Every other week, German lawyer Reiner Geulen gets a black-rimmed envelope in the mail. Each one is a death notice from one of his clients.

In the fall of 2000, Geulen started representing 773 radar technicians who had worked for Germany's armed forces. They claimed operating military radar machines had given them cancer and demanded compensation from the German government.

Geulen says 171 of his clients have meanwhile died of cancer without having received any money.

Increasing the pressure

This week, Geulen launched suits in two regional German courts to put more pressure on the German government. He is seeking minimum damages of 60,000 euro ($52,770) per victim in six test cases before the two courts.

Geulen accuses the German government of failing to give operators sufficient warning about the dangers of radiation or provide adequate shielding until the early 1980s.

The German defense ministry says it had no knowledge that the machines the soldiers worked on emitted high doses of radiation. The ministry claims it did everything it could to protect the soldiers from harm.

Class action in the U.S.

Geulen has announced that he'll take the case of some of his clients even a step further. 400 of them worked on radar machines made by U.S. firms. Therefore Geulen plans to launch a class action suit in the U.S. later this year. He hopes he'll be able to secure between half a million and 1.7 million dollars (€ 1.94 million) for each of these 400 soldiers.

Geulen says he expects U.S., Dutch and Greek victims to take part as well, all soldiers who also worked on American-made radar machines.

The German lawyer plans to launch the class action suit against manufacturers including defense contractor Raytheon Co , Lockheed Martin Corp. , telecommunications equipment firm Lucent Technologies Inc. and General Electric .

Defense Ministry promised help

When the news broke two years ago that German soldiers had been subjected to radiation, the Defense Ministry promised to help quickly, setting up a telephone hotline, starting an investigation - and saying it would pay compensation where it was due.

By mid March of this year, 1,570 soldiers had filed their cases with the Ministry. All of them said they had been affected by radiation.

But only 486 of these cases have been processed so far - less than a third. And out of those 486, the Defense Ministry have only recognized eight soldiers as unfit for further service, entitling them to monthly payments.

However the German Defense Ministry has turned 430 of the 486 cases down.

A spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry said "We are examining the cases as quickly and generously as possible."

She rejected Reiner Geulen's accusation that Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping had broken a promise to deal with demands for compensation quickly.