61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

difficulties in the future.» 91 Such losses of legitimate entitlements must have
been frequent, yet no evidence has been found of court proceedings or subsequent
payments in the post-war era. Future research could shed further light.
There is also the question of whether outstanding claims exist against Swiss
companies which insured Jewish property that was destroyed in the pogrom of
9November 1938, or in other incidents of persecution-related vandalism.
Claims of this type raise a host of complex legal questions. The vast majority of
the policies affected contained a clause to the effect that losses resulting from
«internal unrest» were not insured. Nevertheless, insurance companies – Swiss
included – had paid for losses by «Aryan» and foreign policyholders, whereas
claims from Jewish policyholders were paid not to the policyholders themselves,
but rather in the form of a lump sum to the Nazi fiscal authorities. On
23 April 1952, a decision was taken by the (West German) Federal Supreme
Court regarding a pogrom loss. A decisive factor for the outcome of the
proceedings was whether the payment to the Nazi authorities was seen as
waiving the application of the clause which excluded internal unrest. The
Federal Supreme Court found that this was not the case. It found that this
payment had been made only «under pressure from the instruments of
power», 92 and that the victims of the pogroms must therefore lodge their claims
not with the insurance companies, but with the West German state under the
reparations laws.
The most problematic cases involving restitution liabilities are connected with
insurance benefits which were paid in full to the Nazi authorities, and with
policies where there were no heirs, or where the benefits have remained
unclaimed.
Policies paid out to the Nazi authorities
As already discussed (see section 4.7), a considerable number of insurance
policies were paid out prematurely (surrendered) in the second half of the 1930s,
mainly at the request of the policyholders, in order to pay taxes or meet legal
constraints. Where these payments took on the status of confiscation, they
represented a form of «legalised expropriation». In the majority of cases, the
policyholders’ requests were in fact made under pressure, either of a very direct
nature, or in a more general sense as a result of economic necessity brought
about by the National Socialists’ exclusion policies. The behaviour of the
insurance companies varied considerably in the face of this situation. Many of
them evidently paid out large numbers of the policies affected without
objection, whereas others went further to protect the interests of their clients.
From November 1941, all assets – including insurance policies – belonging to
German citizens who as victims of persecution were either living outside
459