Decision no. 974/2013

The applicants Nicholas M. and Susan L. requested the restitution of five properties in Vienna, Innere Stadt and Landstraße, and in Baden and Unterbergern, both Lower Austria. On 12 March 1938, Julio M., respectively the father and grandfather of the applicants, was the owner of two properties in Vienna and the property in Baden. His wife Jenny M. was owner of the third requested property in Vienna. In addition, Jenny M. was shareholder in a Swiss corporation, which, along with the Swiss I. Aktiengesellschaft, held all shares in a Liechtenstein corporation which was owner of the property in Unterbergern. Julio and Jenny M. were considered Jewish pursuant to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Julio M. emigrated to the USA via Switzerland in 1937 and Jenny M. fled to Great Britain in 1938.

The four properties in Vienna and Baden had been put under administration during the Nazi era on the basis of discriminatory legal provisions. Those in Vienna, Innere Stadt and in Baden were subsequently sold by the administrators. After the end of the National Socialist era, these two properties were restituted to the estate of Julio M. and to Jenny M. respectively, in 1948 and 1949. All four properties were inherited by Julio and Jenny M.’s children, which they sold between 1952 and 1960. On the cut off day according to the GSF Law, 17 January 2001, 25 m² of the property in Baden was owned by the Republic of Austria (Federal Roads Administration).

The property in Unterbergern belonging to the corporation – a silvicultural estate – was also put under administration in 1938 on the basis of discriminatory National Socialist legal provisions and auctioned in 1939 at the instigation of a creditor. It was acquired by Konrad S. An application for restitution of the property, filed by the corporation in 1947, was granted in 1960 and recorded in the land register for the corporation in 1961. In 1970, the majority of the property was sold to the Austrian Federal Forestry (Austrian Federal Forestry Corporation from 1997), whose sole shareholder on 17 January 2001 was the Republic of Austria.

In its juridical appraisal, the Arbitration Panel reached the conclusion that the three properties in Vienna and the majority of the property in Baden did not constitute publicly-owned property as defined by the GSF Law. The restitution which had occurred in 1948 prevented a restitution of the partial area of the property in Baden which had belonged to the Republic of Austria in 1948. With regard to the property in Unterbergern, the Arbitration Panel held that the equity shares in the corporation had not been wholly-owned by Jenny or Julio M. on 12 March 1938. Therefore, no “previous ownership” of the property by the legal predecessors of the applicants existed as defined by the GSF Law. Therefore, the Arbitration Panel rejected the applications for restitution of the five properties.