Decision no. 759/2011

The property, which had an area of almost 2,000 m², on part of which a two storey residential building was situated, was owned in 1938 by the applicant’s father Fritz W. and his brothers Robert, Karl, Alexander and Leo W. Following the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich, the owners – who at the same time were partners in a coach company in Karlsbad – were considered Jewish in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and subjected to persecution.

In July 1942, Fritz W. was deported from Prague to the ghetto and concentration camp Theresienstadt and then to the ghetto Baranoviči near Minsk in present day Belarus, where he was murdered. Fritz W.’s brothers were able to flee to South America and survived World War II in exile. In 1940 a construction materials company acquired the property subject of the application in a forced auctioning procedure for 56,000 Reichsmark. The company had to pay part of the purchase price to the German Reich as a “dejewification fee”.

After the war, Fritz W.’s surviving siblings did not file any claims for restitution against the construction company. In 1952, the company constructed a storage warehouse, a shed and a lime pit on the property. Following the establishment of the so called collection agencies in the course of the State Treaty of Vienna 1955 – established to lay claim to property which had been seized during the Nazi era but had so far remained unclaimed and to use the proceeds for the benefit of the victims of National Socialism – the competent Collection Agency A asserted restitution claims to the property against the construction company. During the course of these proceedings, the Collection Agency informed the former owners and their heirs about the restitution proceedings and they subsequently participated in the proceedings as so called applicants for equitable relief.

In 1962 the construction company and Collection Agency A concluded a settlement before the Restitution Commission Vienna in which they agreed on a compensation payment of 175,000 Schilling; in exchange the Collection Agency would waive the claim and pay these proceeds to Fritz W.’s siblings.  The share formerly belonging to Fritz W. was also covered by this settlement. The applicant, as the illegitimate daughter if Fritz W., was not involved in the proceedings at the time.

In its judicial appraisal, the Arbitration Panel first had to examine whether the applicant, as the illegitimate daughter of Fritz W., had been his eligible heir at the time of his death. Fritz W. died without leaving a last will and testament and no probate proceedings were held. As legitimate and illegitimate children were not given equal rights in terms of inheritance until 1989 in Austria, the applicant is not the statutory heir of Fritz W. and, as such, is not eligible to file an application pursuant to the GSF Law. Therefore, her application had to be rejected alone for this reason. Moreover, it would not have been possible to issue a recommendation due to the existence to a prior compensation measure, the settlement of 1962.