Berliner kämpfen nach dem Mauerfall für die Anerkennung verlorenen Eigentums [en]

Joachim Hildebrandt stands in a 5,000 square metre wasteland circled by a wooden fence. For twenty years, he has been fighting to get this land back from the state and has been investing a lot of energy, emotions and lawyer's fees in his quest to claim back his property. 

A young couple come to him from the other side and ask: "Is this your property?" In a compelling tone, Hildebrandt replies "yes".

The two young people introduce themselves as researchers for a television company. Hildebrandt’s face brightens. "At last!" a TV company shows interest for his story.

But disillusionment comes the very next moment. The two young people are not interested in what happened here many years ago. They are not planning to make a documentary about the injustice that followed the Wall's collapse and the inconsistencies of German policies after reunification.

They are looking for urban scenery to shoot an action film. Hildebrandt's wasteland at the corner of Harzer Street and Bouchestreet in Berlin-Pankow would be perfect for the film, they tell him.

The seventy-year old man tries to control his temper and asks for understanding. He could never allow this, he says: so many families were divided here, so many refugees were shot, that such a film would degrade the historic importance of the location.

Disappointment now hits both sides of the fence. But for Joachim Hildebrandt, it is not the first time and not a big cause of disillusionment after all that he has already been through.

His property stood on the area known as the 'death strip', which stretched along the Berlin Wall and where the former East German regime installed the watchtowers that divided the city. At least 750 owners were expelled from their property by the drastic measures of 1961.

Ruthless expropriation

In order to erect the Wall, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) expropriated entire families overnight. But it was a different kind of expropriation than those seen today when the state needs land to build a new highway.

For instance, Peter H. lost his family house in the winter of 1962, half a year after the Wall was built.

It was 3:10 a.m. when soldiers knocked on his door, carrying firearms. H.'s family were told to get up and dress themselves within ten minutes. At the same time, 18 people from the action force started to evacuate the house, throwing tableware, clothes and just about everything else into big sacks, pulling out the washbasins, the curtains and the lamps, throwing the furniture out of the windows and storing it on open-top trucks. Ten hours later, the house was completely empty and sealed, and the keys had been confiscated. 

This was expropriation GDR-style. The family was not told where they would be resettled. After a two-and-a-half-hour drive, the household goods and furniture - damaged by rain and snow - were left on a village street and the family told to find a roof somewhere.

They did get some compensation: 24,000 East German Marks, or about 2,400 D-Marks. That would be 1,200 euros today. But they never got the money transferred to their account and were not given it in cash. It was held in a blocked account by a state authority called the 'Department of Nationalised Property'.

There was no interest paid, and the family could not even get one Mark in return. In 1979, they were informed that the blocked account was now empty as a result of administrative costs and had to be closed.

Such communist-style 'compensation' was intended to appear as legal expropriation.

Hundreds of similar cases

There are hundreds of similar cases where people had to leave their houses immediately because the land was needed for border officers and the clearance of what became known as the death strip. Because border patrols needed a clear view to shoot at those trying to escape the regime, hundreds of buildings had to be demolished in spite of the extreme housing shortage in East Berlin.

Few doubted that the injustice of the GDR regime would be corrected at after reunification. The 'Sunday sermons' of West German politicians of all factions in the parliament in Bonn before 1989 brought hope to those like Joachim Hildebrandt.

But this was the wrong conclusion. When the GDR was dissolved in 1990, the Federal Republic of Germany inherited a huge number of buildings from the former GDR. Overnight, the public sector became the largest property owner in Berlin.

For private households and businesses, the state implemented the "restitution instead of compensation" rule, giving lost property back to their owners. 

But the state did not apply this rule for state assets inherited from the former GDR and refused to give property back to their owners. In those cases, the unified German government declared that expropriations under the GDR regime had been lawful and that the compensation had been appropriate.

1996 reinstatement law

The way the Federal Republic of Germany handled land claims by previous owners was felt by many to be a second expropriation, leading some to bring their case before the European Court of Justice.

Most landowners were not typical investors or business developers but ordinary people without a lobby to defend them: auto mechanics, tailors, carpenters, old-age pensioners, gardeners or the unemployed.

After a long struggle, the German Parliament passed a law in 1996 entitling former owners to repurchase their house or land for 25% of the current market value. 

The law was the result of a long bargaining process. At first, the state denied former oweners any rights whatsoever. Then, politicians changed their minds and offered a compromise. Former owners should be entitled to repurchase their property for 75% of the value, they proposed. The figure was then brought down to 50%, 30% and finally 25%, which was still a good deal for the state.

Politicians from all sides promised "to fight like a lion" for restitution of lost property. But the three successive ministers of justice - Klaus Kinkel, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Edward Schmidt-Jortzig - all of whom were from the liberal party FDP - changed their minds under pressure from Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Of course, a huge majority of former owners had no chance of bringing together the required sums within the required six months. Nor could they pay the 10% additional costs that came on top of it. 

But some of them, like Joachim Hildebrandt, claimed back their property and went through all the instances of German civil courts. Although they hired skilled experts to make their plea, it did not help. 

European Court of Justice to rule on the case

After national attempts failed, some brought their case before the European Court of Justice and are hoping to get a decision this year. They are placing their hopes on a parallel that could be drawn with a decision by the International Court of Justice on the wall dividing Palestine and Israel. In this case, some citizens got the right to get their land returned and not just compensated.

When the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was celebrated this week, the expropriation issue was of course absent from all official speeches by heads of state and government. But in case they had known, they would have probably laughed and said, "No, this can't be true!"

On 9 November Joachim Hildebrandt spent the anniversary on "his" property. He was 50 years old when the Wall was brought down and he was sure to get something back from the West German state.

Now he is 70 and his pension is worth 860 euros a month. From time to time, he goes to his land and clears the rubbish "so that people see me again sometimes and realise I am still here". Maybe somebody else will ask him again next time: "Is this property yours?"

Ewald Koenig, 2009.   

Now editor-in-chief of the Berlin-based EurActiv.de, Ewald Koenig is part of a European news and policies network, which would have been impossible without the German reunification process 20 years ago.

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