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Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

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Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#31

Post by onetimeusename »

TomMckenny wrote: post #15

So Australia, Canada, and the US are going to be returned to their previous owners? There is zero consistency in these kinds of claims because what is really happening is an influential family with plenty of resources for lawyers is going to grab a shipload of German taxpayer euros using tortured legal arguments.

I am not sure what Australia, Canada, and the US have to do with it. In the last century, Soviets confiscated land and since then there are laws that allow property to be reclaimed. Land claims in Australia, Canada, or the US, if they exist, are in a separate legal jurisdiction.

There are similar claims processes in place for property confiscated by Nazis. Is that also inconsistent?

Taxpayer money was spent on maintaining these properties which is unfortunate but I suppose that that should not prevent rightful heirs from being able to claim property.

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#32

Post by oh_sigh »

vkou wrote: post #13
ummonk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem quite so straightforward actually. The Nazi regime wasn't a thing yet, as the Nazis had yet to seize power. How obvious was it at the time to Germans that the Nazis would turn out to be so horrible?

It would have been obvious to anyone who actually read Mein Kampf.

Too bad it is essentially banned in Germany

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#33

Post by Lazare »

TomMckenny wrote: post #15

So Australia, Canada, and the US are going to be returned to their previous owners? There is zero consistency in these kinds of claims because what is really happening is an influential family with plenty of resources for lawyers is going to grab a shipload of German taxpayer euros using tortured legal arguments.

> So Australia, Canada, and the US are going to be returned to their previous owners?

If you read the article, this boils down to a dispute very specifically about compensation for property seized by the Soviet Union, well after the Hohenzollern's became private citizens.

Given that Australia, Canada, and the US were at no point seized from private citizens by the Soviet Union, the answer to your question would appear to be "no".

> There is zero consistency in these kinds of claims

If you read the article and determine what type of claims are being discussed, you'll see there's a LOT of consistency.

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#34

Post by epicureanideal »

gwbas1c wrote: post #6

> Under a 1994 law, people whose property was expropriated by the Soviet Union have a right to claim compensation -- but only if they did not "lend considerable support" to the Nazi regime. > In a newspaper in 1932, the crown prince called for people to vote for Adolf Hitler in the presidential election, he added. Seems rather straightforward to me.

Although it could be argued that in that year it wasn't clear that he was a monster. And there was not yet a "regime". (I'm not sure exactly when it would've been clear, but 1932 sounds earlier than most events I've heard of.)

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#35

Post by Guthur »

colechristensen wrote: post #30
weiser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is simply solved with intermarriages. Make 2 people 1. Happened throughout history. When it didn't, led to conflict.

This is related to how I take issue with many of the "progressive" things people are talking about with identity. If you want people to be liberated from discrimination and oppression the best thing to do is change the general mindset to unity "we're both human" instead of reinforcing differences and creating new categories for people and then trying to enforce rights that only people in a certain classification can…

Because progressive is exactly the self centred mindset as the middle classes that fought for communist ideals for the working class they'd barely rubbed shoulders with.

It's less about the people you are supposedly trying to help and more about the power you're trying to wrestle away from some elite.

Nazi's did along racial divides, communists along class divides. Both failed and so time to try some other divide. This one is even more insidious because it's not even clear sometimes where the divide is.

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#36

Post by kirrent »

TomMckenny wrote: post #15

So Australia, Canada, and the US are going to be returned to their previous owners? There is zero consistency in these kinds of claims because what is really happening is an influential family with plenty of resources for lawyers is going to grab a shipload of German taxpayer euros using tortured legal arguments.

I'm not familiar with the Canadian or US perspective, but at least in Australia we've had the native title act for 25 years which recognises the rights of Aboriginal people to manage land they've had a traditional connection to in a manner consistent with the traditional customs and laws of the interested party. Just as in this case relating to the Soviets, laws have been passed to help right a moral/legal wrong of dispossession and just as in this case the situation is made complex by modern conflicting use of the property.

The moral principle is sound. That the situation of each petitioner under any mildly related system are inconsistent and varied is to be expected. Everyone's circumstances are different.

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#39

Post by AnimalMuppet »

oh_sigh wrote: post #29
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "considerable". I'm just about certain that the lawyers are going to be arguing about whether that event crosses the threshold or not.

Well, a person with the bully pulpit coming out announcing that you should all put your trust in Adolph sounds like considerable support. If some random baker did it, maybe not.

But did he have a bully pulpit? Germany wasn't a monarchy then. Did he have any power? Or was he just some random socially prominent guy?

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#40

Post by [deleted] »

colechristensen wrote: post #20

The same claims are made around the world by people who no resources or prestige, sometimes they win things, sometimes they don't. Examples include Palestinians, descendants of slaves in the US, Native Americans, indigenous peoples around the world. Just about everybody has a history of their ancestors taking things in ways which weren't "legal" AND having things taken from them. It is hard to come up with a consiste…

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