User:Eli185.2/Restitution (due to Nazi persecution in Austria)

Restitution means the return (restitution) of assets, usually in the sense of the return of (Jewish) assets seized during National Socialism in Austria to their former owners after 1945.

Restitution was only tackled slowly and step by step. It has therefore not yet been completed.

Overview
After the end of the Second World War, Austria initially rejected any responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi regime, as the Republic of Austria considered itself to be the first victim of the German Reich's policy of aggression, citing the Moscow Declaration of 1943 and the victim thesis.

Nevertheless, on May 15, 1946, the Federal Law on the Annulment of Property Transfers made during the German occupation of Austria was passed. The law formed the basis for the restitution laws enacted later. It declared legal transactions and other legal acts against payment or free of charge during the German occupation of Austria to be "null and void" if they had been carried out in the course of its political or economic penetration by the German Reich in order to deprive natural or legal persons of assets or property rights to which they were entitled on March 13, 1938.

This law was the basis for the subsequent restitution laws. However, these laws only provided for the restitution of expropriated property in certain cases and were not designed to compensate as many victims as possible: The deadline for filing an application was kept very short and the potential claimants, mostly residing abroad, were not informed of their rights. It was also not taken into account that in many cases it was not easy for the victims to prove the loss of assets with documents, as the victims often had to leave all personal and professional records behind in Austria and could not afford private researchers familiar with Austria.

There was latent anti-Semitism in the two major parties ÖVP and SPÖ in the post-war period, which led to the practical goal of having to return as little as possible to the "Jewish capitalists". A statement by Interior Minister Oskar Helmer on the question of when seized Jewish property should be returned or compensated is evidence of this:"Was den Juden weggenommen wurde, kann man nicht auf die Plattform ‚Großdeutsches Reich‘ bringen. Ein Großteil fällt schon auf einen Teil unserer lieben Mitbürger zurück. […] Ich sehe überall nur jüdische Ausbreitung […] Auch den Nazis ist im Jahre 1945 alles weggenommen worden […] Ich wäre dafür, dass man die Sache in die Länge zieht. […] Die Juden werden das selbst verstehen, da sie im klaren darüber sind, dass viele gegen sie Stellung nehmen."Article 26 of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 regulates the claims of victims of National Socialist persecution to restitution of assets and restoration of their rights or claims to compensation if restitution is not possible.

It was not until 1991 that Federal Chancellor Vranitzky publicly admitted Austria's complicity in the crimes of National Socialism. In the Washington Agreement of 2003, the final questions were clarified and concrete implementation measures were agreed in a ten-point annex However, there is still no legal entitlement to the compensation; in legal terms, it is a voluntary payment by the state.

Restitution in the post-war period: the restitution laws
The seven restitution laws did not have a consistent system, making it difficult for those affected to find out which law applied to their case and to which authority an application had to be submitted. They deal with the restitution of looted art, real estate, patent rights, etc. from the National Socialist era on what is now Austrian federal territory.

Until 1946, there were no clear ideas at all as to whether and how the property looted by the National Socialists should be returned. The SPÖ and KPÖ proposed a "restitution fund": only victims of National Socialism in need of help should have received payments, the original owners should have received nothing in return. These proposals met with resistance, not least from the Western Allies. It was therefore decided in the spring of 1946 to restitute seized assets to the aggrieved owners. However, as Austria denied any joint responsibility for the Nazi crimes, citing the Moscow Declaration, restitution was limited to the return of property that could still be found. Compensation payments beyond this were only made after the State Treaty, again under pressure from the Western Allies.

First Reservation Law
The Federal Law of July 26, 1946 on the restitution of seized assets under federal or provincial administration (Federal Law Gazette 1946/156) dealt with assets that had been seized from their owners by government action (e.g. ordinances) and were now administered by a government agency, e.g. a provincial finance directorate.

The executing authority was the Financial Directorate in whose catchment area the seized property was located; the Financial Directorate for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland had to process most cases.

Around 10,700 applications were submitted to the Financial Directorate for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland between 1946 and 1956, of which around 77% ended positively for the applicants after mostly lengthy proceedings, as Peter Böhmer found on behalf of the Historical Commission.

Second Restitution Law
The Federal Law of February 6, 1947 on the restitution of seized assets owned by the Republic of Austria (Federal Law Gazette 1947/53) dealt with seized assets that had become the property of the Republic of Austria on the basis of the National Socialist and War Crimes Acts, i.e. property that National Socialists had previously seized from Nazi victims and that had now fallen to the Austrian state on the basis of the denazification provisions.

The executing authority was the Financial Directorate in whose catchment area the seized property was located; the Financial Directorate for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland had to process most cases.

The number of applications was far lower than under the First Restitution Act. At the Financial Directorate for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, it amounted to a total of 900, which was 53% of all applications filed under the Second Restitution Act (again according to Peter Böhmer's research on behalf of the Historical Commission). Nazi organizations had existed throughout Austria, so there was no concentration on the Vienna area here.

Third Restitution Law
The Federal Act of February 6, 1947 on the Nullity of Seizures of Property (Federal Law Gazette 1947/54) dealt with seized property that was in the hands of individuals, companies or institutions.

The restitution commissions set up at the provincial courts for civil law cases were the authorities responsible for enforcement in the first instance. These consisted of a chairman and his deputies, who all had to be judges, as well as lay observers. The second instance was the Higher Restitution Commissions set up at the Higher Regional Courts, and the third instance was the Supreme Restitution Commission at the Supreme Court.

The third was the most important of all restitution laws, as it concerned the largest number of seized assets. Accordingly, it was fiercely opposed politically by business circles and the Association of Independents, a coalition of former National Socialists, among others, both in the media and in parliament. All attempts to change the law to the detriment of the aggrieved owners failed due to resistance from the Western Allies. No figures are available as a large proportion of the files of the Restitution Commissions were destroyed in 1986 - presumably out of ignorance. At the request of the DÖW, this destruction of files was stopped in 1986, but only a small part of the files could be saved.

Fourth Restitution Law
The Federal Law of May 21, 1947, concerning company names changed or deleted under National Socialist coercion (Federal Law Gazette 1947/143) made it possible after 1945 to legally take over the original name (company) under which a company was operated.

Enforcing authorities were registry courts; these are the courts that keep the commercial register.

Fifth Restitution Law
The Federal Law of June 22, 1949, on the restitution of seized assets of legal entities in the economic sector that lost their legal personality under National Socialist coercion (Federal Law Gazette 1949/164) not only regulated the restitution claims of legal entities in the economic sector, but also enabled their re-establishment. Legal entities in the economic sector are stock corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, commercial and economic cooperatives and some others.

The executing authorities were restitution commissions set up at the regional courts for civil law cases, which consisted of the chairman and his deputies, all of whom had to be judges, as well as lay assessors. The second instance was the Higher Restitution Commissions set up at the Higher Regional Courts, and the third instance was the Supreme Restitution Commission at the Supreme Court.

According to the Austrian Historical Commission, the number of proceedings is likely to have been small, but cannot be precisely stated due to the lack of files.

Sixth Restitution Law
The Federal Act of June 30, 1949 on the Restitution of Industrial Property Rights (Federal Law Gazette 1949/199) dealt with seized trademark and design rights as well as patent rights, whereby the law covered both seized rights and the obstruction of the use of such rights.

The executing authorities were restitution commissions set up at the regional courts for civil law cases, which consisted of the chairman and his deputies, all of whom had to be judges, as well as lay assessors. The second instance was the Higher Restitution Commissions set up at the Higher Regional Courts, and the third instance was the Supreme Restitution Commission at the Supreme Court.

Contemporary literature puts the number of proceedings up to 1952 at 25.

Seventh Restitution Law
The Federal Law of July 14, 1949 on the assertion of withdrawn or unfulfilled claims arising from employment relationships in the private sector (Federal Law Gazette 1949/207) dealt with unfulfilled claims in the course of the loss of employment due to persecution, such as severance payments, as well as the financial losses resulting from this loss; however, the actual losses were only compensated by this law to a very limited extent.

The enforcing authorities were labor courts.

The Austrian Historical Commission found that there are virtually no files on the enforcement of this law.

Analysis of post-war legislation and practice
In 1998-2003, on behalf of the Austrian Historical Commission for the Study of Property Seizure during the National Socialist Era and Restitution and Compensation since 1945, the history, effects and problems of the restitution laws were analyzed in detail.

The judgment of the Austrian Historical Commission on the provisions:"Das Rückstellungswesen ist ein unübersichtliches, teilweise widersprüchliches Geflecht aus einer Vielzahl von Gesetzen und Verordnungen, von widerstrebenden Interessen der politischen Parteien, der Wirtschaftsverbände, der Opferorganisationen und der Alliierten. Zahlreiche Probleme lagen außerhalb der Rückstellungsgesetze […] Dieses Dickicht zu durchdringen bedurfte es eines finanziellen wie mentalen Kraftaktes. Für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, die mit dem Leben davongekommen waren und die ihr geraubtes Hab und Gut zurückwollten, um überhaupt ein Überleben sichern zu können, war es äußerst schwierig sich zu orientieren. In der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, wo im Prinzip zwei Gesetze die Rückstellung und Entschädigung regelten, war der Zugang einfacher."The most important restriction of the restitutions resulted from the fact that they only related to assets that were still available and could be located. This left real estate and medium-sized to large businesses as the central asset categories in the restitution proceedings under the first three restitution acts. Real estate was easy to identify on the basis of the land register. Businesses of a certain size were also more likely to have survived the Nazi era. By contrast, the majority of small businesses had first been expropriated and then dissolved ("liquidated"), meaning that there was nothing left that could have been restituted. It was also difficult to restitute movable property such as household goods, books and works of art. Well-known collections, such as Arthur Schnitzler's library, were found and ultimately restituted. The countless objects and books seized from ordinary people simply remained untraceable. It was not until the 1998 Art Restitution Act and the establishment of a Provenance Research Commission at the Federal Monuments Office that the holdings of the federal museums began to be examined for objects seized during the Nazi era and not returned to their rightful owners or their heirs. Individual federal states, such as Vienna, Upper Austria and Styria, set up similar commissions for their own areas.

The restitution commissions interpreted individual provisions, particularly of the Third Restitution Act, to the detriment of the aggrieved owners. For example, in the case of restitution, the purchase price had to be returned to the current owner if the robbed person had received it for "free disposal". The restitution commissions often obliged the Nazi victims to also reimburse those parts of the purchase price that the Nazi state had withheld to pay the Reich Flight Tax or Jewish Property Levy. It was extremely difficult for the often destitute survivors of Nazi persecution to raise these sums.

The application deadlines of the restitution laws were often extended by different periods of time in a confusing manner - by a year, a few months, then another six months, until they finally expired between 1952 and 1954.

There were no restitution laws for rented apartments, concessions and copyrights. As almost all apartments were only rented before 1938, this meant that returnees from concentration camps, prisons or exile had no opportunity to move back into the apartments they had been deprived of. Until the 1950s, some returnees therefore lived in mass accommodation.

Change in legal opinion
Difficulties that still arise in restitution today are due, among other things, to the change in legal opinion, which is still often met with a lack of understanding. Opponents of restitution - most recently Rudolf Leopold - cite purchase agreements that are valid under formal law and express concerns about the non-observance of the fundamental right to property in order to avoid restitution. Every legal owner can freely dispose of his property; the decision of the Austrian state to make provisions from state property cannot bind private owners. Ownership was to be defined exclusively according to legal criteria; moral claims outside the law had no effect here.

While the traditional view of the law is based on formal rules (such as the principle of the statute of limitations or the principle, popularly summarized as Was liegt, das pickt, of not interfering in properly concluded legal transactions), the more modern view of the law also places moral demands on the actions of individuals and the state. Formal correctness does not exclude moral injustice; special rules must therefore be created to protect the weaker party, the victim or the injured party, if there is no insight into the immorality of a transaction and no willingness to take remedial action.

Restitution from 1995 til today
When Egon Schiele's portrait Wally was confiscated at an exhibition in New York in 1998, restitution in Austria attracted international attention. The minister responsible at the time, Elisabeth Gehrer, appointed a commission for provenance research to systematically clarify the origin of the paintings in federal museums. Another consequence was the Art Restitution Act, which was to serve as the legal basis for the restitution of art objects that had come into Austrian federal museums during or as a result of the Nazi era.

Art Restitution Act 1998
The Federal Law on the Restitution of Art Objects from Austrian Federal Museums and Collections (Federal Law Gazette I No. 181/1998), The Restitution of Art Objects Act, officially known as the Art Restitution Act, obliged the state to react with less formalism and more fairness to claims for the return of works of art that were confiscated or sold under pressure during the National Socialist era.

The Commission for Provenance Research is responsible for systematically researching the collection holdings. The results are forwarded to the Art Restitution Advisory Board, which makes recommendations regarding the (non-)restitution to the responsible federal minister (currently the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport) based on the findings.

Stalling and Resistance
The case of Gustav Klimt was exemplary of the stubborn resistance to restitution that was still possible from the Austrian side: Adele Bloch-Bauer I. The famous painting dedicated to Adele Bloch-Bauer was seized from her husband Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who had been forced to flee Austria, and was later reclaimed by Adele's niece Maria Altmann and her co-heirs. It was only after a very long legal battle that Elisabeth Gehrer and the Austrian Belvedere Gallery were forced to hand over the painting to Bloch-Bauer's heirs.

However, private collections such as Rudolf Leopold's art collection, to which the Wally portrait belonged and which was transferred to the ownership of a state-sponsored private foundation in 1994, and the Klimt collection, which Ursula Ucicky inherited from her husband, presumably one of Klimt's sons, and transferred in part to a new foundation in 2013, were not included in this law. The case United States v. Portrait of Wally, a painting by Egon Schiele was settled in July 2010. The painting has been on display again at the Leopold Museum in Vienna since August 20, 2010. Ursula Ucicky sold a disputed Klimt painting in 2013 and shared the proceeds with the heirs of the owners until 1938.

In 2008, an exhibition of paintings by Albin Egger-Lienz at Vienna's Leopold Museum once again revealed weaknesses in the restitution law. At the time, 14 paintings were publicly suspected of being Nazi-looted art. In the case of some of them, the provenance through Nazi expropriation from Jewish ownership was proven (not, for example, in the case of "Waldinneres", taken from the couple Georg and Erna Duschinsky by the Gestapo in 1939 and purchased by a museum after a restitution settlement in 1948), but as the paintings are now owned by a private foundation, the law does not apply. The case attracted a great deal of media attention in 2008 after the collector Rudolf Leopold (1925-2010) denied any guilt and the Jewish Community (IKG) spoke of a mockery of the Nazi victims and demanded - unsuccessfully - the closure of the Leopold Museum. The Leopold Foundation then agreed to the Ministry of Education's proposal to appoint two independent provenance researchers to the Leopold Museum. The results of these researchers suggest that the accusations made by the IKG in 2008 were exaggerated.

Active, passive and missing provenance research
Austrian institutions have dedicated themselves to provenance research and the resulting restitutions in recent years, in some cases with great commitment. These include the Austrian National Library, the Vienna Museum, the Vienna Library in City Hall, the Museum of Military History and the Dorotheum. Some of the institutions are waiting until concrete demands are made. In some state museums, provenance research is only in the early stages. An overview of the research carried out in the federal museums since the "Art Restitution Act" was passed in 1998 can be found in the volume published in 2008 by the Commission for Provenance Research "'...considerably more cases than assumed' 10 years of the Commission for Provenance Research".

On November 9, 2008, the 70th anniversary of the November pogroms of 1938, the IKG, under the leadership of its then president Ariel Muzicant, launched the publicity campaign "Tatort Raubkunst" (crime scene looted art) in front of the Leopold Museum. Muzicant and around 30 of his staff were dressed like police officers with uniform jackets and caps bearing the words "Raubkunst Special Farce", stuck large stickers with the words "Art Crime Scene" or "Tatort Raubkunst" on the façade of the museum and briefly blocked access to the museum with ribbons bearing the words "Art Crime Scene". The campaign was accompanied by posters displayed throughout the city showing expropriated paintings with headlines such as "Girl kidnapped" (Bondi-Jaray case), "Who knows this man?" (Maylaender case) or "Five houses stolen" (Steiner case). At the same time, a website was set up with information and documentation of the cases and public actions.

Mauerbach-Auction
The provenance researcher Sophie Lillie caused a stir at the end of 2008. In 1996, as an employee of the Jewish Community of Vienna, she played a key role in the implementation of the so-called Mauerbach auction. After years of research, they came to the conclusion that the works of art auctioned at the Mauerbach auction in 1996 were not, as the Republic of Austria had assured, “abandoned property”, but rather their owners could in many cases be identified based on inscriptions and stickers on the back of the paintings have been and are.

The so-called “Mauerbach inventory” includes thousands of works of art that the US Army recovered during the liberation of Austria and handed over to the Republic of Austria in the late 1940s and early 1950s. For decades, the Charterhouse was a depot for a collection of Nazi-looted art, which the state classified as “unowned” art property. Das Bundesdenkmalamt hätte diese Bilder restituieren sollen, beschränkte seine Tätigkeit jedoch auf die Erfassung und Auflistung sämtlicher Kunstwerke und die darüber bekannten Einzelheiten.

Under pressure from Simon Wiesenthal, the Federal Monuments Office published the list of “abandoned” art in 1969, which included around 8,000 entries. As a result, 1,231 items were reclaimed, of which 72 were ultimately actually restituted. All others became the property of the Republic in the 1970s for an advance payment of five million schillings.

In 1984, this collection came to the attention of the United States and was reported in ARTnews as a “Legacy of Shame.” The holdings were republished; As a result, 3,300 reclaims were filed and 22 items were returned. Due to public pressure, it was decided in 1995 to transfer ownership to the Israelite Community. The aim was to auction off the items and donate the proceeds to needy Holocaust survivors.

The Jewish Community of Vienna was assured by the state that the owners of the works of art and objects could not be identified and that they were therefore “unowned property”. Provenance researcher Lillie received permission from the then president of the cultural community, Paul Grosz, to photograph the backs of the pictures as they were individually examined and valued by the Christie's auction house, which was entrusted with the auction. After the then Federal Minister for Education, Science and Culture Elisabeth Gehrer opened the archives for provenance research in 1998 due to the scandal surrounding the “Portrait of Wally”, Lillie was able to track down the origins and former owners of around 50 of these pictures.

Art Restitution Act: Amendment 2009
The law passed in 1998 left various wishes unfulfilled, which the legislature tried to remedy with an amendment in 2009. Since then, the law has had the new long title Federal Law on the Return of Art Objects and Other Movable Cultural Property from Austrian Federal Museums and Collections and from Other Federal Property. The short title Art Restitution Act and the abbreviation KRG remained unchanged. The law still only applies to state property, not to foundations set up with the help of the state such as the Leopold Museum and not to other private property such as that of Ursula Ucicky.

Restitution of the city of Vienna
Kurt Scholz was the restitution officer in the Vienna city administration from 2001 to 2008. He saw the results of his term in office as “mixed”, since of the two “large chunks” set out in the agreement to regulate questions of compensation and restitution for victims of National Socialism, the return of the Hakoah sports field was successfully completed, but the issue of preservation was Jewish cemeteries and graves, no solution could be found during his term of office. As far as he knows, the city of Vienna had restituted several thousand works of art by 2008. Visitors to Vienna art museums should not have the feeling that the blood of the Holocaust is on them. In his opinion, the difficulties with restitution are due to the fact that one does not run into walls, but rather into rubber walls due to the often encountered attitude of “let's see.”.

To preserve Jewish cemeteries, a federal law was passed in 2010 that ensured federal contributions. The city of Vienna, which also made contributions to the restoration and preservation of the cemetery, concluded an agreement with the cultural community on October 1, 2013, with which the city-financed preservation work can be significantly intensified; The city administration will provide 860,000 euros annually for two decades.

See alos

 * Bundesrückerstattungsgesetz

Literature

 * „Arisierung“ von Mobilien. Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Historikerkommission. Vermögenentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich. Oldenbourg Verlag, München und Wien 2004. PDF.
 * Gabriele Anderlan, Christoph Bazil, Eva Blimlinger, Oliver Kühschelm, Monika Mayer, Anita Stelzl-Gallian, Leonhard Weidinger (Hrsg.): … wesentlich mehr Fälle als angenommen. 10 Jahre Kommission für Provenienzforschung. (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung. Band 1). Böhlau, Wien/ Köln/ Weimar 2009.
 * Stefan Karner, Walter Iber (Hrsg.): Schweres Erbe und Wiedergutmachung. Restitution und Entschädigung in Österreich: Die Bilanz der Regierung Schüssel. Studien Verlag, Innsbruck/ Wien/ Bozen 2015, ISBN 978-3-7065-5343-8.
 * Robert Knight (Hrsg.): „Ich bin dafür, die Sache in die Länge zu ziehen“. Wortprotokolle der österreichischen Bundesregierung von 1945–1952 über die Entschädigung der Juden. Athenäum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-610-08499-5.
 * Walter Baumgartner, Robert Streibel: Juden in Niederösterreich: ‚Arisierungen‘ und Rückstellungen in den Städten Amstetten, Baden, Hollabrunn, Horn, Korneuburg, Krems, Neunkirchen, St. Pölten, Stockerau, Tulln, Waidhofen a.d. Thaya und Wiener Neustadt. (= Veröffentlichungen der österreichischen Historikerkommission. Band 18). Wien/ Oldenburg 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0494-8.
 * Hubertus Czernin: Die Fälschung. Der Fall Bloch-Bauer. Band 1, Czernin-Verlag, Wien 1999.
 * Hubertus Czernin: Die Fälschung. Der Fall Bloch-Bauer und das Werk Gustav Klimts. Band 2, Czernin-Verlag, Wien 1999.
 * Stuart E. Eizenstat: Unvollkommene Gerechtigkeit. Der Streit um die Entschädigung der Opfer von Zwangsarbeit und Enteignung. C. Bertelsmann, München 2003. (Originalausgabe: Imperfect Justice. Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II. Public Affairs, New York 2003)
 * Hubert Steiner: The Files of the Nationalsocialistic Authority Dealing with Properties (Vermögensverkehrsstelle) within the Archive of Republic and the Records of Restitution. In: The Unifying Aspects of Cultures. TRANS-Studien zur Veränderung der Welt. Wien 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7616-0.
 * Sophie Lillie: Was einmal war. Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens. Czernin Verlag, Wien 2006, ISBN 3-7076-0049-1.
 * Thomas Trenkler: Der Fall Rothschild: Chronik einer Enteignung. Czernin Verlag, Wien 1999, ISBN 3-85485-026-3.
 * Tina Walzer, Stephan Templ: Unser Wien: „Arisierung“ auf österreichisch. Berlin : Aufbau, 2001

Weblinks

 * Kommission für Provenienzforschung
 * CCP-Datenbank des DHM mit 943 Karteikarten der Kommission für Provenienzforschung, Wien
 * Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes
 * Vermögensentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich. Forschungsbericht der Historikerkommission der Republik Österreich. Zusammenfassungen und Einschätzungen. Schlussbericht. Wien 2003
 * Bruno Simma, Hans-Peter Folz: Restitution und Entschädigung im Völkerrecht. Die Verpflichtungen der Republik Österreich nach 1945 im Lichte ihrer außenpolitischen Praxis. Oldenbourg Verlag, Wien und München 2004.
 * Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien / Abteilung für Restitutionsangelegenheiten
 * Nationalfonds für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus & Allgemeiner Entschädigungsfonds
 * Kunst-Datenbank des Nationalfonds für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus
 * Provenienzforschung am Technischen Museum Wien