ABSTRACT
In the context of a wartime economy, German companies were intertwined with the Nazi regime and, as such, implicated in the crimes committed by that regime. Persecution and forced labor were policies actively pursued by the Nazi regime. Forced labor existed in a wide variety of forms with a broad range of different working and living conditions. During the Second World War between 10 and 12 million forced laborers were employed by the “Third Reich”. During their occupation of Germany after the Second World War, the Allies, first and foremost the Americans, urged that the resurgent public administrations in Germany, at first the governments at the state and local levels and then later at the federal level, to address the question of restitution and indemnification; in brief, the question of compensation for Nazi-era crimes. The first laws of this kind were passed in the American occupation zone: Restitution Act on November 10, 1947, and Indemnification Act on April 26,1949.
