The Federal Compensation Act of 1953 designates as Nazi victims anyone who was persecuted for political, racial, religious or ideological reasons. In 2013, the Ministry of Finance stated:
“The fate affected a large number of families as part of the war effort and served the war strategy. It was not primarily aimed at the destruction or deprivation of freedom of those affected, but rather at their extraction for one’s own benefit. This is a general fate of the consequences of war.”
For years, the association “Geraubte Kinder – Vergessene Opfer” (“Stolen Children, Forgotten Victims”) has been trying to get the group of forcibly Germanized children recognized by the German Parliament as Nazi victims – so far in vain. In 2022, the association achieved a partial success: the Constitutional Court in the German state of Baden-Württemberg recognized the stolen children as Nazi victims and compensated them financially with a small sum.
“The compensation is satisfying for me, not because of the money, but because we are recognized as stolen children!”
Hermann Lüdeking, a stolen child