For the time being, the community of heirs of Hedwig Adlon will not receive compensation for her hotel expropriation in November 1949, according to a decision by the Berlin Administrative Court (VG 29 K 131/20). Hedwig Adlon had been expropriated at the time as a result of the "Law on the Confiscation of Assets of War Criminals and Nazi Activists".
According to the Administrative Court of Berlin, she was accused, among other things, that she and her husband Louis had joined the NSDAP in 1941 and that the hotel had been under the leadership of Nazi activists with their consent. The community of heirs does not share this view and believes that her relatives were wrongly put on the so-called "List 3" as Nazi activists at that time. There is new evidence for this, they say.
The administrative court sees this differently. Since some of the evidence had already been known in the completed administrative proceedings, it was no longer "new". The ruling is not yet legally binding. The dispute could now go into the next round - the community of heirs has already announced further legal steps. The hotel, demolished in 1984 and rebuilt around 1997, is one of the best-known luxury hotels in Germany.
Sources: berlin.de/berlinjournal.biz
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