German economy in the IMF
Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany.
Train set manufactured by Maschinenfabrik Esslingen in the old station of Jerusalem soon after delivery as part of the reparations agreement with Germany in 1956.
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany Luxemburger Abkommen Luxembourg Agreement or Wiedergutmachungsabkommen Wiedergutmachung Agreement 1 Hebrew הסכם השילומים Heskem HaShillumim Reparations Agreement was signed September 10, 1952, 2 and entered into force March 27, 1953 3 Under the agreement, West Germany had to pay Israel for the costs of resettling so many Jewish refugees uprooted and destitute after the war, and compensate the individual Jews by the Conference on material claims Jewish against Germany for the loss of lives and Jewish property resulting from Nazi persecution and genocide 4.
In 1952, the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gourion argued that the compensation claim was based on recovering as much Jewish property as possible so that murderers do not become the heirs and the other argument was that the repairs were necessary for fund absorption and rehabilitation of Holocaust survivors in Israel 5.
According to the website of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, or Claims Conference In response to calls by Jewish organizations and the State of Israel, in September 1951 Chancellor Konrad Adenauer West Germany sent its Parliament abominable crimes were committed in the name of the German people, calling for moral and material compensation the federal government are prepared jointly with representatives of the Jewish community and the State of Israel to reach a solution of the compensation problem hardware, facilitating the way to the spiritual settlement of infinite suffering.
One month after the speech Adenauer, Nahum Goldmann co-chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and president of the World Jewish Congress organized a meeting in New York of the 23 major national and international Jewish organizations Participants clearly shown that these talks were be limited to discussion of material claims, and therefore the organization that emerged from the meeting was called the Conference on Jewish material claims against Germany claims Conference the Board of Directors of the new Conference consisted of groups who participated in its formation, each member agency designating two members to the Board.
The Claims Conference has the task of negotiating with the German government a program of compensation for damage to Jewish individuals and the Jewish people caused by Germany through the Holocaust.
Menahem Begin to protest against the agreement in March 1952 The sign reads Our honor should not be sold for money; Our blood must not be atoned goods wipe us shame.
Following the Holocaust Israel relations with Germany were very tense intention was Israel to take in what was left of European Jewry Israel also recovered the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and was facing an economic crisis deep which led to an austerity policy unemployment was very high, especially in the camps of my abarot and foreign currency reserves were rare 6 David Ben Gourion and his Mapai party adopted a practical approach and argued that acceptance of the agreement was the only way to support the economy of the nation 6 there are two approaches, he said the central Committee of Mapai one is the Jewish ghetto approach and the other is a people independent I'm not chasing a German and spit in his face that I do not want to go after everyone, I want to stay here and build here, I m not going to go to America to participate in an awake e 7 against Adenauer.
In 1951, the Israeli authorities have applied to the four occupying powers of Germany after the war in remuneration and reimbursement, given the fact that Israel had absorbed and resettled 500,000 Holocaust survivors They calculated since the absorption had cost $ 3,000 per person in 27681 dollars today, they were due May 1 billion 13,800,000,000 dollars today by Germany they also thought that six billion of Jewish property had been looted by the Nazis, but stressed that the Germans could never make up for what they have done with any type of material reward the negotiations leading to the Reparations agreement between Israel and West Germany began in March 1952 and were conducted between representatives of the Government of the Federal Republic, the Government of the State of Israel and representatives of the Jewish Congress mond ial, led by Dr. Goldmann these discussions led to a bitter controversy in Israel, that the coalition government led by David Be n-Gurion said that repairs were needed to restore what has been stolen from the victims of the Holocaust.
The agreement was signed by Adenauer and Moshe Sharett September 10, 1952 in Luxembourg Hall The German parliament Bundestag passed the agreement March 18, 1953 by a large majority, 239 for and 35 against, but only 106 of the CDU in power CSU's 214 MPs supported the motion, which was based on the unanimous support of the opposition social Democrats to get through the Arab League strongly opposed the petition and threatened a boycott of the Federal Republic of Germany after past the restitution agreement, but the plan was abandoned because of economic considerations, that the Arab League would suffer more losing trade with West Germany that West Germany would Arab League 8.
The public debate has been among the most violent in Israeli history of opposition to the agreement was reached both the law and general Herut Zionists and Mapam left of the political spectrum; both parties argued that the acceptance of reparation payments was equivalent to forgive the Nazis for their crimes.
On November 5 1951, Yaakov Hazan of Mapam told the Knesset Nazism is rearing its ugly head again in Germany, and our so-called Western friends grow Nazism; they are resurrected Nazi Germany Our army, the Israel Defense Forces will be in the same camp as the Nazi army, and the Nazis begin infiltrating here not as our most terrible enemies, but as allies 9.
At a session of the Foreign Affairs and Defense in September 1952, Yitzhak Ben-Aharon then a Mapam MK, said, I do not suppose there are people who believe that Germany will pay a total of three billion marks, over a period of 12 years, and that this is not an empty promise, the Israeli government will get nothing but a piece of paper referring to three billion marks and all this intended to deceive the public and claim the government has reached 9.
Anticipating the discussion in the Knesset January 7, 1952, all adjacent roads were blocked roadblocks and wire fences were set up around the building and the Israeli army was alert to quell a mutiny The gathering, attended by opponents of the deal attracted 15,000 people and the riots that followed would be the most important attempt in the history of Israel to reverse a decision of the Knesset democratically decided was finally accepted by 61-50 margin but not before the riots advancing interrupted the plenary debate for the first time in the history of the Knesset 6.
Following a passionate and dramatic speech, Menahem Begin led the demonstrators to Begin Knesset reference to the Altalena affair in 1948, when the Israeli army bombed a ship carrying arms for the Irgun in order of Ben Gurion , saying, When you shot me with guns, I ordered Don t fire back today, I will give the order, demonstrate turned violent when protesters began throwing stones at the windows of the building while the police used force to disperse After five hours of rioting, the police took control of the situation using pipes and hundreds of tear gas were arrested; about 200 protesters and 140 police were injured 6.
The decision does not end the demonstrations in October 1952 Dov Shilansky was arrested near the Foreign Ministry building, carrying a packet of dynamite in his trial, he was accused of being a member of an underground organization against the Reparations agreement and was sentenced to 21 months jail 6 Several parcel bombs were sent to targets and others, Adenauer one killed a policeman who handle 10 11.
Despite protests, the agreement was signed in September 1952 and West Germany paid Israel brands $ 3 billion over the next fourteen years; 450 million marks were paid to the World Jewish Congress The payments were made to the State of Israel as the heir of the victims who have no family surviving The money was invested in the country's infrastructure, and played an important role in establishing the economy of the new state of Israel at the time faced a deep economic crisis and has been heavily dependent on donations by foreign Jews, and repair, as well as these gifts help turn Israel into an economically viable country.
The repairs were paid directly to the headquarters of the Israeli delegation to buy cologne that received money from the German government in annual installments The delegation then bought the products and shipped them to Israel, receiving orders from a Tel -Aviv -Based company that was set up to decide what to buy and for which much of the money for repairs went into the purchase of equipment and raw materials for companies owned by the government, the Jewish Agency and Histadrut union in particular, much of that money went into buying equipment for approximately 1300 industrial facilities; two-thirds of this money was given to 36 factories, most of them belonging to the Histadrut same time, hundreds of other plants, mostly private ones, have received minimal help of 1953 Silver repairs to 1963, the money for repairs financed around a third of investments in the electrical system of Israel, helping to triple its capacity, and nearly half of the total investments in Israel railways that got rolling German equities, tracks and signaling equipment with the money for repairs repairs were also used to purchase German-made machinery for the development of water supply, oil drilling, exploitation equipment mining to extract copper from Timna valley mines, and heavy equipment for agriculture and construction, such as combines, tractors and trucks Around 30 money for repairs went to purchase fuel, while 17 was used to buy ships for Israeli merchant fleet; fifty ships, two ships were purchased, and in 1961, these ships were two-thirds of Israeli merchants seabed repairs were also used for the development of the port; Haifa Port was able to get new cranes, including a floating crane was named Bar Kokhba The Bank of Israel credited repairs for about 15 of the growth of Israel's GDP and create 45,000 jobs during the period where they were in fact 12.
Yad Vashem noted that in the 1990s, Jews began in claims for stolen property in Eastern Europe Various groups have also begun to investigate what happened to the money deposited in Swiss banks by Jews outside of Switzerland, who were then murdered in the Holocaust and what happened to the money deposited by various Nazis in Swiss banks also individual companies many of them based in Germany began to be under pressure from survivor groups to compensate former forced laborers Among them are Deutsche Bank AG Siemens AG Bayerische Motoren Werke AG BMW Volkswagen AG and Adam Opel AG in response, in early 1999, the German government proclaimed the creation a fund with money from these companies to help survivors in need of the Holocaust a similar fund was set up by the Swiss, as a Hungarian fund for compensation for Holocaust victims and their heirs At the close of the 1990s, discussions of compensation were held by insurance companies that had insured before the war Jews who were later murdered by Nazi These companies Allianz AXA Assicurazioni Generali Zurich Financial Services Group Winterthur and Baloise Insurance Group with the help of information on Holocaust victims provided by Yad Vashem, an international commission under former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger US tried to find out the names of those who were insured and died in the Holocaust of World Jewish restitution Organization was created to organize these efforts on behalf of US citizens, Commission Regulation of Foreign Affairs United States claims has agreements with the German government in 1998 and 1999 to compensate vict imes Holocaust who immigrated to the United States after the war.
In 2007, Israel MK Rafi Eitan made suggestions that have been interpreted as a request to reopen the agreement, although he insisted that he simply was to create a German-Israeli task force to examine how Germany could help survivors in financial difficulty 13 first, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück rejected any possibility of extending the agreement, 14 but later the spokesman of the German government Thomas Steg said Germany was ready to discuss the possibility of additional pension payments to Holocaust survivors, if the Israeli government made a formal request 15.
In 2009, the Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz of announced that it will require a new 450 million-1 billion in compensation from Germany on behalf of some 30,000 Israeli survivors of forced labor 16 In 2013, no agreement has been concluded quote required Israel also asked for significant discounts on the purchase of two German MEKO built warships 17 Israel also received two Dolphin class submarines for free from Germany, as well as substantial discounts on other two, and two more on order for a total of six from December 2012 citation needed.
Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany, repairs, agreement, israel, west.