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.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS