Decision no. 319/2007

In 1938, the real estate in the First District, on which a five-storey corner house is situated, was owned by the siblings Georg B. and Wilhelmine P. Each of them owned a half-share to the real estate. According to the Nuremberg Laws, Georg B. and Wilhelmine P. were considered Jews. In 1939, the real estate was sold to Otto K. for 280,000.00 Reichsmark. An approval by the National Socialist Property Transactions Office was compulsory. In 1939, Wilhelmine P. was able to emigrate with her husband and her daughter to London. In 1941, Georg B. was deported to the ghetto Litzmannsstadt/Lodz where he died in 1942.

In 1947, Wilhelmine P., who after her brother Georg B. had been declared dead became his heiress, applied for the restitution of the real estate before the Restitution Commission Vienna. In May 1950, the opponent to restitution, Otto K., in a settlement was sentenced to the restitution of the real estate to the claimant Wilhelmine P. for a repayment of 315,000.00 Schilling. Through this all claims concerning the objective real estate were considered as settled. The same month Wilhelmine P. sold the real estate to the Federal Chamber of Industrial Commerce which sold the real estate to the Republic of Austria in 1982.

The applicants before the Arbitration Panel based their assessment of the prior restitution procedure as “extremely unjust” on the material losses they experienced during that procedure.

The Arbitration Panel had to examine whether in spite of a restitution, which had taken place priorly, a real estate can be restituted anew. The purpose of the General Settlement Fund Law is to resolve open questions concerning the compensation of victims of National Socialism. The General Settlement Fund Law provides possibilities of a monetary compensation for losses on the side of the heirs to the applicants caused by an incorrect partial decision. However, a decision on this matter does not come under the competence of the Arbitration Panel. The claim to restitution, which is to be asserted with the Arbitration Panel, has already been positively decided in a prior procedure. For these reasons, a recommendation of a restitution of the real estate could not be pronounced.