German Restitution Laws

Such persecution included widespread theft of art and antiques and property owned by German Jews as well as aryanization of Jewish companies in the early 1930s after the Nazis came to power.

A first law for the restitution of private persons was the Bundesergänzungsgesetz zur Entschädigung für Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung (BErG) of 18 September 1953.

Such changes were made in the Bundesgesetz zur Entschädigung für Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung (BEG), which was passed on 29 June 1956 and modified again in the Bundesentschädigungsschlussgesetz (BEG-SG) of 14 September 1965.

[1] Other restitution laws were the Gesetz zur Wiedergutmachung nationalsozialistischen Unrechts im öffentlichen Dienst (BWGöD) for (former) employees of public service institutions of 11 May 1951 and the Bundesgesetz zur Regelung der rückerstattungsrechtlichen Geldverbindlichkeiten des Deutschen Reiches und gleichgestellter Rechtsträger (Bundesrückerstattungsgesetz, BRüG) of 19 July 1957.

[2] The BErG/BEG deals with compensatory payments for suffered personal damage, while the BRüG covers restitutions for expropriated property.

As Minister of Economics Walther Funk assisted the pace of rearmament, and subsequently as Reichsbank President accepted from the SS the gold rings of Nazi concentration camp victims