Decision no. 481/2008

In 1938, the requested property, an undeveloped property parcel in the 21st District of Vienna, belonged to Mina K., who was Jewish. In April 1940, she sold the 218 m² property to the owner of the neighboring property, Franz B. for 327 Reichsmark. The purchase contract was approved by the Property Transaction Office – the National Socialist aryanization authority – and the proceeds from the sale were deposited with a trustee. Of these proceeds, around 153 Reichsmark were seized by the tax office Brigittenau for the income tax of Mina K.’s husband. After a partitioning plan had been approved in 1941, Franz B., who had wanted to render his property parcel suitable for development, ceded a part of the property he had purchased to the City of Vienna to be used as a public road area; he sold the remainder to the M. spouses a year later.

Mina K. and her husband Andor did not survive the National Socialist era; the spouses had fled to Yugoslavia in 1941, from where they never returned. Their date of death was declared to have been 8 May 1945. Although the Collection Agencies, which were supposed to utilize property which had remained heirless or unclaimed for the benefit of the victims of National Socialism, had come across the seized property during the course of their inquiries, they did not lay claim to it as they had been mistaken in several details regarding the “aryanization” of the property. After several assignments and partitionings of land, today the majority of the seized property, around 197 m², is owned by the City of Vienna.

Among other things, the Arbitration Panel had to examine the question of whether the present case indeed involved a seizure “on grounds of race” or whether the sale would have had to occur independently of the National Socialist assumption of power on the basis of the Building Regulations for Vienna. The involvement of the Property Transaction Office constitutes a measure connected to the persecution of Mina K. Moreover, income tax arrears of Andor K. had had to be settled from the purchase price (over which Mina K. had not been able to dispose in its entirety). Furthermore, Franz B.’s property was sold before the partitioning plan had existed; Franz B. had therefore had no reason to purchase the parts of the property in 1940 in order to make his land suitable for development and to cede them to the City of Vienna pursuant to the Building Regulations for Vienna. The Arbitration Panel therefore determined that the sale of the property was connected to Mina K.’s persecution by the National Socialist regime due to the fact that Franz B. used their predicament to become the owner of the property at an earlier point in time.

The Arbitration Panel therefore considered the claim of the heir of Mina K. to exist on its merits. As the seized property forms part of a road today, the Arbitration Panel does not consider a restitution to be practical and, upon consultation with the City of Vienna, shall recommend that a comparable asset be awarded.