Decision no. 756/2011

Application

 

Applicant, Status

Georges J., Rejection
Anna L., Rejection
Maria M., Dismissal
Andreas M., Dismissal
Lena M., Dismissal
Majken Lilly T., Rejection
Emile Z., Rejection

Public owner

Republik Österreich

Type of property

immovable

Real estate in

KG Purkersdorf (01906), Purkersdorf, Niederösterreich | show on map

Decision

 

Number

756/2011

Date

30 Sep 2011

Reasons

No "extreme injustice" pursuant to Sec. 32 (2) item 1 of the GSF Law
Deadline expired

Type

substantive

Decision in anonymous form

Press release

Press Release Decision No. 756/2011

Lower Austria/Purkersdorf
On 30 September 2011, the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution rejected an application for restitution of a property indirectly owned by the Republic of Austria in the Municipality of Purkersdorf, Lower Austria. The requested property had already been the object of restitution proceedings after 1945, which were concluded with a settlement in 1952. However, the Arbitration Panel did not assess this settlement to be “extremely unjust” pursuant to the Entschädigungsfondsgesetz (“General Settlement Fund Law” – GSF Law).

In 1938, the requested property belonged to the community of heirs of Viktor Z., who had run a sanatorium on the 143,763 m² grounds. After the Anschluss, the four heirs were considered Jewish, one of them a Mischling I. Grades (“first grade half-caste”). The majority of the grounds and the entire sanatorium were acquired by the Österreichische Kontrollbank für Industrie und Handel and sold on to Hans G. One of the four former owners had already moved to France for professional reasons prior to 1938, two were deported and murdered and one owner survived the National Socialist persecution.

From September 1939 until the end of the war, the former sanatorium was used as a military hospital by the German Armed Forces and after 1945 as a hospital for epidemic diseases by the Soviet occupying power and the City of Vienna. In 1947, restitution proceedings were initiated by the former owners, in which Hans G. disputed the existence of a seizure due to the large amount of debt attached to the property.

In July 1952, the parties to the proceedings concluded a settlement before the Restitution Commission. Subsequently, 55 % of the property holdings were restituted to the restitution claimants. All properties were then sold; some of them were owned on the cut off day, 17 January 2001, by a legal entity wholly-owned by the Republic of Austria.

The Arbitration Panel had to examine whether the prior measure – the settlement concluded in 1952 – constituted an “extreme injustice” and therefore merited a recommendation of in rem restitution pursuant to the GSF Law. Over the 5-year course of the restitution proceedings, the point was never reached where the Restitution Commission considered Hans G. to be, in principle, obligated to restitute the property in accordance with the provisions of the Drittes Rückstellungsgesetz (“Third Restitution Act”) and therefore it did not order a partial decision on the obligation to restitute. In view of the legal requirements and the case law, the Arbitration Panel considers it plausible that both parties assessed the loss of losing the case equally and therefore met at around one half of the most successful outcome of the case.

Therefore, the exceptional circumstances for an “extreme injustice” codified in Sec. 28 (1) item 2 of the GSF Law did not exist. The application for restitution was therefore rejected.

For use by media; not legally binding upon the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution.
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