Actually in general, what _should_ happen to the property of a government that gets dismantled?
On the one hand, this stuff probably gets into private hands by theft at some point, and it hardly seems just to legitimize opportunistic plundering.
On the other hand ... the state which owned it went out of existence. It's not as though there was a German government whose property rights were being infringed.
Perhaps the Allies could have fastidiously gathered all the assets of the German military and held a big liquidation sale at Alexanderplatz, and used the proceeds to buy food for the refugee camps.
>It's not as though there was a German government whose property rights were being infringed
It's pretty common to regard a country as having a claim on looted artifacts even after a change in government. It kind of seems to be taken for granted in a lot of discussions.
Exactly. It was Germany--the same one that exists today--that marched into its neighbors, conquering them and enslaving segments of their population. In the U.S., it's common to hear people say "The Nazis invaded Poland" or "The Nazis bombed London" but if you go to Poland, they'll say "The Germans invaded us" and if you go to London they'll say "The Germans bombed us."
I don't know why it's common to pretend otherwise.
When speaking about the state, I (UK) fairly often hear people refer to "Nazi Germany", instead of just Germany (and sometimes used as "Nazi Germany invaded Poland"). With the people though, it's generally just "the Germans".
