The German government said yesterday that it will firmly oppose a "groundless" bid by a group of Germans expelled from present-day Poland at the end of World War II to win restitution for lost property through a European court.
The Prussian Claims Society, which represents a small group of expelled Germans, said on Friday that it had filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. It accused Poland of violating the human rights of those driven from their prewar homes as borders were redrawn in 1945.
"For us, the complaint of the Prussian Claims Society is groundless," government spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters. "The government emphatically does not support such restitution claims."
Steg said Germany would "make its legal position clear" to the Strasbourg court.
He emphasized that the Prussian Claims Society finds itself "isolated" in Germany, with no political support.
The claims stem from the long-standing territorial rearrangements reached after the war by the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union at the 1945 Potsdam conference.
The Potsdam agreement gave large parts of eastern Germany to Poland, and the Germans living there were forced to leave. Meanwhile large parts of eastern Poland ultimately went to the Soviet Union.
Although the government in Berlin has long made clear it will not support restitution claims by Germans, threats of such claims have caused great anger in Poland and weighed on relations.
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