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Homeowners on a street in Germany have been told they must foot the bill for their road's construction - even though it's been there for nearly 80 years.
[...] The bills included a conversion from the Nazi-era Reichsmark currency into euros for the original road surface, first laid in 1937, which is being dubbed "Hitler asphalt" by the German media. The figures were also adjusted for inflation.
While homeowners were perplexed, a court has now confirmed that they must cough up the cash. It determined that while construction began in the 1930s, the road was only officially completed in 2009 when pavements were added. For the intervening period it was considered to be under development.
[...] According to Die Welt, the council says people weren't required to contribute towards road construction under the Third Reich, so the costs are simply being billed now. The court agreed, saying that the length of time involved doesn't matter. "There is no statute of limitations in relation to the construction work," says Franziska Hoette, a judge at Dusseldorf's Administrative Court.
Source: BBC News
(Score: 3, Interesting) by n1 on Sunday July 31 2016, @12:29PM
The law is the law, that's why it's the law. If it was wrong, it would be against the law.
Obviously germany has different systems, but one would expect the residents to pay indirectly through taxes, as is the case generally with infrastructure.
Now i'm not a lawyer/accountant/town planner... But this seems to me that it opens the door to dig through all the civil engineering and construction projects in germany, make sure all those Nazi development projects have been paid for by residents, if the bills have not been settled by them yet. As described, there is no statute of limitations on construction.... I wonder if that applies to installations that have not existed for decades, but due to the immensely complicated financing of the Nazi war machine, never actually got paid for... Someone still has to pay for them and the law says it's the residents responsibility to pay.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 31 2016, @12:38PM
Good point. But, let us suppose that some street somewhere comes to the attention of the bean counters. The street hasn't been there for fifty or sixty years - let's say it was bombed into oblivion by the allies. I would imagine that when the city tries to make the "residents" pay for that street, they would object more strenuously than the people who are making use of this street in Dusseldorf. The residents in Dusseldorf actually have a street, homes, and property on the street for which they are being billed, and probably make routine use of that street.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday July 31 2016, @07:04PM
But now there is precedent, making it much more difficult to fight.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2016, @01:46PM
Obviously germany has different systems, but one would expect the residents to pay indirectly through taxes, as is the case generally with infrastructure.
Greetings from Germany.
We usually pay for infrastructure through taxes, but in this case it is a little different. If a *new* street is built, then the city can bill the citizens living in this street for the construction work, in a time frame between 0 and 30 years *after* the work is finished. Building this street began in 1937 and was finished in 2010. And when a city does not raise enough money through taxes, they start looking for other ways to earn money.
In my opinion, this law is ridiculous. The people that lived in this street before do not have to pay anything although they benefited from it, too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Sunday July 31 2016, @02:09PM
"Building this street began in 1937 and was finished in 2010"
Sounds like some of the road maintenance projects near where I live.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Sunday July 31 2016, @04:32PM
Back in the 1930s they had a socialist platform which paid for the autobahn, peoples car, etc. Wouldn’t part of this road be billed to the third rich?
I wonder how the billing can span from Third Rich > British > West Germany > Germany. That’s four different governments.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 01 2016, @08:13AM
Legally, current Germany = old West Germany. East Germany joined West Germany in the reunion. And West Germany always considered themselves the legal successor of the Third Reich.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:30AM
I don't find the law that ridiculous, actually. In the USA, we already have too damn many roads going all over the place. So if someone really wants to build their house in the middle of nowhere, I see no reason I should have to pay for a new road going there when these people and their house guests are the only ones likely to need it. We already have plenty of roads going the places people generally want to go, so there ought to be a disincentive to building new ones, lest the road builders buddy up to the urban planners and siphon off tax dollars building roads to nowhere.
If you've traveled in the Japanese countryside you'll know what I'm talking about: tons of marginally useful infrastructure is built because there's a fixed budget for it and a revolving door policy between construction companies and the bureaucrats that allocate these funds. If the people who need the road have to pay for it, it ensures at least a certain level of popular demand. Obviously the timespan was crazy long in this case, but the spirit of the law seems like it might have some merit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 31 2016, @02:20PM
I guess there'll be a huge bill coming to the people living in Normandy to pay up for the constructions managed by the nazis.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by wisnoskij on Sunday July 31 2016, @02:54PM
"Dear AHO,
While it was our directive to give out zyklon b free of charge in the 1930's this mandate has recently been changed,
and we will need you to reimburse us for all of the zyklon b consumed by you and those you represent
Sincerely,
Germany."