Reparations from Germany for the destruction suffered in World War II continue to arouse heated discussions in both domestic politics and in international relations. In recent years, Poland and Greece have repeatedly called on Germany to compensate them for past damages, the consequences of which continue to reverberate in these societies. The leaders of the two countries and segments of their populations believe that Germany's obligations have not been met. Germany has maintained that it had already settled the matter and refuses to engage in further discussions. In this context, the book by Karl Heinz Roth, written in association with Hartmut Rübner, provides historical background on the debates over reparations as well as offers economic and legal assessments of the disputes over the validity of Polish and Greek claims for reparations. Two notions constitute arguably the most important threads in this book. On the one hand, there is the emphasis on the lasting impact of material and human wartime destruction. On the other hand, there is the question of the temporal and financial limits of responsibility for wartime atrocities, plunder, and ruin.
The book is divided into three parts and fifteen chapters. Part I and its three chapters explore the history of the German occupation of Poland and of Greece and provide a comparative account of how the German occupation affected the two countries differently from that of others. The three chapters in Part II engage with the Allied involvement in postwar reparations. Part III, which comprises nine chapters, examines the efforts of Poland and of Greece to obtain reparations, especially since the 1990s, after the reunification of Germany. The appendix contains references and summaries of primary sources. The full documents are available on a website. The list in the book and the electronic component are useful resources to gain deeper insights into the decision-making process concerning post-World War II restitution matters.
In order to present the case for the validity of the reparations claims against Germany, Repressed, Remitted, Rejected describes the scope and scale of destruction incited and perpetrated by Germany in Poland and in Greece. The focus is on the experiences of Jews and, especially, of non-Jews during World War II and on the multilevel devastation of each of the two countries. In doing so, the book contextualizes the reasons why Poland and Greece have been pursuing their attempts to secure reparations from Germany even more than seventy years after the end of the war.
Where the historical narrative presented in the book deserves a more critical assessment is in its discussion of the Holocaust. For example, the book seems to attribute the genocide of the Jews to the various crises that the Nazi leadership faced in its conquest of Europe. Here, Nazi racial ideology concerning Jews does not appear as a driver for the mass murder of the Jews. It is true that, of the six million Jews whom the Nazis and their collaborators murdered, three million were Polish Jews. However, they were not murdered because they were Polish citizens but because they were deemed racially Jewish. The book places the blame for the Holocaust squarely on the Germans. However, research has shown that the involvement of members of local populations was inextricably linked to the implementation of the Final Solution. Similarly, the book tends to downplay the existence and scale of collaboration by the local populations. Yet Holocaust scholarship has debunked the myth that complicity in Nazi crimes was marginal.
The book does well in its detailed explaining of the various historical, political, and economic reasons why it has been difficult for Poland and Greece to assert their reparation claims. It draws attention to the German approach of challenging the claims by adopting delay tactics and highlighting weaknesses in the arguments set forth by each of the two countries. Poland and Greece emerge as countries that have used the diplomatic tools at their disposal and international law to try to involve Germany in negotiations over reparations. They are not only countries for which decisions were made without their participation but have been determined to reassert their positions and set demands to rectify historical injustices. The book includes estimates of the losses sustained by each of the two countries and argues that the compensation programs enacted thus far have been inadequate.
No discussion of German reparations for the damages perpetrated during World War II would be complete without referencing the origin of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) and the history of that organization's negotiations with the German government to ensure a measure of justice for Jewish survivors. Threaded in this book is such a discussion. And yet, it appears to form a basis for the authors’ argument about “the German compensation practice's hierarchization of the European victims of Nazi persecution” (275). In the book, the case of the Jewish organization's milestones in the process of negotiations with the German government serve as examples of how one group managed to secure reparations while others did not, or at least not to the extent possible.
The notion of privileging one victim group over another – which transpires from the book – is debatable. However, the larger point that develops from the narrative is about the memory of World War II, the role of international actors, how Germany has perceived its historical responsibility, and how countries ravaged by the war – such as Poland and Greece – endeavor to achieve some measure of historical justice. Thus, Repressed, Remitted, Rejected weaves in aspects of international relations, international law, history, politics, and economy to confront the view of the German reparations policy solely as a success story.
