiane,Nach der Verfolgung: Wiedergutmachung nationalsozialistischen Unrechts in Deutschland?. H-German, H-Net Reviews. December, 2005. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11277

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