Post-WW2 Land Settlement in Europe

In this Chapter we examine, in summary, land claim settlements in countries of the former Soviet sphere such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Albania and East Germany. These countries share not only the legacies of collectivized land claims from the Soviet era, but also from the Nazi occupation period when Jewish, Church, and anti-Nazi lands were confiscated for ideological and racist reasons. In these countries the most important lesson to emerge is that generally the land disputes in Europe have been approached, and where possible resolved as part of land reform, and through political dialogue. A great variety of settlement of land disputes have been utilized, including restitution, exchange, or compensation. A novel formula has been the Vouchers System under which a government would take over the entitlement of original owners, who would receive vouchers convertible in the real estate market into cash or a variety of land-based assets. The system amounted to mass compensation whereby individual claims were grouped and treated as a whole.