Haaretz publisher Amos Shocken
Haaretz publisher Amos ShockenFlash 90

A Berlin tribunal on Thursday ordered Germany to pay 50 million euros (around $68 million) in reparations to descendants of the Schocken family, current owners of Haaretzwhose chain of department stores was seized by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

The Schocken family lost several shops, mainly in the eastern region of Saxony, in 1938, during the Nazis' "Aryanization" of German businesses, said a court statement.

Berlin's administrative tribunal ordered Germany to pay 30 million euros ($41 million) of compensation for the seizure, as well as 20 million euros (roughly $27 million) in interest.

The Schocken family received 30 million Deutsche Marks (around $20 million) in the 1990s for the loss of a building in the eastern city of Chemnitz, which has been transformed into an archaeological museum.

The German state can appeal the decision before the federal administrative court based in Leipzig, the tribunal said in a statement.

Haaretz is partly owned by M. DuMont Schauberg, a German publishing house with a Nazi past. An additional owners is Russian-Israeli businessman Leonid Nevzlin. The Schocken family owns a majority of the shares.

Economics Minister Naftali Bennett attacked the paper last December, saying it "has been running an organized and precise campaign against the Jewish identity of Israel."