Decision no. 1153/2016

The four requested properties formed the agricultural estate L. and were owned on 12 March 1938 by the Italian national Arthur S. Following the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich, the "Hermann Göring" AG requested the estate as replacement land for people who had been expropriated and resettled for the construction of the "Hermann Göring"-Werke in Linz. In June 1938 Arthur S., who was considered Jewish in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws sold the properties and inventories of the L. estate to the Wo. AG for 133,000 Reichsmark, a subsidiary of the "Hermann Göring" AG. Arthur S. was able to dispose of the proceeds from the sale without restrictions by the Nazi authorities.

In 1943 the estate’s properties were transferred as replacement land to Josef W., who had been expropriated for the benefit of the Wo. AG. In the expropriation proceedings the properties of the L. estate were valued at 236,459 Reichsmark.

Arthur S. fled Vienna in 1939, later reaching Shanghai. His wife was murdered in Auschwitz. From 1946 onward Arthur S. resided in Australia, where his children had fled to.

In 1947 Arthur S. filed an application for restitution of the properties, directed against Josef W.; in 1949 he filed an application for restitution of the inventory directed against the Wo. AG. Both restitution proceedings were subsequently combined. In 1950 the restitution commission ruled that the estate had been seized and ordered Josef W. to restitute the property. Josef W. and the Wo. AG filed an appeal against the ruling of the first instance. In 1951, Arthur S. concluded a settlement with the Wo. AG in which he waived the restitution of the properties and inventory in exchange for a settlement amount of 432,618.29 Schilling.

In the applications for in rem restitution of the historical properties a son and two grandchildren of Arthur S. asserted before the Arbitration Panel that the restitution settlement had been "extremely unjust".

In its juridical appraisal the Arbitration Panel first examined whether the requested properties were publicly-owned and rejected the applications referring to areas that had been under private ownership on 17 January 2001. Some areas were owned by the Province of Upper Austria on the cut off day.

During its examination of the 1951 settlement, the Arbitration Panel was not able to determine a discrepancy in value between the value of the property and the settlement amount. As there were no indications that Arthur S. had been limited in his freedom of contract, the settlement was not considered to be "extremely unjust" and the applications for in rem restitution of the areas owned by the Province of Lower Austria also had to be rejected.