Decision no. 1080/2014

In 1938, the requested property was owned by an Austrian banking corporation which had been in liquidation since 1926. Even before the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich, the bank had wanted to sell its property at a price which would at least allow the bank to cover its liabilities and make a payment to its shareholders, but was unable to find a vendor. When the Ministry of Justice required a replacement for its official building on Stubenring, which had had to be evacuated for military purposes, the German Reich approached the bank’s liquidator in order to negotiate the sale of the object. In October 1938 the bank in liquidation sold the property to the German Reich for 1,135,000 Reichsmark.

The President and main shareholder of the bank, Hugo L., was considered Jewish in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, as was one of the two liquidators. Hugo L. fled to England with his family in 1938/1939. Hugo L.’s eldest daughter, Therese N., was considered a Mischling ersten Grades (“first grade half-caste”). Due to her marriage with the bank’s second liquidator, who was considered “aryan” she remained in Vienna and assumed in trust her father’s shares in the bank.

In 1948 the bank, represented by its liquidator Dr. Hans Paul N., filed for restitution of the property and stated that it had been sold under coercion and threat of confiscation. As the property was designated “German Property” the restitution proceedings were suspended and not resumed until after the State Treaty 1955. In 1958 the bank, which continued to be in liquidation, waived restitution of the property in exchange for compensation of 800,000 Schilling. Finally, in 1961 the bank was cancelled from the commercial register.

In its judicial appraisal, the Arbitration Panel examined whether the applications of Hugo L.’s descendants, submitted within the deadline, could validate the application of the bank, which was not filed until 2013 by the bank’s representative, a liquidator appointed in the same year, and confirmed that this was the case. However, the Arbitration Panel rejected the applications for in rem restitution, among other reasons, because the prior measure, the settlement of 1958, was not assessed to be “extremely unjust”.