Soviet Pows to Sue Germany

A Berlin lawyer will today bring a suit against the German government that could end up costing it up to £300m.

Stefan Taschjian is seeking compensation on behalf of two Armenian veterans of the Red Army who were held as prisoners by the Germans during the second world war.

But the case could open the way for payments to be made to as many as 60,000 surviving former Soviet prisoners of war.

Mr Taschjian's petition argues that their suffering was at least as great as those of slave labourers who were offered compensation in a deal concluded two years ago.

It quotes a Russian historian as saying that the death rate among Germany's 3.3 million Soviet PoWs was 57%, compared with only 5% among prisoners from the forces of the other anti-Axis powers.

The law which gave effect to the slave labourers' settlement offered payments to former prisoners of war only if they had been put into concentration camps.

But the suit claims that this provision is at odds with the stated basis of the law, which is that victims of the Third Reich have a right to be compensated if they were singled out on grounds of race or ideology.

The petition cites guidelines issued to the German army in 1941: "The Bolshevik soldiers have lost all right to be treated as honourable combatants under the terms of the Geneva convention."

Soviet prisoners were used for medical experiments and to test the effects of Zyklon B, the agent used in the Nazi gas chambers.

In a deposition appended to the writ, Professor Pavel Polian, a member of the Russian Academy of Science, writes: "In the winter of 1941-42, the Dulags [staging camps] and Stalags [detention camps] for the Soviet prisoners of war - were genuine extermination camps - Even cannibalism was not an exceptional occurrence."

The case has been brought on behalf of two men aged 79 and 82, who are demanding 15,000 marks (£5,000) - the compensation agreed for slave labourers. Mr Taschjian says a further 1,500 Armenians, the oldest of whom is 105, are watching the outcome.