“Hunting the lost treasures 💰 of the GDR”

This could have somewhat been the title of our 3rd #Wendegeschichten evening with Rolf Trittmann and Christof Elssner last Thursday in the aftermath of the Berlin Dispute Resolution Days.

After Rolf Trittmann shared his experience of bringing East-German lawyers up to speed with the West-German legal system immediately after the fall of the wall, Christof Elßner took everyone on his 15-year-long journey of chasing dissimulated SED assets in Austria and Switzerland, a case known to insiders as the #Novum case.

As our Wendegeschichten are subject to the Chatham House Rules, we cannot share more details, but may be these: Rolf Trittmann found it unlikely that Gregor Gysi may have sat in one of his 30 (!) one-day lectures on West-German civil and commercial law which he gave to his East-German audience within the frames of a “lawyers-help-lawyers” initiative; and Christof Elßner was the first generation of exchange students from East-Germany who went to the USA before the reunification with the help of YFU – Deutsches Youth For Understanding Komitee e.V., and who returned to a reunified Germany having departed from a country that had meanwhile disappeared.

The next Wendegeschichten are coming up in October. Let us know if you wish to join!