Since unification, the Federal Republic of Germany has made vaunted efforts to make amends for the crimes of the Third Reich. Yet it remains the case that the demands for restitution by many countries that were occupied during the Second World War are unresolved, and recent demands from Greece and Poland have only reignited old debates. This book reconstructs the German occupation of Poland and Greece and gives a thorough accounting of these debates. Working from the perspective of international law, it deepens the scholarly discourse around the issue, clarifying the ‘never-ending story’ of German reparations policy and making a principled call for further action.

A compilation of primary sources comprising 125 annotated key texts (512 pages) on the complexity of reparations discussions covering the period between 1941 and the end of 2017 is available for free on the Berghahn Books website, doi: 10.3167/9781800732575.dd.

List of tables
Preface to the English Edition
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Methodological and Historical Aspects of the Reparations Problem

Part I: The Price of Plunder

Chapter 1. Exploitation and Destruction: The Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)
Chapter 2. The Occupation and Plundering of Greece (1941–1944)
Chapter 3. Testing Grounds of Occupation Policy: Poland and Greece in Comparison with the Rest of Nazi-Occupied Europe

Part II: The Failure of the Allies

Chapter 4. Allied Reparation Policies: From Joint Plans to the Cold War
Chapter 5. Poland as Part of the Eastern Reparations Zone (1945–1953)
Chapter 6. Developments in the Western Reparations Zone (1945–1951): The Conceptual Guidelines of Britain and the United States

Part III: Divide et Impera

Chapter 7. The Reparations Policy of the West German Power Elites through to the End of the 1980s
Chapter 8. Greece on the Sidelines Once Again
Chapter 9. Interim Conclusions
Chapter 10. The Two-Plus-Four Treaty and The Exclusion of the Reparations Question
Chapter 11. Developments since the 1990s
Chater 12. Greece Comes Away Empty-Handed
Chapter 13. New Conflicts: The Controversy Surrounding German Reparations Debt since 2015, and the Problem of ‘Remembrance Culture’
Chapter 14. Guilt and Debt: The Extent of Germany's Reparations Debt and What Has Been Paid So Far

Chapter 15. Arguments in Favour of a Final Reparations Amendment to the Two-Plus-Four Treaty

Appendix: Notes and Links for Digital Documentation with Lists of Documents

Abbreviations
Sources and bibliography

Index