By DPA,
Berlin : Germany rejected Wednesday a Rome court verdict, saying that it would not pay personal damages for Nazi atrocities, because it has already paid reparations to Italy as a nation.
On Tuesday, nine families in Italy had won a Court of Cassation award of 1 million euros ($1.3 million) for relatives killed when Nazi soldiers massacred 203 people at Civitella in northern Italy in June 1944.
Jens Ploetner, spokesman for the foreign ministry in Berlin, said the damages award by the Court of Cassation was “unacceptable.”
Modern Germany accepted moral responsibility for war crimes committed in the name of Germany in Italy by the Nazis and desired a dialogue with survivors and relatives.
However, financial compensation claims were closed under a 1961 treaty between Germany and Italy.
He said that under international law, personal damages claims against the German government were not the right way to rectify past wrongs.