Series details: CRDA/42

Under wartime legislation, the UK Government confiscated assets in British territory owned by residents of enemy countries. This took place in the 1930s and 1940s, under the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act 1939 (c89), an Act intended to prohibit commercial or financial dealings with the enemy 1, and to preserve enemy assets in the UK in order to prevent the enemy from benefiting from them.

The enemy countries included Nazi Germany and its allies, as well as countries under Nazi occupation. After the war, the assets of the occupied countries were released from British Government control, but the assets of the 'belligerent' countries were distributed to British creditors whose assets had been confiscated by the enemy countries. 2 An exception was made for victims of Nazi persecution and soon after the war, Nazi victims or their heirs could claim the return of their assets.

In Spring 1997, following public concern that there were still many assets belonging to victims that had not been returned, the British Government conducted research into the history of the administration of Enemy Property. Searches were made in the surviving records in the TWE (Trading With the Enemy) series, originally created by the Treasury and the Board of Trade. One result of this research was the compilation of a database of the assets seized from residents of belligerent enemy countries.

The UK Government saw the situation as an injustice that had to be addressed and, in June 1998, commissioned Lord Archer of Sandwell to advise on the design of a suitable compensation scheme. In December 1998, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry announced the compensation scheme administered by an independent Enemy Property Compensation Advisory Panel. Shortly after its formation, this Panel was known as the Enemy Property Claims Assessment Panel (EPCAP). 3

EPCAP launched the Enemy Property Payments Scheme in April 1999 under the Chairmanship of Lord Archer of Sandwell, sitting with two teams of assessors who were expert in finance and ethnic minority issues. The initial period for submission of claims ended on 30th September 1999 4. Each claim was then considered by EPCAP. Claims could be made in respect of any property in the UK confiscated by Her Majesty's Government under British legislation on enemy property or trading with the enemy if not already returned, and compensation not already been paid to cover its full value. The Government undertook to pay compensation on the basis of wartime values increased by the change in the retail prices index. Compensation was to be paid to victims of Nazi persecution who owned such property when it was confiscated, and others who could demonstrate that they were likely to have been the beneficial owner of such property if it had not been confiscated, if they or the original owner suffered Nazi persecution.5

On 8th July 2004, the Minister Patricia Hewitt announced the closure of the Enemy Property Payment Scheme. At that time, the Panel reported that 220,000 separate items were confiscated and either sold or returned to the original owners. They had received a total of 1,121 claims, of which 377 were successful. Payments made under the Scheme amounted to £16.2 million. There remained but 22 cases outstanding; and only one item (a gilt bracelet and diamond tie-pin) unclaimed.

After setting a 31st August 2004 deadline, the DTI found they were continuing to receive new enquiries, and it became clear that formal closure of the scheme would need to be deferred. At time of writing (September 2005), claims were still being processed, with the possibility that closure may be deferred until December 2005.

The EPCAP database was created and maintained within the Finance and Resource Management Directorate (FRM) of the Department of Trade and Industry.

The dataset is a resource of compiled information. It contains the names and addresses of people who had their assets seized by the UK Government during the Second World War. The dataset is also a record of the value of assets that were later released, and the names of those they were released to. The summary details of confiscated assets were compiled from records held at The National Archives 6 relating to property in the United Kingdom seized between 1939 and 1945 from commercial organisations and individuals resident in countries with which the United Kingdom was at war.

The 1999-2004 database has been selected for preservation in accordance with sections 2.2.1.1 (Management of public resources by the core executive) and 2.2.2 (Interaction of the state with its citizens) of The National Archives Acquisition Policy.

Although the scheme announced its closure in Summer 2004, DTI were still processing claims in 2005 (see Aim and purpose). A further snapshot of the database is therefore expected to be transferred to NDAD. It may contain additional fields that are not in the first 1999-2004 snapshot.

The Enemy Property Claims Assessment Panel (EPCAP) Secretariat Database and related documentation are public records under the Public Records Acts, 1958 and 1967. The National Archives has assigned the dataset the series reference NK 1.

The 1999-2004 dataset was transferred as 'open on transfer'. The structure of this transfer matches the dataset that was made available to the public online 7, with exception of two fields in the transfer which were not made available in the online version. The Department have now agreed that these fields, which relate to the release of the assets, can be made available to the public.

Further accruals of the series may contain data of a different nature and may be 'subject to blacking out of certain fields of information in order to respect matters of individual privacy'. 8

The Enemy Property Claims Assessment Panel (EPCAP) Secretariat Database and related documentation are Crown Copyright. Copies may be made for private study and research purposes only.

Subject access is permitted for the 1999-2004 snapshot. The data in the snapshot has previously been made available to the public via the Enemy property website.

The language of the materials is English.

Documents relating to the Enemy Property Claims dataset have been transferred to NDAD. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue for further details.

The National Archives holds 33 volumes of the Trading with the Enemy Branch of the Treasury and the Board of Trade, containing a history of the administration of enemy property during and after the Second World War, in Series BT 216. Also related are the large series of Account cards in Series BT 273, and the handwritten register Series BT 271. These records bear the original department file reference TWE. Both BT 273 and BT 271 are known to have been used by EPCAP in compiling this dataset. It is likely that BT 216 was also used.

NDAD holds copies of reports and publications of the Enemy Property Claims Assessment Panel, published by the DTI. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, references CRDA/42/DD/1-2.

Data from the database itself was published, in the sense that it was made available to the public via the DTI's Enemy Property website. For further information on provision of the online version, see User interface. Due to the way data was originally entered into the system, the contents of the online version and the dataset as transferred to NDAD do not match; for further information on this, see Links to dataset catalogues.

Details of original hardware not known.

The data file, originally called Assetdat.mdb, was held on the Department's server, and run on Microsoft Win 98. Two PCs on the network had a copy of Assetcod.mdb with the data entry facility disabled; these Read Only versions were for users who were not updating the database. This was done for reasons of security.

The original database had a query facility which enabled users to interrogate the database via a simple multiple query screen. The database was also able to produce a number of reports.

Data from the database was made available to the public via the DTI's Enemy Property website, http://www.enemyproperty.gov.uk. This was a searchable online resource. Brief introductions to the scope and content of this online resource have been preserved as Documentation by NDAD; see the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, references CRDA/42/DD/2/1-2.

The database as transferred comprises three tables. The main table CRDA/42/DS/1/1:tblEnemyProperty contains the name and personal details of the property owner, and detail of the assets in question. According to the original system documentation, this table was indexed by BatchNumber, Country, NameofOwner and TWEReference No.

The second table CRDA/42/DS/1/2:tblCountry was a lookup table and contained names of countries. The third table CRDA/42/DS/1/3:zz_Admin is a systems table containing only one record.

For further details of the structure of this dataset, see Links to dataset catalogues.

The dataset is based on data found in the TWE record series held at The National Archives. The Enemy Property Claims Assessment Panel undertook a series of systematic loans to process data from this record series. For more detail, see Associated material. One series that was particularly helpful was the TWE Accounts Cards. NDAD holds a facsimile of one such Account Card in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/42/DD/4. Selected details from these raw data were keyed into the database by external data entry staff. It is not known how the data was validated.

For further information on data entry and validation, see Links to dataset catalogues.

Many of the original individual TWE case files have been destroyed, and the Panel found from its research that it was not obvious which of the assets had been returned. For these reasons the database cannot be seen as a comprehensive or complete record of confiscated assets, although it is a thorough account of those assets which were returned.

Dataset catalogues provide more detailed information about individual datasets, and are currently available for the following dataset(s):

1. An 'enemy' was defined as 'any person or organisation resident or established in a state at war with the UK'.

2. The treatment during and after the Second World War of property confiscated from residents of enemy countries was determined by the country's 'belligerent' or 'technical enemy' status. A detailed explanation of these terms, and the status of each former enemy country, can be found in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) History Notes British policy towards enemy property during and after the Second World War (April 1998). See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/42/DD/1/1.

3. Publicising the Scheme on 7th December 1998, The Rt Hon Peter Mandelson said this was an "issue concerning the Government's relations with the wider Jewish Community", and expressed the view that "this was not a glorious chapter in our Island's story. Fifty years on, the failure fully to restore these assets to their proper owners seems unimaginable, but at the time we failed to differentiate between enemies and victims." A copy of this speech can be found on the Government News Network; see http://www.gnn.gov.uk/ consulted on 17/10/2005.

4. That deadline was later extended to 31st August 2004. It was further extended in 2005.

5. Source: Hansard, 24th March 1999.

6. The records in question are likely to be those held in Series BT 216, BT 271 and BT 273. See Associated material for further information.

7. However, the contents of the transfer differ from the online version. For further information, see Constraints on the reliability of the data in the Dataset catalogue.

8. This was stated by the TNA in their formal Proposal for a new PRO Series document, dated 31/01/2001; a copy of this was received by NDAD, as part of the notification process for this dataset, 05/02/2001.