East Germany gave Junker land to new farmers in 1945, and reunified Germany took it back from their heirs without compensation

In September 1945 the Soviet occupation zone confiscated every holding over 100 hectares. The land went into a state fund and was handed out in parcels averaging eight hectares to landless or land-poor "new farmers." The deeds called the parcels heritable but barred their sale and required them to be farmed. Heidi Jahn and her brother Albert Thurm inherited such land in Saxony-Anhalt in 1976. Erika Rissmann and Ilse Höller inherited in Mecklenburg in 1978, and Edith Loth in Brandenburg in 1986. The last East German parliament passed the Modrow Law, in force on 16 March 1990, which lifted all restrictions and made the holders full owners. On 14 July 1992 the united German parliament ruled that heirs could keep such land only if they had worked in farming, forestry or the food industry on 15 March 1990 or in the ten years before. Otherwise the land went to the state treasury, with no compensation. All five heirs had to hand over their land between 1995 and 1998. Edith Loth, a farm cooperative member from 1968 to 1979 and later a cleaner at the Stasi ministry, was also ordered to repay DEM 60,000 in rent, then a further DEM 27,000. In January 2004 a chamber of the European Court of Human Rights found a violation. On 30 June 2005 the Grand Chamber reversed it by 11 votes to 6, holding that the unique context of reunification justified the lack of compensation. The land stays with the states.