Decision no. 746/2011

In 1938, the property in the 20th municipal district of Vienna, on which a tenanted apartment building is situated, belonged to the businessman Rudolf St., a Czech national with Jewish origins who ran two hardware shops in Vienna. After the Anschluss, Rudolf St. fled to Czechoslovakia with his wife and, in 1939, from there to the USA. Upon the occupation of the Czechoslovakian Republic and the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by the German Reich on 15 March 1939, Rudolf St. was considered a citizen of the  Protectorate.

In August 1941, the Secret State Police Vienna confiscated the entire assets of Rudolf St., although he remained the recorded owner of his property in the land register. In February 1942 Rudolf St.’s citizenship of the Protectorate was annulled. Upon the enactment of the Verordnung über den Verlust der Protektoratsangehörigkeit (“Ordinance on the Loss of Citizenship of the Protectorate”) of 2 November 1942, the confiscated assets of Rudolf  St., who was now stateless, were forfeited to the German Reich. The property subject of  the application was put under the administration of the Chief Finance President Vienna-Lower Danube.

After the end of the National Socialist regime, the property passed into the administration of the Financial Directorate for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland. In June 1947, Rudolf  St. applied for the restitution of the property at the Financial Directorate. In September 1947, the Minister of the Interior annulled the confiscation order. By decision of 18 August 1948, the Financial Directorate restituted the property to Rudolf St. on the basis of the Erstes  Rückstellungsgesetz (“First Restitution Act”).

In November 1958, Rudolf St. sold the property to the spouses Rudolf and Elfriede H. for 66,000 Schilling. In 1973, the City of Vienna purchased the property from Elfriede H., who had in the meantime become the sole proprietor.

The restitution claim asserted before the Arbitration Panel has therefore already been decided in prior proceedings in favour of the aggrieved owner. The Arbitration Panel has ruled in several previous decisions that it is not able to recommend the return of a property which has already been restituted once before. For these reasons, a restitution could not be recommended.