Decision no. 1164/2016

In 1938, the requested properties belonging to the P. Estate were owned by Paul W. and the estate of his father Jaques W. Following the Anschluss, Paul W., who was considered Jewish, fled Austria for Brazil. The P. Estate was taken over by the German Settlement Society in 1938 and expropriated for the Society’s benefit in 1940. The German Settlement Society paid the liquidator who had been appointed for Paul W. and the estate of Jaques W. compensation of 1,030,000 Reichsmark, which he used to settle the claims of the pair’s creditors. The German Settlement Society sold the property to the German Reich in 1943, which sold parts thereof to Herbert R. in 1944.

The River Pulkau flowed through areas of the P. Estate, which were often affected by flooding. From May 1938 plans were made to regulate the River Pulkau and in 1939 the plans were granted approval by the water authorities. The regulation work and necessary construction measures commenced in July 1939 and resumed in 1946. In 1953 partial areas of the P. Estate were partitioned off and assigned to public water property.

After 1945, Paul W. had filed applications for restitution of the P. Estate against the German Reich and Herbert R. As the Restitution Commission had ruled that a seizure had occurred, the properties belonging to the estate were restituted to Paul W. in 1954 and 1955 and, following his death in 1962, to his heirs. In 1963, they undertook to reimburse the compensation payment that had been received for free disposal and the investments that had exceeded the earnings, a sum totalling 1,200,000 Schilling.

The applicant, a daughter of Paul W., requested in rem restitution of the P. Estate. The previous restitution decisions had constituted an “extreme injustice”.

In its juridical appraisal, the Arbitration Panel first examined whether the parts of the P. Estate that had been requisitioned for the regulation of the River Pulkau had been seized. It found that they had not, since they had not been requisitioned in connection with the persecution of the owners. As the other properties of the P. Estate had already been restituted, the application for in rem restitution of the entire P. Estate was rejected.