A German woman born in 1948 lost her father's estate to relatives he never met, and Europe's human rights court ruled for her

Brigitte Brauer was born in 1948 in Oberschwöditz, in what became East Germany. Her father, Mr Schildgen, recognised her a few months after the birth. He lived in West Germany. They wrote to each other regularly, and after reunification she visited him and they grew closer. He died in 1998 with no will, no wife and no other children. A West German rule, kept as a transitional provision even after a 1997 reform, barred children born outside marriage before 1 July 1949 from inheriting from their fathers. Her father lived in the West on 3 October 1990, so that rule applied. His heirs became third-degree relatives he apparently did not know. The Neunkirchen District Court refused her a certificate of inheritance in October 1998. The case went back and forth between the Saarbrücken Regional Court and the Saarland Court of Appeal until September 2003. The Federal Constitutional Court declined her appeal in November 2003; it had upheld the 1949 cutoff in 1976 and 1996. On 28 May 2009 the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously that the cutoff violated her rights under Article 14 read with Article 8. In January 2010 Germany agreed to pay her €115,000. Germany then changed the law^† in 2011: children born before July 1949 now inherit where the father died after 28 May 2009, and those shut out earlier may claim compensation where the state itself inherited.