“The law according to which the Ulmas were murdered is still in force in Germany today” – historian Prof. Bogdan Musiał said during the last day of the Congress for Independence organized by the World Association “Republika Polonia” on October 1-4, 2023.
“We, thanks to German eastern policy, ended up in a Stalinist kolkhoz, and this is the result of German eastern policy. We must always emphasize this” – Prof. Musiał said. He also referred to the crimes committed by the Germans against Poles indicating one of the legal paths for demanding compensation.
“Poles have a legal instrument in matters of compensation, which we can use not in Poland, but in Germany. Germans rehabilitating various victims – homosexuals, Sinti, Jews, etc. – according to German law, groups of victims were recognized on a lump-sum basis as murdered for racist reasons and rehabilitated on a lump-sum basis, and rightly so. In 1998, the Bundestag decided to invalidate court judgments from the Nazi period” – he reported, noting that at that time “in German debates, Poles did not function as victims at all for racist reasons”. He added that such verdicts were from then on automatically annulled by German courts. “All you had to do was to have such a verdict and deliver it to the German prosecutor’s office and they would automatically rehabilitate you. On the other hand, according to German criminal law, if such a verdict is invalid, the victim is automatically entitled to compensation” – he clarified.
“It is December 4, 1941. Goering’s regulation regarding criminal trials against Jews and Poles is being issued” – he recalled, pointing out that all Jews and Poles who were sentenced according to this regulation are automatically rehabilitated in German courts and these courts have no right to refuse, they just need to rehabilitate. He added that there are tens of thousands of sentences sentencing Poles to death after Goering’s decree. “These are not isolated cases. 5-6,000 were murdered in Auschwitz according to this regulation” – he emphasized, pointing out that we now have a tool in our hands to seek compensation. “There is no such thing as state immunity here” – he added.
The historian pointed out that similar regulations have been issued by German courts and are still in force today. “There is a German regulation according to which the Germans murdered Poles for hiding Jews. You know the situation with the Ulmas: Jews who were hidden were murdered, then the Ulma family was murdered. According to German law, Jews who were murdered for racist reasons are entitled to compensation and they got it – the Germans paid compensation to the Israeli state, but they did not pay for the Ulmas, because it was German law. And it is amazing! That is, how German criminals murdered according to the regulation of November 10, 1942, according to which the Ulmas were murdered, which is still in force today, they were acquitted and were not entitled to any reparations or compensation. This is the German state of law! We are not aware of it” – Prof. Musiał did not hide his indignation. “This is the German rule of law” – he concluded. “There is such a thing as secondary legalization, and in the 1950s and 1960s, the judgments issued according to these regulations secondarily approved the acquittal of criminals” – he explained. When asked whether this meant that, according to German law, the murder of Poles was legal, the historian replied: “Yes, it is to this day. This is German law”.
Anna Wiejak