The NS has upheld a sentence by the Regional Court in Liberec, Havlikova said. The village authorities respect the NS position.
The information was confirmed by the NS spokesman, too. The verdict in the Kammerlander vs Zdarek case is binding on lower-instance courts in other restitution causes Germany investigates kidnap claims in Georgia ...
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Over 100 Czechs killed after country's Soviet invasion in 1968 ... involving the Walderode family, too. They are being dealt with by district courts in Semily and Jablonec nad Nisou. No property has so far been returned to Kammerlander. The courts have always decided against her claims, pointing to the post-war decrees by President Edvard Benes that sanctioned the confiscation of German property after World War Two, except that held by avowed anti-fascists. Karl des Fours Walderode, an ethnic German, was stripped of his family property under the Benes decrees in 1946. Czechoslovak authorities returned Czechoslovak citizenship to Walderode in 1947. However, he did not manage to gain his confiscated property back as after the February 1948 communist coup he emigrated and was stripped of Czechoslovak citizenship again. The Interior Ministry returned the citizenship to Walderode in 1992 and he applied for the return of his family property. However, witnesses appeared saying that he had collaborated with the Nazis during the war. He fought with the Wehrmacht and his opponents also say he was a member of the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party (SDP). Kammerland claims family property, including the chateau Hruby Rohozec, worth a total 120 million crowns. She has not succeeded with any of her claims so far. "The NS rules that during World War Two, Walderode did not act against Czechoslovakia's interests. He was very loyal to the Czechoslovak people," NS spokesman Petr Knoetig said. Walderode raised the claim to the family property in 1992. Ten years later, he died. Zdarek had appealed to the Supreme Court, although the forest has negligible value. "However, Kammerlander demands much more property elsewhere. We wanted the Supreme Court to decide whether her claims are rightful," Havlikova said. (USD1=16.784 crowns)
(Ceske Noviny)
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