GERMANY: Germany's largest retail chain, KarstadtQuelle, has been ordered by a Berlin court to pay compensation to a Jewish family whose department store empire was "Aryanised" by the Nazis 70 years ago. Derek Scally reports from Berlin
At stake is about €500 million worth of property in central Berlin which belonged to the Wertheim family, one of the largest outstanding restitution cases taken by the Jewish Claims Conference.
"This is a great day for our family," said Barbara Principe (72), of New Jersey, the great-granddaughter of the company founder.
Yesterday's ruling covers the site of the original Wertheim department store, which is now occupied by the techno club Tresor, but opens the door to further claims.
Ms Principe is understood to be seeking around €140 million in compensation.
Wertheim, founded in 1875 by Ida and Abraham Wertheim, was a wonder in Berlin, selling everything from goat's cheese to Maybach limousines - even the Kaiser shopped there.
The company expanded rapidly, opening department stores around the city in the following decades, but the Jewish family found it increasingly difficult to operate the business under the Nazis who came to power in Germany in the 1930s.
First, the Wertheims were forced to sell premium sites to the Nazis at knock-down prices, including the site of the chancellery and bunker where Hitler committed suicide in 1945.
Then the family was forced to sell the company for a nominal sum to a non-Jewish business man in 1938. The Wertheims, including six-year-old Barbara, fled Germany a year later.
She grew up on a chicken farm and only heard the full story, and that she had a claim on the properties, after she was contacted by Gary M Osen, a lawyer with the Jewish Claims Conference.
Shortly after unification, two competing claims went in for the Wertheim property in East Berlin which was nationalised by the communist authorities ruling East Germany after the war.
One claim was from the retailer Hertie - later taken over by Karstadt - and the other from Barbara Principe.
She alleged in her suit that her father and her uncle were tricked into selling what remained of the Wertheim property in West Berlin in 1951 to the manager of the "Aryanised" Wertheim company for a token payment of DM40,000 (€20,000) after he told them everything had been destroyed in the war.
He promptly sold the properties for millions to Hertie.
Complicating matters further is Germany's unification treaty, which states that property confiscated by the East German government was not required to be returned to its former owner.
However, a Berlin court ruled in 2001 and again yesterday that two test Wertheim properties belonged to the Jewish Claims Conference, representing Ms Principe, and not Karstadt.
Karstadt has been in huge financial difficulties recently and only barely avoided insolvency before Christmas.
A company spokesman said yesterday that the firm would be able to pay any compensation claims if necessary without getting into further financial difficulties.
Nevertheless, Karstadt lawyers announced they would appeal the ruling to Berlin's administrative court.
A Jewish Claims Conference spokesman accused the company of "delaying tactics".