Decision no. 554/2009

In 1938, the property with an area of 7,000 m² was owned by Oskar F. and his son Michael F., each owning half. After the Anschluss, Oskar F., who was Jewish, was arrested and had to spend almost a year in the concentration camps Dachau and Buchenwald. After his release in early 1939 he was able to flee Austria. His son, who was also persecuted, had already successfully escaped in 1938.

In the early 1940s, the property served as party premises for a local division of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. As neither owner had been able to continue to fulfil a mortgage recorded on the property after their flight from Austria, in 1942, on the instigation of the bank, the property was subjected to a forced sale. The spouses Franz and Theresia G. received the property in exchange for a payment of 50,000 Schilling.

In 1947, after their return from exile, Oskar and Michael F. requested the restitution of the property from the G. spouses. The Restitution Commission Vienna granted this request in September 1948. A complaint lodged by the G. spouses against this decision remained unsuccessful. In 1953, Oskar and Michael F. sold the property to the City of Vienna for 316,000 Schilling. Since then, the ownership status has remained unchanged.

The present applicant before the Arbitration Panel, the daughter of Michael F. and granddaughter of Oskar F. primarily asserted that the restitution in the late 1940s had not been a restitution de facto, as all rights to the property had been precluded. However, this assertion could not be confirmed by the Arbitration Panel. For example, the sale to the City of Vienna in 1953 demonstrates that the ownership status of Oskar and Michael F. had been completely reinstated.

Thus, the case was not to be considered differently from other cases in which a restitution has already occurred. As the Arbitration Panel has pronounced in numerous previous decisions, a renewed restitution cannot be recommended in such cases.