COMMENT: In FTR #746, we exam­ined Greece’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Euro­pean Mon­e­tary Union as the deci­sive ele­ment in the fail­ure of the Greek econ­o­my and its resul­tant sub­ju­ga­tion to Ger­man polit­i­cal will.

The sem­i­nal german-foreign-policy.com (which feeds along the bot­tom of the front page of this web­site) has not­ed anoth­er aspect of the German/Greek eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal dance macabre.

Ger­many is resist­ing a move in The Hague to oblige Ger­many to pay eco­nom­ic dam­ages for war crimes inflict­ed by the Third Reich. Pri­ma­ry among the nations push­ing the ini­tia­tive is Greece!

At the foun­da­tion of the inquiry laid forth on the spitfirelist.com web­site is the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal net­work and the inter­na­tion­al car­tel sys­tem that mid­wifed its occur­rence. This remark­able orga­ni­za­tion is at the core of the post­war Ger­man econ­o­my, con­sti­tut­ing major resid­ua left by the tides of 20th cen­tu­ry cap­i­tal flow.

In light of the fact that the present Ger­man eco­nom­ic largess is deriv­a­tive of the cap­i­tal acquired dur­ing the Third Reich’s  war of aggres­sion, the German/Greek strug­gle over war repa­ra­tions on the one hand, and Greece’s debt prob­lems on the oth­er, is fas­ci­nat­ing.

Note that the Dis­to­mo case is seen as legal prece­dent for oth­er actions of its kind, hence its sig­nif­i­cance.

“Germany–Sacrosanct”; german-foreign-policy.com; 9/12/2011.

EXCERPT: . . . Today, the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in The Hague is open­ing hear­ings on Ger­many’s plea of “state immu­ni­ty,” with which it is seek­ing to avoid pay­ing repa­ra­tions to the rel­a­tives of the vic­tims of Nazi war crimes. The hear­ing will focus on the mas­sacre, com­mit­ted June 10, 1944, by Ger­man SS troops in the Greek vil­lage of Dis­to­mo. The SS killed 218 civil­ians, includ­ing chil­dren and babies. The tri­al in The Hague is the cul­mi­nat­ing point of a legal bat­tle that has last­ed more than 15 years. . . .

. . . . Rel­a­tives of Greek Nazi vic­tims have been try­ing since the 1990s to have their repa­ra­tion demands met through legal action. Pre­vi­ous attempts to have Ger­many accept a nego­ti­at­ed set­tle­ment had failed.[1] The rel­a­tives have adopt­ed a two-fold legal action: one in Greece, the oth­er in Ger­many, for the case that Ger­many does not rec­og­nize Greek court rul­ings. In Mai 2000, the Supreme Court in Athens, the Are­opag, ruled that in the Dis­to­mo case alone, the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many has to pay 28 Mio Euros in repa­ra­tions (plus inter­ests). Berlin refused and the Greek gov­ern­ment pre­vent­ed the fore­clo­sure on Ger­man state prop­er­ty on Greek ter­ri­to­ry. In Italy, there is a sim­i­lar case. The Berlus­coni gov­ern­ment had pre­vent­ed the fore­clo­sure against Ger­man prop­er­ty in Italy, ruled admis­si­ble by the Ital­ian Supreme Court — the Court of Cas­sa­tion, in Rome ‑in June 2008. The Ger­man judi­cia­ry has refused to admit law­suits of the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives in Ger­many. The Euro­pean Court of Human Rights has recent­ly ruled in favor of Ger­many’s posi­tion.

The cur­rent case before the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in The Hague could become the final episode of a legal bat­tle. On Decem­ber 23, 2003, Berlin filed a com­plaint against Italy with the objec­tive of thwart­ing all future repa­ra­tion pro­ce­dures in oth­er coun­tries. The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment is invok­ing an alleged “state immu­ni­ty,” claim­ing that pri­vate per­sons can­not take legal action against sov­er­eign actions of for­eign states. This con­sti­tutes not only an affront to the high­est courts of sev­er­al EU mem­ber states, by declar­ing their rul­ings are vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al law. Berlin is also show­ing its inten­tions of becom­ing sacro­sanct vis à vis for­eign vic­tims of the Nazis. This is essen­tial­ly about mur­der, whose unjust nature has again become indis­putable. As far as the Dis­to­mo mas­sacre is con­cerned, the Nurem­berg Mil­i­tary Tri­bunal, in its rul­ing on Feb­ru­ary 19, 1948, had already declared that “this has also been clear cal­cu­lat­ed murder.”[2] Even West Ger­man courts have adopt­ed this posi­tion in prin­ci­ple, after the mas­sacre had been char­ac­ter­ized for a peri­od of time as an admis­si­ble mea­sure of retal­i­a­tion. Nev­er­the­less, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment is still insist­ing on “immu­ni­ty.”
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