Two Italians denied payments from German slave labor compensation fund

A Berlin court has rejected a claim for compensation from a fund for Nazi-era slave laborers by two former Italian soldiers interned by Germany after Italy had surrendered to the Allies in 1943. Antonio Basile, 81, and Giacomo Malberto, 82, had sought € 7,700 (US$ 9,450) each from the fund, set up by the German government and industry in 2001 to compensate slave laborers. The Italian men argued that they had been subjected to the same conditions endured by others who were forced to work for Adolf Hitler's war machine and received compensation from the € 5.1 billion (US$ 6.3 billion) fund. The Berlin administrative court ruled that the men, as prisoners of war in regular camps, did not qualify for payments. One was forced to work at a camp in Luckenwalde in eastern Germany, the other at Schweinfurt in southern Germany. After Mussolini's fascist regime had surrendered in 1943, many Italian soldiers were imprisoned by their former German ally and registered as forced laborers.