Free Republic

Germans file suit against Poland over wartime compensation 3 August 2004 LEVERKUSEN - A hardline leader of ethnic Germans expelled from Poland at the end of the Second World War said Tuesday his group would haul Poland before the European courts this year. Rudi Pawelka, the chairman of Preussische Treuhand, said the suits would demand restitution of confiscated homes and farms. Preussische Treuhand is a private company with expellees as shareholders. Its capital is to be spent on legal fees, pursuing claims that many legal experts say have almost no chance of success and which are to be opposed by...

Guarded support for Gerhard Schroeder's stance on compensation claims From Poland A.M. A majority of Polish politicians were satisfied by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's declaration not to support compensation claims by Germans expelled from Poland after WWII. However, some politicians would have liked to see a gesture of the kind made by Willy Brandt who knelt in front of the Ghetto Heroes Monument when he visited the capital 34 years ago. On the other hand chairman of the Expelled Association Erika Steinbach criticized Shroeder for not taking into account the feelings of his nation. Donald Tusk from the Civic Platform...

Poles' and Germans' new clash over WWII By Hilary Davies in Warsaw 25 July 2004 More than half a century on from the Second World War, the Poles and the Germans have reopened an old rift. Issues left festering ever since central Europe was cut off from the West after 1945 have sprung into life on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. German politician Erika Steinbach's decision to hold a "sympathetic" service in Berlin to commemorate the 1944 uprising against the Nazis, without inviting any surviving Polish combatants, has many in Poland fuming. "Simply disgusting", "bad-mannered...