Decision no. 894/2012

On 12 March 1938, the requested areas were spread over two properties which had been owned by Irma F. She had acquired both properties in 1923 with her husband Isidor F., who had run a business with waste and bones on one of the properties. In the early 1930s the financial situation of Isidor F.’s company had begun to deteriorate. Several claims of public creditors were recorded by mortgage on his half of the properties. In 1934, Isidor F. sold his half of the properties to Irma F.

The F. spouses had taken out a loan of 45,000 Schilling with the Sparkasse Hollabrunn as early as 1931 and pledged the two properties as security. As the spouses did not meet the instalments to pay off the capital and the interest, the Sparkasse initiated the forced auctioning procedure of the properties as early as 1935. This was ultimately not carried out.

By the time of the Anschluss in March 1938, the F. spouses had continued to fall behind with their payments to the Sparkasse Hollabrunn. None of the capital had been repaid and the interest only in part and behind schedule. In addition, numerous distraints of movable property had been carried out against the F. spouses and Isidor F.’s company. The properties also continued to be encumbered with liens from public creditors.

In September 1938, the F. spouses, who were persecuted for being Jewish, fled Vienna. Their destination is unknown.

In late 1940, the Sparkasse Hollabrunn again filed a petition for a forced auctioning procedure of both properties, which was carried out in 1940. The winning bid in both for both properties was placed by Grete D., whose husband had been a tenant of business and storage premises on the property since 1939. Immediately after the acquisition, Grete D. sold one property to Leopold B. The surplus from the proceeds of the auction to which Irma F. was entitled was seized by the German Reich on the basis of discriminating legal provisions.

Isidor and Irma F. were declared dead in 1951. Peter F., a nephew of Isidor F., had already filed an application for restitution of both properties at the Restitution Commission Vienna in 1949. The applications were rejected in 1952, as Peter F. was not eligible to file an application for the assets of Irma F. The trustee of the estate had tried to trace heirs of Irma F., without success. In 1962, the so called collection agencies, which were entitled to assert restitution claims, filed applications for restitution of the two properties. In 1964, the Restitution Commission Vienna rejected the first application. It reached the conclusion that Irma F. would not have been in a position to settle to claim of the Sparkasse Hollabrunn and avoid a forced auctioning procedure, even if the National Socialists had not assumed power. The Higher Restitution Commission confirmed the initial decision on the same grounds. Subsequently, the collection agencies withdrew their second application.

In 1975 and 1983 respectively, the properties were came into the ownership of the City of Vienna. After various partitioning and allocations, on 17 January 2001 their area was spread over three register numbers.

The present applicants – legal successors of the brother of Irma F., who had survived the National Socialist regime in Great Britain – asserted that the forced auction of the properties had constituted a seizure.

In its decision, the Arbitration Panel had to investigate whether there was a causal connection between the forced auction of the properties and the persecution of Irma F. because she was Jewish. After examining Irma F.’s financial situation in detail, it came to the conclusion that even in early March 1938, she had had no real chance of paying off her debts without selling the property. As, in the best case scenario, Irma F. would have continued to only be able to pay off the interest, sooner or later the Sparkasse Hollabrunn would have taken steps to collect the open capital by means of distress.

As the persecution of Irma F. had not been a decisive factor for the forced auction of the properties in Vienna, Sechshaus, the Arbitration Panel rejected the applications for in rem restitution.