61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

Germany at that time, or were deported to be murdered, were confiscated. It
was difficult for the companies to judge which of their policies were subject to
the provisions. Here, too, the individual companies pursued different policies,
and their behaviour varied.
Immediately after the war, on 27 June 1945, representatives of the four Swiss
companies which had issued life insurance policies in the Reich discussed in
Zurich how they might avoid claims from «Jewish emigrants» for restitution
of such confiscated policies. A large part of the discussion was characterised by
a decidedly aggressive tone. In a subsequent memorandum, one of the
companies concerned, Basler Leben, stated: «Jewish insurance holders aimed to
compensate their despoliation by the Third Reich by despoliating Switzerland
of its national wealth.» 93
The value of the insurance assets confiscated by the Nazi authorities and paid
out to those authorities directly by Swiss insurance companies formed the
theoretical ceiling for the claims for reparations in this area. As regards the
extent of these assets, we have at our disposal an internal investigation carried
out by the companies in November 1944: this revealed 846 policies, worth
4 million reichsmarks (6.8 million francs). The Basler Leben alone held a share
of 744 policies with a total value of 3.7 million reichsmarks. 94
As assets which could not be physically identified, insurance claims were not
registered under the Federal Council’s Decree on Looted Assets. The insurance
companies, for their part, rejected claims from most of their Jewish clients who
were demanding payment of the contractually agreed benefits on the grounds
that they had already had to pay out these amounts to the German authorities.
There were several court cases, of which the case of Elkan vs. the Schweizerische
Rentenanstalt – which came before the Swiss Federal Court – is a typical
example.
Elkan: a leading case
In 1933, Julius Elkan, a practising psysician in Munich, had taken out a life
insurance policy for 75,000 francs with Schweizerische Lebensversicherungsund
Rentenanstalt. In June 1942, Elkan was taken to the Theresienstadt
concentration camp, and his policy was then confiscated by the Director of
the Central Finance Office in Munich. In return for a general release declaration,
Rentenanstalt paid the surrender value of 21,747 reichsmarks to the
German authorities in June 1943. Elkan survived persecution, and lodged a
claim in Switzerland to establish that Schweizerische Lebensversicherungsund
Rentenanstalt had not met its obligations under the insurance contract
and that the policy was therefore still legally in force.
In a judgement dated 27 May 1952, the Upper Court of the canton of Zurich
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