Germany: Rejections of multi-billion dollar

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe dismissed calls by former property owners including aristocrats, farmers, major companies and banks for millions of acres of land, castles and factories seized without compensation by the Soviet Union occupation forces in eastern Germany between 1945 and 1949.

Claimants, who had already lost two earlier cases in the high court, argued in their latest lawsuit that the decision not to return property violated the constitutional right of equality because property seized from 1949 to 1989 by the East German state has been given back to former owners.

The lawsuit rejected by the court had been seeking some 20 billion marks (9 billion dollars) in compensation from the German state which kept the property and is now selling it off with proceeds going to the finance ministry. Compensation for those who lost property from 1945 to 1949 will be limited to small, symbolic payments which will be made from 2004.

Eastern Germany was under Soviet occupation from 1945 to 1949 when the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was founded. Then German chancellor Helmut Kohl said the former Soviet Union made non-return of property seized under its administration a precondition for approving the 1990 German unification. This was accepted by German courts even though it was later denied by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Kohl is currently the target of a criminal and parliamentary probe after admitting he took up to 2 million marks in illegal donations.

(la/dpa)