Nemačke ratne reparacije u širem kontekstu

Abstract

Recently, the issue of war reparations from Germany, which was raised first by Greece (2011), then by Poland (2022), as well as compensation by Germany to the victims of its genocidal colonial rule in Africa (Namibia), has become topical. At the same time, possible requests for war damage compensation from Serbia/ FR Yugoslavia due to the events in the Yugoslav territories in the nineties of the last century, as well as our request for compensation for our damage from NATO aggression in 1999, are also mentioned. From this aspect, it is good to familiarize with the practice of the area of war reparations, which is the richest when it comes to war reparations from Germany after two world wars. After both wars, Germany settled its reparations obligations only to a lesser extent, taking advantage of the favorable attitude of the main victorious western powers (USA, Great Britain and France) who wanted to recover and stabilize it as soon as possible in order to be their ally against the "Bolshevik danger". and the USSR, which even provided it with significant financial support. Because of this, the interests of small countries were sacrificed, and Serbia (Yugoslavia) was among them. After reunification in 1990, Germany managed to take advantage of the favorable political climate and avoid concluding a peace treaty that would definitively regulate the issue of reparations after the Second World War. At the same time, the post-war bilateral Yugoslav-German negotiations, for insufficiently clear reasons, were very poorly conducted on the Yugoslav side, so that Germany "closed" this issue, at least formally, by approving loans (capital aid) to the Yugoslav state, but not by giving compensation to individuals and legal entities, except for a symbolic amount in certain cases. The issue of German war reparations was seen in our country mostly one-sidedly, without considering the wider context, so this paper points out some additional aspects, which should contribute to the creation of a more comprehensive presentation.