The German who has lost her land due to the construction of the Berlin wall requires the government compensation

A German citizen, who is 93 years old, sued the German government. The process will be of great importance because we are talking about the fundamental problems of the modern history of Berlin. The fate of Charlotte Hildebrand is shared by more than a thousand families, who can also file claims, writes today The Guardian (translation on the website inopressa.ru ).

Thousands of houses, apartments and plots were expropriated by the authorities of East Germany, who decided to build a wall.

In 1996, seven years after the fall of the wall, the Government of the United Germany adopted a law according to which the owners have the right to redeem their property for 25% of the price. Hildebrand, who during the war fled from Berlin to Vienna, said that it was like selling stolen ones.

“The war took everything from us. We burned and bombed us. But this was a war. It was completely different. I did not expect that my own people could rob me,” she said.

The state claims that the former, communist authorities paid compensation to the owners and that it is impossible to return the land - by German laws, double compensation is unacceptable. However, many former owners say that in fact they received nothing. Hildebrand was denied compensation on the grounds that her possessions were on the side of West Berlin.

In some cases, the government’s proposal for a preferential purchase of the site does not make sense, because property has lost value. For example, in the north of Berlin, the Earth was systematically processed by waste with a high content of heavy metals. Thus, the communist authorities destroyed shrubs in which defectors could hide.

“In such cases, the authorities pay 90% of the value of the land,” said Son Charlotte Hildebrand Joachim, the head of the organization of the owners. “But this will not be enough to cleanse the soil of waste.” According to owners, the purification of 1000 square meters of land - the size of the site with the house and the garden in the area - will cost 50-70 thousand euros. Joachim believes that about 1,200 families were injured in total.

Earlier, other owners also tried to achieve free return of property, but none of them received a positive court decision.

Hildebrand wants to open a new front - she challenged the historical and legal grounds of the law. After World War II, Berlin was proclaimed a demilitarized city. Hildebrand claims that, having built the wall, the authorities grossly violated this status, and this under international law is a crime. The state has no right to earn on crimes.

The court must decide in January.