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Report: No Legal Basis for WWII Compensation

November 10, 2004
https://p.dw.com/p/5pyp

A report by German and Polish experts said on Wednesday there was no legal basis for calls for compensation from ethnic Germans who lost property when Poland's borders were shifted westwards after World War II. In the report, drawn up at the request of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka in a bid to ease simmering tensions, Professors Jan Barcz of Warsaw and Jochen A. Frowein of Heidelberg said that there was "no legal basis" for the demands. They said a statement by Schröder in Warsaw in August ruling out the demands was "a unilateral act of the Federal Republic of Germany, binding from the point of view of international law … The federal government is thus clearly excluding a legal appeal on the demands from Germany to Poland and considers such demands as being without legal foundation," the report said.