EXCLUSION OF GERMAN NATIONALS FROM THE ENTITLEMENTS PROVIDED IN THE BILL ON MONETARY BENEFIT FOR CERTAIN PERSONS AFFECTED BY NATIONALISATION PROCESSES

In this paper the author looks at the legal status of post-German property in Poland in the light of the bill on monetary benefit for certain persons affected by nationalisation processes, and analyses international law acts under which Poland acquired that property. Special attention has been given to the Treaty of Potsdam of 2 August 1945 and the Polish-Soviet agreement of 16 August 1945 which regulated the manner of reparations for war damages caused by Nazi occupation in Poland. The provisions of those two documents and resulting from them status quo were later confirmed by subsequent acts of international law. The territorial cession endorsed by the UK, the USA and the USSR in Potsdam, resulted in Poland receiving a portion of East Prussia, in consequence of which post-German property, free from encumbrances, has become property of the State Treasury. It is claimed in the paper that the Treaty of Potsdam should be recognised as pactum in favorem tertii. The Polish-Soviet agreement on German reparations should also be considered as a direct legal instrument of international application concerning the execution of constitutive provisions of the Treaty, in which the legal status of former German property was unambiguously defined