Mainz - Germany's Catholic Church said yesterday it would pay five million marks (£2 million) to compensate Naziera forced labourers.
Bishop Karl Lehmann said people forced to work by Catholic institutions during the Third Reich were expressly excluded from a 10 billion mark fund set up this year by the state and German companies. The church had therefore decided to pay five million marks to the forced labourers it admits using, and donate a further five million to boost reconciliation efforts in Eastern Europe, Bishop Lehmann told a news conference after a bishops' meeting in Mainz.
The German Protestant churches last month said they would pay 10 million marks directly into the central fund, set up last year after international negotiations with survivors' representatives.