Like other German-Jewish merchants, the Wertheims lost their property in the late 1930s under Nazi policies that expropriated Jewish-owned businesses and put them in "Aryan" hands. In 1951, when Jews had begun reclaiming property, an adviser to the Wertheims, Arthur Lindgens, persuaded them to sell him the rights to their stores and real estate for a pittance..............
German company pays Jewish family for Nazi-era confiscation
By Mark Landler
Published: March 30, 2007
FRANKFURT: Settling the last big property restitution case from the Nazi era, Germany's largest retailer agreed Friday to pay the heirs of a once-Jewish-owned department store nearly $120 million for the confiscation of what is now prime real estate in Berlin.
The company, KarstadtQuelle, will pay €88 million, or $118 million, to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, a group in New York that filed suit on behalf of the Wertheim family, which founded the elegant Berlin emporium that still bears its name.
The 1.5 hectare, or 5-acre, parcel of land in question lies on the edge of Potsdamer Platz, and is now the site of a glittering complex that includes a Ritz-Carlton and a Marriott Hotel as well as luxury apartments and offices.
"We've battled this case for 15 years," said Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the claims conference. "Despite the length of time and despite the difficulties we encountered, there is clearly the recognition in Germany that historical injustices must be corrected."
The settlement is a vindication for the far-flung Wertheim heirs, not least Barbara Principe, the 74-year-old daughter of Gunther Wertheim, who fled Berlin with his family in 1939. Her father settled in southern New Jersey, tending a chicken farm not far from where Principe still lives.
She spearheaded the long quest for restitution, traveling to Berlin in September with two grandsons to raise the pressure on KarstadtQuelle, which inherited the Wertheim family's expropriated businesses in 1994 through its acquisition of another German chain.
Speaking by telephone from New Jersey, Principe said Germany had made adequate amends. "What more can you do?" she said. "The Nazis are gone. This compensates for a lot of things."
For KarstadtQuelle - which marked its recovery from years of financial trouble this week by announcing a new name, Arcandor - the settlement closes a lingering and unsavory chapter in its history.
"We are leaving the dark, horrifying past behind us," Thomas Middelhoff, the company's chief executive, said in an interview. "Our biggest pending legal problem was this Wertheim issue."
Middelhoff credited the former German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, for helping to break the logjam between the company and the Jewish claims conference. Kohl, he said, convinced the two sides that they could negotiate in good faith, after years of often bitter legal maneuvering.
The amount of the payment was a compromise - representing roughly a one-third discount to the market value of the real estate, said a person involved in the negotiations.
Middelhoff said: "Of course, they asked for more. Of course, we offered less. This is typical in these cases."
Like other German-Jewish merchants, the Wertheims lost their property in the late 1930s under Nazi policies that expropriated Jewish-owned businesses and put them in "Aryan" hands. In 1951, when Jews had begun reclaiming property, an adviser to the Wertheims, Arthur Lindgens, persuaded them to sell him the rights to their stores and real estate for a pittance.
He then merged Wertheim with another former Jewish-owned chain, Hertie. That company was taken over by KarstadtQuelle, which still owns the Wertheim department store on the Kurfürstendamm, the prime shopping promenade in West Berlin.
The German restitution authorities ordered KarstadtQuelle to turn over other former Wertheim land in East Berlin. What set this piece apart was its tangled history. In 1949, when Berlin was divided into western and eastern areas of control, the empty lot became part of East German territory.
In 1961 it was cut off from the rest of East Germany when the Soviets put up the Berlin Wall and did not properly follow the lines of demarcation. In 1988, officials from East and West Berlin negotiated a land swap to fix the error, which put the property on Western soil.
Because of that transfer, KarstadtQuelle contended, this parcel was different than the other sites in East Berlin. Complicating matters further, it had sold the land to a developer in 2000 for a huge sum.
Taylor said Middelhoff played a critical role in expediting the settlement. In his previous post as chief of the media conglomerate Bertelsmann, he ordered an unsparing investigation of its war-time activities. (Mr. Middelhoff is on the board of The New York Times Company). "I have responsibilities as a CEO," he said. "On the other hand, I was watching these people getting older and older without any resolution." |
