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individual. 23 Reparations do not include the spoils of war (i.e. property won in
battle) or restitutions. The concept of restitution in international law relates to
«the return of items illegally removed by defeated countries from occupied
territories». 24 Restitution as practised by the Allies was governed by Military
Government Law 52, issued by the US in the wake of the military advance on
18 September 1944. In its first version, it stipulated that the Military
Government would be responsible for examining restitutable property. Article
2 stated that:
«Property which has been the subject of duress, wrongful acts of confiscation,
dispossession or spoliation from territories outside GERMANY,
whether pursuant to legislation or by procedures purporting to follow
forms of law or otherwise, is hereby declared to be equally subject to seizure
of possession or title, direction, management, supervision or otherwise
being taken into control by Military Government.» 25
After the end of the war, machinery, ships, railway rolling stock, motor vehicles,
holdings in companies, stocks and shares, works of art, looted gold and even
livestock, wines and spirits were restituted. The interests of the Allies diverged.
Whereas at Potsdam the Soviet Union had proposed a broad definition of the
term in order to gain additional opportunities to appropriate and exhaust
Germany’s economic potential as well as reparations, the USA and Britain were
trying to contain restitutions within a certain limit – the former, because they
were interested in building up the German economy again, and the latter because
they were interested in procuring the greatest possible reparations. All in all,
what this shows is that it was difficult (and still is difficult for historical research)
to draw a clear demarcation line between reparations and restitutions. 26
The Allies’ demands for restitution and reparations, combined with the establishment
of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, were an
expression of the same attempt to end the war with the just punishment of the
guilty parties. It was the Americans in particular who pushed for the establishment
of an international military tribunal to pass sentence on the principal
German war criminals in order to call them to account as quickly as possible.
This tribunal was established under the London Agreement (by the USA, Great
Britain, the USSR, and France). The first of what became known as the
Nuremberg trials began on 20 November 1945 and lasted until 31 August
1946. Unlike what happened after the First World War, a deliberate decision
was made to accuse individuals rather than states. The trials, which took place
in the international spotlight, served not only to punish war criminals but also
to shed light on the extent to which the Nazi economy was based on robbery
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