The search engines I use for the Web are:

Lycos (http://www.lycos.com/), Webcrawler (http://webcrawler.com/), and Infoseek (http://www2.infoseek.com).

Sites which may be of assistance to you include:

http://langlab.uta.edu/germ/gic/gic_search.html (a search engine for material, in English and German, at the German Information Centre)

http://fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de:8080/~stummel/Jura.html (this is supposed to provide access to a search engine for German legal issues in German)

http://seamless.com/bzt/index.html (this is the home page for Bender Zahn Tigges, which claims to be the first German law firm on the Web. Their info indicates that they do work relating to "property restitution." Maybe someone there can help you out).

If you are interested in comparative work with the situation in South Africa (where land confiscated under the apartheid regime is subject to restitution), you might look at the following:

http://www.os2.iaccess.za/jutastat/constit/chap8.htm (chapter 8 of the new constitution which includes the restitution provisions in ss 121-123)

http://www.polity.org.za/gnuindex.html (an index of material for the current government, including documents on restitution)

http://www.polity.org.za/lists/govnotices.html (includes a notice about the application of the Restitution of Land Rights Act, 1994 (Act No. 22 of 1994))."

I would also add a point which may be of more direct interest to you than it was to Ary Frenkiel. Professor Daniel Visser of the University of Cape Town gave a paper at the 1994 meeting of the SPTL called "Giving Back the Country" which explains the South African position. I do not know if it has since been published, but I could send you a copy.

Hope this helps.

Lionel Smith
Faculty of Law
University of Alberta
403 492 2599; Fax 403 492 4924