Decision no. 415/2008

In 1938, the claimed real estate in the 1^st district, on which a five-story corner house is built, belonged to Martha, Ernst and Fritz H. and Ottilie and Friederike R., each owning a fifth of the house.  According to the Nuremberg Laws, all were Jews except Frederike R.  In 1939, they were forced to sell the property to the German Audit and Trust Plc (Deutsche- Revisions und Treuhand AG) for 155,000 Reich marks. The purchase price was put on an account designated "de-jewification proceeds", from which largely discriminatory taxes were paid. By this time, Ernst H.  had already died. Martha H., Fritz H., and Ottilie R. had moved abroad and Friederike R. stayed in Vienna.

In 1947 Friederike R. applied to the Restitution Committee Vienna for the restitution of the property.  In 1949, Fritz H., Martha H., Ottilie R. and the estate of Ernst H. also applied.  The house, including the office fittings, had been used by the soviet occupying forces since April 1945.

In June 1957, the German Audit and Trust Plc (Deutsche- Revisions und Treuhand AG), under the intervention of the State Financial Procurator’s Office, reached a settlement with the restitution applicants, in which the property would be returned to Friederike R. and the heirs of the original owners for a payment of 155,000 shillings.

The following year the family sold the property to the Austrian Mineral Oil Administration Plc for two million shillings. In 1990 the Republic of Austria obtained the property by means of an exchange.

The claimants argued to the Arbitration Panel that the general conditions of the then restitution were extremely unjust. They based this on the material losses that arose during the course of the restitution proceedings, and particularly that the purchase price was used to pay discriminatory taxes.

The Arbitration Panel has already explained in previous decisions (e.g. 317/2006, 318/2006 and 319/2007) that it cannot recommend the repeated restitution of an already restituted property.  The goal of the General Settlement Fund Law is to settle open questions regarding compensation for victims of National Socialism. The intention of the General Settlement Fund Law is to provide the possibility of monetary compensation for the financial losses of the applicant’s ancestors. This decision does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Panel. On the other hand, the claim for restitution put before the Arbitration Panel had already had a positive outcome in an earlier proceeding. For these reasons, a recommendation for restitution could not be made.