61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

6 Issues of Property Rights in the Post-War Period
It was first and foremost the outstanding property rights issues which, by raising
the subject of «dormant accounts», rekindled the debate in 1996 about
Switzerland’s role during the Second World War. As an international centre for
asset management, Switzerland had also, since the First World War, been
attracting the savings of people who would subsequently become victims of the
Nazi regime. At the same time, this financial centre also served a wide variety of
German interests. The previous chapter presented some legal aspects of the issues
involved and highlighted the tensions arising from the unswerving continuity of
(international) private law while far-reaching changes were taking place in Swiss
public law. This chapter addresses the post-war period. At the centre are the
questions of the way Swiss banks and insurance companies dealt with the
property entrusted to them by private individuals and how they interpreted these
property rights. What was the attitude of other players in the financial market
towards claims for reparations and restitution after 1945 and what measures did
the authorities decide to take? How did authority, law, and the economy interact
as regards «Wiedergutmachung» for the victims of Nazi persecution?
6.1 Reparations, Restitution, «Wiedergutmachung»:
Concepts and Premises
Efforts to return looted property and to make individual restitution can be
traced back to the wartime period. 1 Already in 1939, shortly after war broke
out, plans to this effect were made by Jews in Britain and Palestine. Until this
time, the demand for compensation was confined to «small circles», although
voices raised with reference to the problem of individual compensation
payments were not entirely absent. 2 In 1944 the World Jewish Congress (WJC)
published a study by Nehemiah Robinson, who addressed this topic and, among
other things, estimated Jewish property in the countries and territories
occupied by the Third Reich to be worth 6–8.6 billion dollars. 3 In the same
year, an interdepartmental committee established by the US government (the
Interdivisional Committee on Reparations, Restitution and Property Rights)
published its final report. 4 As far as individual restitution rights were
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