The Legal Bases and Aims of the Programme of Alienating German Property, Pursuant to The Potsdam Agreement, in the Western and Northern Territories
The Legal Bases and Aims of the Programme of Alienating German Property, Pursuant to The Potsdam Agreement, in the Western and Northern Territories

Summary/Abstract: In spite of the final settlement of the German problem in 1990, including the end of the border dispute with Poland, a shadow is still cast on Polish-German relations by the issue of German restitution and compensation claims, which have lately been renewed by the Prussian Trust. At the basis of these claims lie the differing positions of both States in relation to the takeover of German property on the former eastern territories of the German Reich - areas that were transferred to Poland on the strength of the Potsdam Agreement. Poland has held to the constitutive nature of the Potsdam territorial decisions, while the FRG, and later united Germany, has considered that they became constitutive and effective only after 1990, that is, after the conclusion of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of 12 September 1990. According to the German view, Poland could not have made any changes to property relations on these territories, in particular with regard to natural persons; Poland, on the other hand, considered and considers that it was empowered to do so on the basis of having acquired territorial sovereignty over those areas, while the alienation of German property was based on the premise of obtaining satisfaction from the assets of the enemy and aggressor in the form of war reparations, which the Potsdam Agreement entitled Poland to collect.

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