Some of Germany's leading companies agreed yesterday to establish a fund to compensate those forced to work as slave labourers under the Nazis during the second World War.
More than 100,000 Jewish survivors in the US could benefit from the fund, which will come into existence on September 1st, but it remains unclear if former slave labourers in central and eastern Europe will receive payments.
The Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, welcomed the companies' initiative as evidence that German industry was able to come to terms with its historical responsibilities. But he emphasised that the fund would not come into operation until Bonn and Washington sign an agreement to prevent future legal claims against German firms for their Nazi past.
"Its function is to counter lawsuits, particularly class action suits, and to remove the basis of the campaign being led against German industry and our country," he said.
The companies declined to declare the size of the compensation fund, but informed sources suggest that it will be around £1 billion. Former slave labourers are expected to receive a single payment of £4,000, the sum Volkswagen recently agreed to pay its former slave labourers.
The chairman of Deutsche Bank, Mr Rolf Breuer, described the fund as a "milestone" and said that in view of the age of the victims it was a more sensible system of compensation than lengthy court battles.
"We cannot spend years dealing individually with specific questions so that we are carrying this issue around with us for further generations," he said.
More than eight million people, mostly from central and eastern Europe, were forced into slave labour under Hitler. No German company was obliged to use forced workers but most eagerly exploited them. In some factories slaves accounted for 75 per cent of the workforce.
There were 30,000 labour camps in Germany alone and many more in the territories occupied during the war. An SS report estimated that slave labourers survived for an average of nine months, although Jews and Russian prisoners of war could expect to live only three months.
After the war German firms played down the role of slave labourers and some claimed to have treated their workers generously. The accounts of survivors such as Ms Waltraud Blass tell a different story.
"Forced labour at Siemens was divided into two shifts of 12 hours. On her way back from work, each woman would be handed a slice of bread with cheap sausage. That was the entire Siemens wage for 12 hours' forced labour," she said.
Although most survivors live in the formerly communist countries of central and eastern Europe, most payments from the compensation fund will go to claimants in the US.
Mr Schroder said yesterday that claims from former slave labourers in countries such as Poland and Russia would be evaluated on an individual basis.
The firms participating in the fund include carmakers Volkswagen, Daimler, Chrysler and BMW, industrial firms Siemens and Krupp, chemical companies Bayer, Hoechst and BASF, the Allianz insurance company and the Deutsche and Dresdner banks.