The EVZ Foundation's founding history

Signing of the intergovernmental agreement

The Law on the Creation of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) was passed on August 2, 2000 with the support of all the political groups in the German Bundestag at that time. The law was a legal and moral milestone, enabling individual humanitarian payments to be paid to former forced laborers and others affected by the injustices of National Socialism while ensuring that the memory of the maltreatment inflicted on them would be preserved for future generations.  

About the EVZ Foundation Statutes

 

Charlotte Knobloch

Victims feel that recognition of the suffering they have endured is just as important as financial compensation.
Charlotte Knobloch
President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria on the start of payments to NS forced laborers in 2000

Confronting NS forced labor and tracing the Foundation’s history – a timeline

  1. Forced labor under the NS

    Between 1939 and 1945, more than 13 million people in the German Reich were made to carry out forced labor, along with another 13 million in the territories occupied and controlled by Germany. Forced labor was no marginal phenomenon – it was an integral part of the NS system of rule, infiltrating the economy and almost all areas of life.
     

  2. Federal Compensation Act

    After their liberation, many forced laborers suffered severe long-term consequences. Individual claims for compensation or back pay were denied. State compensation payments were eventually introduced in the Federal Compensation Act of 1953; however, claims could only be submitted by people who had experienced persecution on political, race, or religious grounds and were living in Germany. Forced laborers were excluded.
     

  3. Forced labor protest

    Early agreements

    As a move towards integration with the West, the Federal Republic of Germany made payments to individual states that took the form of “global agreements”; however, no individual compensation was disbursed. In 1952, the FRG paid a total of DM 3.5 billion in compensation to Israel and the Jewish Claims Conference under the Luxembourg Agreement. Between 1959 and 1964, a sum of DM 876 million was paid out to eleven European states under other agreements.
     

  4. Wollheim trial

    The Wollheim lawsuit

    Norbert Wollheim’s compensation claim is considered a test case and was one of the first lawsuits filed by a former NS forced laborer.
    Once this precedent had been successfully set, further lawsuits were filed by people who had been made to carry out forced labor for I.G. Farben. From 1957 on, following the conclusion of a global settlement, a sum of DM 30 million was paid out to I.G. Farben’s surviving forced laborers.
     

  5. Law on the Creation of the EVZ Foundation

    Public Pressure

    During the 1990s, initiatives and pressure from the U.S. and class-action lawsuits against German companies made compensation for NS forced labor a topic of (inter)national public debate. In 1998, the political groups in the Bundestag agreed to set up a foundation for the compensation of forced labor with the participation of German industry.
     

  6. Agreement on compensation

    On December 17, 1999, Federal President Johannes Rau announced the amount that would be drawn from the Foundation’s assets to compensate forced laborers. In his address, he asked for forgiveness for the injustices committed. Between 1939 and 1945, more than 26 million people were deported to the German Reich or occupied territories to carry out forced labor.
     

  7. Signing of the Agreement

    On July 17, 2000, Germany signed an intergovernmental agreement with the U.S. establishing legal certainty, along with an international agreement involving Israel, central and eastern European states, German industry, victims’ associations, and claims lawyers. This stipulated that the federal government and German industry would each pay five billion DM each into a fund managed by a new foundation. 
     

  8. Signing of the intergovernmental agreement

    Law is passed

    On August 2, 2000, the Law on the Creation of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) was passed with the support of all the political groups in the Bundestag at that time. The purpose of the Foundation was to make payments to former forced laborers and other victims of National Socialist injustice.
     

  9. Initial capital

    The Foundation’s initial capital of EUR 5.2 billion was provided by the German Government and Germany industry. A total of approximately 6,500 companies have participated in the foundation Initiative of the German industry.
     

  10. Partner organisations

    In order to facilitate the compensation process, the EVZ Foundation cooperated with seven partner organizations created especially for this purpose. These processed applications and were responsible for making the payments. On June 13, 2001, one of the partner organizations, the German-Czech Future Fund, issued the first payments, which amounted to DM 55,612,425.
     

  11. Humanitarian projects

    In September 2001, the EVZ Foundation approved the first funding project in its history:
    the association AMCHA received EUR 414,138 for humanitarian purposes. This supported Holocaust survivors in Israel by means of home visits by psychologists as well as social workers.

  12. Applications and Payments

    In all, 4.4 billion euros were paid out to 1.66 million forced laborers or their legal heirs in 98 countries. Until 2007, compensation was also paid for property losses, insurance losses, and “special personal injury” linked with NS injustice.
     

  13. Conclusion of paymens

    On June 12, 2007, the payment procedure was formally ended at an official ceremony hosted by Federal President Horst Köhler and attended by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. The final report on the payments was presented at the same time. More than two million applications had been filed by the end of 2006.
     

  14. Archive Forced Labour

    The internet archive "Forced Labour 1939–1945" commemorates the people who were forced to work for Nazi Germany. Almost 600 former forced labourers from 26 countries tell their stories in extensive audio and video interviews.

  15. Im Januar 2013 wurde die Ausstellung im Königsschloss Warschau unter Anwesenheit ehemaliger polnischer Zwangsarbeiter:innen eröffnet

    Forced Labor Exhibition

    The touring exhibition "Forced Labor. The Germans, the Forced Laborers and the War" of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation was on display from 2010 to 2017. EVZ Foundation has provided it with funding of four million euros. A permanent exhibition is planned in Weimar from 2024.

  16. Ten years of EVZ Foundation

    The EVZ Foundation celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2010. The anniversary was accompanied by festivities and an exhibition on the Foundation’s history.

  17. Joint study

    A publication of the Working Group for the Improvement of Participation in Education and the Educational Success of Sinti and Roma appeared in September 2015. It was the first study to be produced together with experts from Roma and Sinti organizations. EVZ Foundation follows their recommendations.

  18. Grafik:Täter:innen, Opfer oder Helfer:innen?

    MEMO Study

    With "MEMO Germany - Multidimensional Memory Monitor", the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence Bielefeld (IKG) has been researching since 2018 what, how and for what citizens of Germany historically remember. 

  19. Strategic reconfiguration

    As part of the Agenda for the Future, new formats were developed. A core element is the Educational Agenda on NS Injustice, funded by the Federal Ministry of Finance. It aims to address current challenges with a historically aware, active communication of the lessons learned from the NS history.

2021

Payments to former forced labourers

The Foundation capital amounting to DM 10.1 billion (EUR 5.2 billion) was provided by the foundation initiative of the German industry and the Federal Government in equal amounts. The amounts paid out by the EVZ Foundation went to recipients in 98 countries around the world.

Cooperation with partner organizations

The payments were made in cooperation with seven international partner organizations that processed the applications. By 2006, a total of EUR 4.4 billion had been paid out to more than 1.66 million former forced labourers, and around EUR 270 million to other victim groups. 

The way to establishing the Foundation

In the German Reich, an estimated 13 million people had to do forced labor between 1939 and 1945; another 13 million people in the occupied and controlled territories. Those affected often had to work under inhumane conditions, many died while working.

After the liberation, many forced laborers suffered from the physical and psychological consequences of forced labor. Individual claims for compensation or back pay were denied. With only a few exceptions, the German governments as wells as the small and large companies, churches and private households that benefited from forced labor rejected any responsibility. The Federal Compensation Act, which came into force in 1953, largely excluded from its services those living abroad and those who were not racially or politically persecuted.

First agreements

In the London Agreement on German External Debts of 1953, the settlement of individual claims by foreign citizens was linked to the conclusion of a peace treaty (therefore excluding individual compensation).

In order to promote integration into the West, the Federal Republic of Germany made payments to individual states in the form of so-called global agreements – individual former forced laborers were not compensated. In 1952, the Federal Republic paid Israel DM 3.5 billion as material development aid. Between 1959 and 1964, a total of DM 900 million went to several Western European countries. During this phase, several large companies also made their first compensation payments to the Jewish Claims Conference.

Wollheim trial

Wollheim trial's action

The Wollheim Suit

This took place after the first successful trials, such as the so-called Wollheim trial. The claim for damages by the former forced laborer Norbert Wollheim is considered a test case. It was the first lawsuit by a former forced laborer. In the course of the trial, IG Farben, the plaintiff and the Jewish Claims Conference agreed on compensation for former forced laborers (Jewish and non-Jewish) in the amount of DM 30 million.

Repression behind the Iron Curtain

Many victims were unable to make their voices heard for several reasons: until the end of the 1980s, a large number lived in the Eastern Bloc countries behind the Iron Curtain, largely shielded from Western states. In the Soviet Union, former forced laborers were not considered victims but collaborators for a long time. Therefore, out of fear of repression (by the state), most of them remained silent. Furthermore, many were traumatized by the experience and were therefore unable to talk about it.

German reunification and global agreement

Identifying as an anti-fascist state, the newly founded German Democratic Republic rejected any compensation for foreign victims of National Socialist persecution. After the German reunification in 1990, global agreements with Poland (500 million DM) and with Belarus, Ukraine & Russia (one billion DM in total) followed as part of the Two Plus Four Agreement. Russia and Belarus also had to take into account the victims of National Socialism in the now sovereign Baltic states. With these payments, the German government and economy saw their responsibility as fulfilled at the time.

Late recognition

It was not until the end of the 20th century that the compensation for forced laborers again became part of a national and international public discourse. The first political initiatives from Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens), the European Parliament or Action Reconciliation Service for Peace initially had no effect. Continuous pressure in and from the USA brought further movement into the discussion at the end of the 1990s. In 1998, the political groups in the German Bundestag agreed to set up a foundation for the compensation of forced labor with the financial participation of the German economy.

Law on the Creation of the EVZ Foundation

Establishing the Foundation

On July 17, 2000, an intergovernmental agreement between Germany and the USA was signed. It created legal certainty and protected German companies from class action suits in the USA. The USA, Germany and six other states as well as victims’ associations and lawyers signed a joint final declaration on the establishment of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ), which became the sole point of contact for all claims.

On June 13, 2001, the first payment was made to the Czech partner organization (German-Czech Future Fund). In the course of June 2001, further payments to Poland, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, the Jewish Claims Conference and the International Organization for Migration were initiated. The payments were made in cooperation with seven international partner organizations – organizations in the respective countries, civil society organizations. Between 2001 and 2007, EUR 4.4 billion were paid to 1.66 million former forced laborers and legal successors.

20 years EVZ Foundation

In 2020 the EVZ Foundation celebrated its 20th anniversary. The founding of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future marks a turning point in our culture of remembrance – the state, the private sector, and society assumed political and moral responsibility for the suffering of forced laborers of the Nazi regime of injustice. The work of the EVZ Foundation bears responsibility for the suffering of the millions of forced laborers not only in its name but also in its agenda for the future.

Questions about the origins?  

Numbers on the foundation's 20 years of history

  • 5,668

    projects were supported by EVZ Foundation in the past 20 years

  • 157,134,342.06 Euro

    was the total funding volume by 2020

  • 2,187

    partner organisations had the EVZ Foundation in its 20 years of history

Publication

Links

Contact persons

Martin Bock

Consultant to the Board of Directors

Tel.: +49 (0)30 25 92 97-48
E-Mail: bock@stiftung-evz.de

Katrin Kowark

Head of Communications

Tel.: +49 (0)30 25 92 97-24
E-Mail: kowark@stiftung-evz.de