Swiss retrieve over a billion francs from former East Germany

The Swiss Association for Expropriated and Dormant Property says that SFr1.25 billion were retrieved from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) over the past 10 years, since reunification.

The president of the association, Werner Stauffacher, said that he was more than happy with the progress made so far. He told a news conference in Zurich on Friday: “Around 95 per cent of claims on housing property, bank loans, land lease agreements and company ownership have been paid out by the German authorities.”

Since 1990 the Swiss Association had supported the claims of 170 of its members for compensation payments.

Stauffacher, however, expressed criticism over the way claims for shares had been handled. “Many millions of francs” in shares issued in the pre-1945 currency, Reichsmark, had lost their monetary value under the 1994 German law for settlements and compensation.

Stauffacher also launched a stinging attack against the Swiss Foreign Ministry for not having been helpful enough in trying to find a way of making the German state financially accountable by way of the 1957 London Debt Agreement.

The Association came across 10 links to Jewish property, which had been dealt with correctly, according to Stauffacher. In the context of dormant bank accounts all activities had been co-ordinated with Zurich lawyer, Sigi Feigel.