Oradour and Distomo

German troops in front of buildings set ablaze in Distomo, during the massacre

A double crime anniversary: 70 years from the June 10, 1944, massacres of Oradour-sur-Glane in France and Distomo in Greece, by German Waffen-SS units. 

German courts, citing the 1961 bilateral agreement concerning enforcement and recognition of judgments between Germany and Greece, and Section 328 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, rejected the decision of the Greek High Court in favor of reparation claims of Distomo victims' relatives, because "Greece does not have jurisdiction with regard to the actions in question, which were sovereign acts by a state (i.e. the German state)". Thus, for the sake of saving money, German courts transferred the massacre responsibility from the SS-units to the German state ...! Impressive ... 

In more detail: 

In October 1997, the Court of First Instance in Livadia ruled in favor of over 250 relatives of the Distomo massacre victims, ordering the German state to pay approximately €28 million in damages for the 1944 atrocity. 

The Greek Supreme Civil and Criminal Court (Areios Pagos) upheld this ruling on 4 May 2000, affirming that Germany could be held liable. The Court rejected Germany’s claim of state immunity, reasoning that such grave violations of peremptory norms (jus cogens) could not be classified as sovereign acts; thus, immunity did not apply.

Despite the victorious ruling, enforcement within Greece was blocked by law: Article 923 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure requires prior consent from the Minister of Justice to serve a judgment against a foreign state — permission which was never granted. 

Germany challenged the decision in German and European courts, which were unfavorable:

- All German courts rejected the claims, citing state immunity and a 1961 bilateral treaty

- The European Court of Human Rights also declined to hear the case in 2011, ruling it inadmissible .

The church where the women and children of Oradour were burnt to death