Decision no. 1111/2015

In March 1938, the requested half of the – at the time undeveloped – property in the Lower Austrian Municipality of Rodaun was owned by Karl F. His wife Lilly F. and her sister Margarethe L. owned three properties in Oberdöbling on which tenanted apartment buildings were situated.

After the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich, in summer 1938 the F. spouses fled to Prague with their children Robert and Elinor. In 1941 the family was deported to the Lodz ghetto, where Karl F. died in 1943. Lilly, Robert and Elinor F. also perished in the Holocaust.

The three properties belonging to Lilly F. and Margarethe L. in Oberdöbling were confiscated by the Nazi authorities in 1942. The one half share of Karl F in the Rodaun property – since autumn 1938 a part of Vienna – was sold for around 1,800 Reichsmark to Albert G., a son of the owner of the other half, by a trustee who had been appointed on the basis of discriminatory provisions.

After the end of the Nazi regime, the estate of Karl F. was devolved to the siblings of his predeceased wife Lilly F., Margarethe L. and Hans A. They were also the heirs of Lilly F.

Once the confiscation of the three properties in Oberdöbling had been rescinded in 1947, Margarethe L. and Hans A. sold them in 1949 and 1950. In 1949 they also concluded an out-of-court settlement with Albert G. in which they waived restitution of the half of the property in Rodaun formerly belonging to Karl F. in exchange for a payment of 3,000 Schilling. In 1952, Albert G. and the other property owners sold the entire property to the E. W. for 210,000 Schilling. The E. W. built a church on the property, also selling parts of the historical area of the property to the City of Vienna, among others.

The application now filed by a grandson of Margarethe L. for in rem restitution of the properties in Oberdöbling was rejected as they were not publicly-owned.

Furthermore, the Arbitration Panel examined the content and the events leading to the conclusion of the 1949 out-of-court settlement regarding Karl F.’s half of the property in Rodaun. At the time the settlement was finalized, Margarethe L. and Hans A. were not eligible to file a claim against Albert G. as the nature of their legal succession to Karl. F. did not meet the requirements of restitution legislation. An application would have been dismissed by the Restitution Commission on grounds of ineligibility. As such, the settlement did not constitute an “extreme injustice” and the application for in rem restitution was also rejected regarding the property in Rodaun.