AP News, February 15th, 2007
A group of Greeks seeking compensation from Germany for a Nazi massacre in 1943 suffered a setback Thursday when the European Union's high court said the claim was not covered by an EU convention on civil and commercial law.
Irini Lechouritou and other descendants of victims of the World War II atrocity have been fighting since 1995 in Greek courts to secure compensation from Germany for financial loss, nonmaterial damage and mental anguish.
An earlier bid was rejected on the grounds that such cases could not be brought against a sovereign state.
The complainants then took their case to an appeals court, which asked the European Court of Justice if the case could be considered under a 1968 convention on the enforcement of civil and commercial matters.
However, the Luxembourg-based court ruled that the military actions carried by state authorities do not fall within the scope of the "civil matters" covered by that agreement.
The case will now go back to the court in Patras, Greece, for a decision.
Relatives of Greeks killed by the Nazis have filed tens of thousands of law suits against Germany claiming reparations, but Greece's highest court ruled in 2002 that such compensation claims against a foreign state cannot be heard in Greece.
Lechouritou's case relates to the worst WWII massacre of civilians by the Nazis in Greece. On Dec. 13, 1943, in retaliation for an attack by resistance fighters, German army troops marched into the remote mountain village of Kalavryta, rounded up all males over 15, and massacred hundreds of them.
In 2000, then German President Johannes Rau visited the site and issued an apology. On the same visit to Greece he said there was "no possibility" for Germany to pay compensation on legal grounds, but added that he would encourage a "symbolic contribution" in response to Greek reparation demands.
Last March, Germany's highest court rejected a claim for compensation by four Greek siblings whose parents were killed in a 1944 Nazi massacre. The Federal Constitutional Court upheld an earlier ruling that there was no legal basis for individual compensation from the German government, which paid Greece 115 million marks in the 1960s to compensate victims of the Nazi occupation.
