Decision no. WA13/2015

In 1938, the property in Steinbach am Attersee, on which a villa on land bordering the lake and a modest residential house were built, was owned by Sophie B., respectively the mother and the grandmother of the two applicants. Following the Anschluss in 1938, the properties were subjected to a forced sale at auction in 1941. For this sale, the property was split into two parts. The winning bid for the first part was placed by a group comprising the Municipal Council Vöcklabruck and several industrial enterprises from the region. The winning bid for the second part was placed by the spouses Rupert and Josepha W.

As Sophie B. had not filed an application for restitution after 1945, the Collection Agency A, established following the Staatsvertrag von Wien (“State Treaty of Vienna”) 1955, laid claim to the property and, in 1962, waived restitution in exchange for settlement payments from the Vöcklabruck District Commission and Rupert and Josefa W. However, several property parcels formerly belonging to Sophie B.’s property were not covered by these settlements.

The Arbitration Panel has already ruled in its decision no. 1135/2015 that a seizure had occurred as defined by the Entschädigungsfondsgesetz (“General Settlement Fund Law” – GSF Law) and recommended the restitution of an area of Sophie B.’s original property that had been owned by the Republic of Austria on the cut off day, 17 January 2001.

During the process of establishing the exact dimensions of the recommended area it emerged that a further partial area of Sophie B.’s properties that had not been covered by the settlement of 1962 had been partitioned off in 1979 to become part of the Großalm Landstraße and on 17 January 2001 it was owned by the Province of Upper Austria. As this area was, as such, also publicly-owned the Arbitration Panel reopened the proceedings and supplemented its previous decision. As this area also met all of the requirements for in rem restitution, the Arbitration Panel recommended in decision no. WA/RO 13/2015 re 1135/2015 that a comparable asset also be awarded for this area.