Human Rights
KALKHORST The Alfred Toepfer Foundation (Hamburg) is demanding further compensation for their lost Nazi land in the East. It was in the property of the Foundation during the Nazi period that the conquest and ,,Germanisation"of Germany's neighbours was planned. The former Nazi possessions comprise several hundred hectars and are the subject of dispositions made in consequence of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement. They were confiscated then ,,to prevent the return of German militarism and Nazism for ever". In the opinion of the litigants their ,,human rights"were thereby contravened. The notorious Foundation belongs to an influential group of German Ethno Organisations and enjoys direct contacts with the German Government. The Minister of State in the German Chancellery Christina Weiss (Social Democrat) works under the auspices of the Toepfer Foundation.
As the European Court confirms the Toepfer Foundation has claimed the protection of the European Human Rights Convention. Although they were in fact compensated for the loss of their property in 1994 the amount awarded was ,,far below the present sales value"of the former Nazi property.
Aryan World
Among the properties of the Toepfer Foundation were the Kalkhorst Estate which up to 1945 functioned as a Reich Leadership School. Foreign collaborators with the Nazis were trained to take over governorships of the German Reich in the conquered European states. The basis of the plans was the racial ,,New order"for the continent according to racial norms. The Founder himself, Toepfer, gave Race lectures at Kalkhorst and spoke about the blood unity of the Aryan world ( ,,blood comrades").
Toepfer, a Hamburg industrialist, was active during the Second World War in Paris where he supplied the German occupying forces. As French historians report his firms also supplied the occupied Polish territories. For the mass graves of the ghettos of Lodz his firm supplied slaked lime. Toepfer soon put his Nazi crimes behind him after a short prison sentence and invested his ill-gotten gains in new ethnic-political activities. According to the same sources Toepfer employed in Germany several convicted of Nazi crimes, among them the man responsible for the deportation of 400,000 Hungarian citizens of Jewish descent. Furthermore Toepfer employed in the 1960s a Nazi author who became known for his denials of the murders at Auschwitz.
Customs
Because of this background to the Foundation several scandals were unearthed in France. Foundation prizes which were awarded in Strassbourg ( ,,The Strassbourg Prize") had to be cancelled; further protests by French historians prevented an appearance by the Toepfer Foundation in the German Historical Institute in Paris. Despite a parliamentary question in Switzerland which referred to Toepfer as a ,,Nazi Criminal" 1)and despite questionable activities by the Foundation in ethnic politics it remained undisturbed in Germany. For instance the former President of Baden Wuerttemberg, Spaeth, accepted one of the Foundation's prizes in Basel in January 2003. The Minister responsible for Culture and the Media in the German Government, who is ,,directly responsible to the German Chancellor", works for Toepfer in Hamburg. The Minister, Frau Weiss, is responsible there for ,,the promotion of the customs"of the Hansa town.
1) Interpellation Kanton Basel 12/4/1999