Claims Conference wants 145 million euros in compensation for Wertheim store

The Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) is claiming about € 145 million (US $193 million) in compensation from the troubled German department store group Karstadt Quelle as a part of a dispute over properties previously owned by the Jewish Wertheim dynasty, the JCC's lawyer Stefan Minden said in Frankfurt on Monday. Heirs of the Wertheim family, who lost its German fortune under the Nazis, want to begin negotiations with Karstadt Quelle following a recent ruling by Germany's highest administrative court that the disputed properties at Berlin's Potsdamer Platz do indeed fall under the German restitution law. Wertheim heirs have also been pursuing their claims in US courts, led by Barbara Principe, who had fled Nazi Germany aged six with her father Günther Wertheim, a grandson of the chain's founder. After the war, their Berlin assets fell to the Hertie department store chain under disputed circumstances. Karstadt Quelle, which bought Hertie in 1994, maintains it rightfully obtained the Berlin properties and has fought the Wertheim family's claims before Berlin's restitution office and in US courts.