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

Political conflicts, regime change, revolutions and wars make not only people but also their property vulnerable. Plunder and confiscation were common ways of dealing 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 Wars, with disruptive effects. In the two World Wars and the interwar period, sequestration and confiscation grew in scale and scope, reaching an unprecedented magnitude as a result of three driving forces that were frequently intertwined: nationalism, socialism and antisemitism. Confiscation was a political weapon that furthered different aims. It helped to make the expulsion of enemy subjects irreversible. It was an instrument to exclude from the civic body those who did not belong – the ‘internal enemies’ – and to prevent undesirable people from acquiring citizenship. This special issue collects eight essays on property rights and their violation in the two World Wars, centred on three keywords: sequestration, confiscation and restitution. Bringing together new historical research on Serbia, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria, the essays address state violence, law and human rights, as well as the entanglement between citizenship, nationality and property.