Property rights in wartime – sequestration, confiscation and restitution in twentieth-century Europe: Introduction

Political conflicts, changes of regimes, revolutions and wars make not only people but also their property vulnerable. Plunders and confiscations were a common way to deal with the enemy – either internal or external – in many conflicts, conquests and occupations during the Old Regime and resurfaced as crucial political weapons in both the First and the Second World War with disruptive effects. In the two world wars and the interwar period, sequestration and confiscation grew in their scale and scope, reaching an unknown magnitude under the impulse of three driving forces, that frequently mingled together: nationalism, socialism and antisemitism. Confiscation was a political weapon that supported different aims. It helped to make irreversible the expulsion of enemy subjects. It was an instrument to exclude from the civic body those who did not belong - the "internal enemies" – and prevent undesirable people from acquiring citizenship. This special issue puts together eight essays on property rights and their violation in war and post-war times, discuss, in the light of the historiography on the two world wars, nation-building, state violence, law and human rights, as well as the entanglement between citizenship, nationality and property. The articles showcase new historical research and revolve around three keywords: sequestration, confiscation, and restitution.