How did the Federal Republic of Germany compensate for the victims of unprecedented NS crimes? How was robbed property returned? And are committed crimes even “make good again”? These and other questions are discussed in the new, three-part podcast “The German Reparation”, which is now available online. In three episodes, central aspects of restitution such as restitution and compensation are at the heart of NS persecuters, as well as dealing with the so-called “forgotten victims” using the example of Sinti and Roma. Experts from science and society, along with podcast host Nora Hespers, also on the basis of historical documents from the Federal Archives, illuminate the backgrounds of reparation. The podcast appears in a German and English version.

“The German Reparation” was created on behalf of the Federal Archive for the online theme portal “Reparation of National Socialist Unright”.

Since 2022, the thematic portal initiated by the Federal Ministry of Finance and designed by the Federal Archives has been providing central access to millions of files of the German reparation policy and is continually being developed into a comprehensive search and information site which, in addition to archive contents, also offers background information, podcasts and research aids. The theme portal is implemented together with the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, the Leibniz-Institut FIZ Karlsruhe and the portal Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.

The new podcast will be published on the 18th anniversary of the ratification of the Luxembourg Agreement on the so-called ‘Reparation of National Socialist Unright’. March 1953. In this agreement, the Federal Republic took responsibility to the State of Israel for the crimes committed in Nazism, especially to Jews.

In the first podcast sequence “A question of property – between robbery and law” the refund of stolen property is at the centre of attention. Historian Jürgen Lillteicher (Director of the Allied Museum Berlin) talks about the start of reparation. Jurist Benjamin Lahusen (University of Frankfurt an der Oder) takes a look at the court halls at that time, and the provenance researchers Susanne Kiel and Kathrin Kleibl (LostLift database) report on the handling of the moved goods persecuted who had been confiscated in ports during war outbreak.

The second sequence “A question of the territory – the view to the west” looks at the compensation of Nazis in Western Europe. Historian Tim Geiger (Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin) reports on the foreign policy history of reparation, and Nicole Immler (University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht) explains how reparation was carried out abroad. Britta Weizenegger (Landesamts für Finanz Rheinland-Pfalz) also reports how a reparation office works today.

In the third episode “Camp for Recognition” is about the reparation for the Sinti and Roma persecuted in the NS period. They are representative of the so-called “forgotten victims” (such as homosexuals, so-called “Asocial”, “vocational criminals”), whose suffering was not recognized and compensated for decades after the Nazi terror. “The German Reparation” hosted the president of the Central Council of the Germans Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, the President of the Federal Court of Justice, Bettina Limperg, and Markus Metz from the Bavarian National Association of Sinti and Roma.

Link the podcast

Topics "Reparation of National Socialist Unrightness"

Posted on 14.03.2025