Kreissonderhilfsausschuss

Kreis-Sonderhilfsausschuss (plural: Kreis-Sonderhilfsausschüsse; English roughly: district special aid committee) was the term used for local committees in the British occupation zone of postwar Germany that examined applications by victims of Nazi persecution and participated in the administration of early aid and compensation measures. The committees belonged to the first phase of Wiedergutmachung before the establishment of more formal state and federal compensation systems.^[1][2]

The common starting point in the British zone was Instruction No. 2900 of the British Military Government of 22 December 1945 on assistance for former concentration camp prisoners. Archivportal-D lists the instruction as applicable to Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.^[3]

At district level, the committees examined incoming applications for recognition and aid. Archival descriptions from present-day North Rhine-Westphalia state that district special aid committees were formed in 1946 and reviewed applications submitted by persons persecuted for political, racial, or religious reasons; later, dedicated compensation offices and compensation committees took over parts of that work.^[2]

The practical importance of the committees lay in the fact that they linked survivors, local administrations and the emerging compensation bureaucracy of the Länder. Their work formed part of the transition from improvised postwar relief to statutory compensation law.^[1]

The exact powers of a Kreis-Sonderhilfsausschuss varied by Land and by period. In general, the committees:

• received and reviewed applications by victims of National Socialist persecution;
• participated in determining whether an applicant qualified as a persecuted person;
• prepared or influenced decisions on special aid, pensions, or related benefits; and
• in some Länder, interacted with higher complaint bodies or state-level committees.^[2][4]

For all Länder of the British zone, the initial framework was provided by Instruction No. 2900 of the British Military Government of 22 December 1945.^[3]

In Hamburg, which as a city-state did not have rural Kreise in the same way as the territorial Länder, compensation legislation developed through city-level law rather than a county-based committee structure. Archivportal-D lists the following principal statutes:

• Law on Special Aid Pensions (Gesetz über Sonderhilfsrenten), 24 May 1948;
• Law on Compensation for Deprivation of Liberty on Political, Ideological, Religious, or Racial Grounds (Haftentschädigungsgesetz), 16 August 1949;
• General Reparation Law (Allgemeines Wiedergutmachungsgesetz), 8 April 1953.^[5]

In Lower Saxony, the main legal foundations were:

• Lower Saxony Act on the Granting of Special Assistance to Persons Persecuted by the National Socialist Regime (Personal Injury) of 22 September 1948 (Gesetz über die Gewährung von Sonderhilfe für Verfolgte der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft (Personenschadengesetz), 22 September 1948);
• implementing regulation, 6 December 1948;
• amending law, 1 May 1952;
• consolidated version, 16 May 1952;
• Lower Saxony Act on Compensation for Deprivation of Liberty Resulting from Measures of National Socialist Oppression (Detention Compensation Act). Of 31 July 1949. (Haftentschädigungsgesetz), 31 July 1949;
• consolidated version of the detention compensation law, 16 May 1952.^[6]

The composition of the Kreis-Sonderhilfsausschuss was expressly regulated by the Lower Saxony special aid law of 22 September 1948. A committee was to be established in every urban and rural district, composed of a chairperson experienced in legal matters and two assessors. The committee members were elected by the district representative body for the duration of an electoral term. One assessor had to be a member of the district representative body and was to belong to the circle of the persecuted; the second assessor had to be a person persecuted by the National Socialist regime. Substitute members were to be elected for cases in which regular members were prevented from serving. No person could serve as chairperson or assessor if they had ever been a member of the NSDAP or one of its affiliated organizations.^[7]

Archival material in Lower Saxony also documents the committee structure around the special aid law, including district committees, complaint bodies and a state-level committee (Landesausschuss).^[4]

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Archivportal-D lists the following principal acts:

• Law on the Granting of Accident and Survivors' Pensions to the Victims of Nazi Oppression (Gesetz über die Gewährung von Unfall- und Hinterbliebenenrenten an die Opfer der Naziunterdrückung), 5 March 1947;
• Law on Compensation for Deprivation of Liberty on Political, Racial, and Religious Grounds (Gesetz über die Entschädigung für Freiheitsentziehung aus politischen, rassischen und religiösen Gründen), 11 February 1949;
• Law on the Right of Objection in Detention Compensation Matters (Gesetz über das Beanstandungsrecht in Haftentschädigungssachen), 3 August 1951;
• Law on the Recognition of the Persecuted and Injured Victims of National Socialist Violent Rule and on the Care of the Persecuted (Gesetz über die Anerkennung der Verfolgten und Geschädigten der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft und über die Betreuung der Verfolgten), 4 March 1952.^[8]

Archival descriptions from district archives in the state record that district special aid committees were set up in 1946 and examined recognition applications; by 1949, offices for Wiedergutmachung had been established, and compensation committees dealt with detention compensation claims.^[2]

In Schleswig-Holstein, the legal framework was comparatively dense and included:

• General Order on Restitution for public employees (Wiedergutmachungsanordnung), 18 December 1946;
• implementing provisions of 18 December 1946;
• Social Insurance Directive No. 25 of the Military Government, 22 January 1947;
• Law on Procedure in the Granting of Special Privileges and Aid to Politically Persecuted Persons (Gesetz über das Verfahren bei Gewährung von Sondervergünstigungen und Hilfeleistungen an politisch Verfolgte), 4 March 1948;
• implementing regulation, 15 May 1948;
• Law on the Granting of Pensions to the Victims of National Socialism and Their Dependants (Gesetz über die Gewährung von Renten an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus und deren Hinterbliebene), 4 March 1948;
• implementing regulations of 15 May 1948 and 22 June 1950;
• Detention Compensation Law for the Land of Schleswig-Holstein (Haftentschädigungsgesetz für das Land Schleswig-Holstein), 4 July 1949;
• Restitution Law for public employees (Wiedergutmachungsgesetz), 4 July 1949.^[9]

The committees were not courts but administrative bodies operating in a transitional legal environment. Their practice could vary considerably from place to place. Surviving records show that they were central to the first stage of recognition and compensation, but they were gradually superseded by more specialized state compensation offices and later by federal compensation law.^[2][1]

The Kreis-Sonderhilfsausschüsse are significant for the history of postwar Germany because they illustrate how compensation for Nazi injustice began as a decentralized and uneven process shaped by British occupation directives, Land legislation and local administrative practice before the advent of the federal compensation system.^[1]

• Zonal Policy Instruction No. 20
• Federal Supplementary Compensation Act for Victims of National Socialist Persecution