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Unification and Property Issues (June 15, 1990)

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13. Regarding implementation:

a) The GDR will immediately create the necessary legal provisions and procedural regulations.
b) It will announce where, and within what time period, affected citizens can file their claims. The deadline for claims will not exceed six months.
c) To satisfy the claims to compensation, the GDR will establish a legally autonomous compensation fund that is separate from the state budget.
d) The GDR will ensure that, until the expiration of the deadline specified in subparagraph 13.b), real estate and buildings will not be put up for sale if the question of ownership rights remains to be clarified – unless the parties involved agree that restitution is out of the question or is not requested. There will be a review of cases in which real estate and buildings were still sold after October 18, 1989, without the question of ownership rights having been clarified.

14. Both governments charge their experts with the clarification of further details.




Source: Portions of the English translation (up to subparagraph 3.c) were taken from “Joint Declaration on the Settlement of Open Property Questions, June 15, 1990” in Konrad Jarausch and Volker Gransow, eds., Uniting Germany: Documents and Debates, 1944-1993. Translated by Allison Brown and Belinda Cooper. Berghahn Books: Providence & Oxford, 1994, pp. 163-64. © Berghahn Books. The remainder of the text was translated from the German source listed below by Thomas Dunlap.

Source of German original: “Gemeinsame Erklärung der Regierungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik zur Regelung offener Vermögensfragen, 15. Juni 1990” [“Joint Declaration of the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic on the Settlement of Open Property Questions, June 15, 1990”], Bundesgesetzblatt 1990 II, S. 1237-38.

Translation: Thomas Dunlap

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