German court upholds claim for Nazi-seized property

The court, reports The New York Times , has awarded $17m to Barbara Principe and her nephew, Martin Wortham. They are the main surviving heirs of a family of German Jews that, until World War II, owned and operated the prestigious Wertheim department store chain. The money for the award came from the sale of a piece of property that was once part of the Wertheim empire. The property was seized by the Nazis in the late 1930s, and after the war, it was nationalised by East Germany. After East Germany collapsed in 1990, the land was sold by the German Government to the developers of what is now one of Berlin\'s main showcases, the office, hotel and theatre complex known as Potsdamer Platz. The court rejected a counter argument by Germany\'s largest department store chain, KarstadtQuelle, which argued that it was the legitimate successor company to Wertheim and therefore the rightful owner of all the Wertheim land in the former East Germany. It bought all of the former Wertheim family businesses in 1994. Full report in The New York Times