Decision no. 810/2011

In 1938, the requested property in the Municipality of Judenburg, Styria, on which a barn for storing agricultural machinery was situated, was owned by Berta Z. She was considered Jewish according to National Socialist legislation. In June 1938, Berta Z. sold the 2,592 m² property to the Municipality of Judenburg for 2,666.66 Reichsmark. The municipality sold it on to the Reich Treasury (Army), which has officers’ accommodation erected on the property. Berta Z., her husband Leopold Z. and their children Alfred and Margit fled Austria to the USA in September 1939.

In 1947, Berta Z. applied for the restitution of the property by the Reich Treasury at the Restitution Commission Graz. In June 1948 a partial decision was issued which stated that restitution was unfeasible due to the redevelopment of the property and the adverse party to the restitution was to pay the appropriate estimated value of the property. In its final decision of March 1949, the Restitution Commission awarded the claimant a sum of 29,659.19 Schilling.

In the proceedings before the Arbitration Panel, the present applicants, heirs of Berta Z, asserted that the final decision had constituted an extreme injustice. They particularly speculated that the compensation payment – how this amount was determined cannot be gathered from the files – had been based on a valuation report drawn up by an official (bound by instructions) and not by an independent expert.

However, an extreme injustice could not be established in the present case as only the rulings in the decisions of the Restitution Commission still exist today, not, however, the reasoning. The Arbitration Panel did not consider itself in a position to be able to examine the existence of an extreme injustice solely on the basis of the ruling in the final decision, as the reasons on for the decision are unknown and therefore no serious assessments can be made.

Regarding the question of who carried out the valuation, the Arbitration Panel determined that pursuant to Sec. 351 of the Zivilprozessordnung (“Code of Civil Procedure”), which was also applied in the proceedings before the Restitution Commission, the court was to appoint one or more independent experts if the valuation of a property is necessary. There are no indications that the Restitution Commission Graz breached this requirement by having the valuation carried out by an official bound by its instructions.