VIENNA: 11.02.2011 | 18:42 | By Bernhard Odehnal (The Press)
Ten years after the beginning of the restitution process, the former Sanatorium Fürth, Vienna-Josefstadt, at last a new owner. But the Republic faces new lawsuits.
Now that everything is over, the participants are noticeably easier. “Ten years of work, a lot of excitement, a lot of correspondence, many encounters with pretty crazy people,” says Alfred Strasser. His cousin Marietta Pritchard is glad to leave “this whole mess” behind. Most of all she regrets “that my mother could not see the end of this grueling negotiations”. “Ten years of experience, many white hairs and is always the risk of failure,” says Herbert Gruber: “Once again, I probably would not do that to me.” Gruber’s heritage researchers in Vienna, specializing in the search for unknown heirs for unclaimed assets. When the Republic of Austria was in 2000, the former Sanatorium Fürth in the eighth district of Vienna, Schmid Gasse 14 sale, he did locate in the United States related to the expropriated by the Nazis owners. Among other things, living in upstate New York Alfred Strasser and Marietta Pritchard from Massachusetts.2001 applied for the heritage community restitution of the building. But what at first as a “godsend” looked (Strasser), proved to be agonizingly long hurdles, in which the target moved ever further away. First, the Republic wanted the 4500-square-foot building behind the City Hall does not return, then prevented a dispute in the heritage community, which had grown from the original ten to 39 members, the sale of the house. Since April 2007, the former sanatorium is empty. A first potential buyer withdrew with the beginning of the housing crisis zurück.Heute the house is locked and left, through the murky windows hardly a look inside is possible. From an open basement window blows ice cold air on the street, in the basement there is a pile of rubble. Only the intercom with the bilingual prompt “Please ring / Please ring” is reminiscent of the American Embassy as a long-term tenant. At the entrance, a golden “Stone of Remembrance” with black inscription is embedded in the sidewalk: “In memory of Susanne and Lothar Fürth Representing all that were driven by humiliation and despair to suicide..” But the story took a turn that would have probably expected neither the heirs nor their lawyers. Last year, managed a group of buyers from Austria to agree with all the heirs. The development company “Schmid Gasse 14″ is registered in the Land Registry since the summer of 2010, the house is now restored, partly rebuilt and werden.Ein opened again in 2012 look back: 1895 bought Julius Fürth seven years earlier, designed by architect Hans Auer “Sanatorium for surgery, gynecology and childbirth “in the Schmid alley. Auer was a student of Theophil Hansen, later he built the Swiss Federal Palace in Bern. Fürths family came from the small Bohemian town Schüttenhofen (Sušice) and founded the “solo” works, which became the biggest match production of the monarchy. In Sanatorium Fürth women of the Jewish bourgeoisie brought their children to the world, but also well-heeled foreigners came because of the reputation of the house a special trip to Vienna. Later the building served as a home for the elderly. After the Nazi invasion of the owner, and Susanne Lothar Fürth were forced to wash the sidewalk. On April 3, 1938, she chose suicide. In her sanatorium the Wehrmacht moved. After the war, the U.S. Army took over the house and handed it to 1955, the Republic of Austria. The rented it with a permanent contract particularly favorable to the State Department, which housed its information service for Eastern Europe here. The Jewish past and the “linearization” of the house had known, but Lothar Susanne and Fürth had no children, and in the first restitution laws only the closest relatives were considered. 1,966 paid by the federal government under the “collection process” 700,000 shillings compensation to the Jewish community. This was the provision as completed, although the house at least ten times as much worth war.Erst in 2000 made ​​the attempt of the black-blue government to privatize state property as much as possible, the Schmid Gasse 14 back to a default instance. “Had the Republic not tried the sanatorium for sale, we would have never been interested in,” says heritage researcher Herbert Gruber. More, Gruber holds the Sanatorium Fürth for a textbook case, “without which it would not have given the Washington Agreement”. 2001 an agreement on compensation for looted by the Nazis, Jewish property was closed in Washington between the Governments of Austria and the USA. Land should it not be considered because the Viennese government claimed that it had been returned anyway everything. “Because we were able to present them in case of Schmid alley,” says Gruber recalls, “and so it was clear., If there is such a case, there will be other” However, the Republic turned first to stubborn and refused with reference to the provision 1966 from the restitution request. Only in 2005, the Arbitration Panel decided otherwise: The compensation of the 1960s was “extremely unfair”, the house would the heirs be returned. When the decision was announced, the U.S. Embassy immediately offered to move out, though she had on her lease may persist. “We thought that would never take off at such a low rent,” said Alfred Strasser recalls, “but they left exactly on the agreed date the house.” Even Herbert Gruber says that the “great cooperation of Americans” not appreciated enough until now was: “Since the Austrian authorities should take an example.” Because most heirs little reference to Austria had (and if so, particularly negative memories of the expulsion), they decided to sell the house. But when in 2007 a ​​Ukrainian company offered almost ten million euros, not increased all heirs to the offer. There were doubts about the seriousness of the real estate company and its owner. A living in Vienna heiress insisted to be first registered in the land register before the sale itself. In an article on the inheritance dispute in the “Profile” said the chairman of the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution, Josef Aicher “. Schmid Gasse 14 is its own tragedy” When the housing bubble burst, the Ukrainian society was no more loans and had the offer on the sanatorium withdraw. The search for a buyer went back to the start, and the annoyed federal real estate company that was still responsible for the maintenance of the house, finally agreed but one, every individual in the community of heirs his share of the house to überschreiben.Zu this time, as already no longer a thought selling the house, the Viennese couple Dagmar and Peter Raven Steiner began to be interested in the sanatorium. Peter Raven Steiner is a lawyer and real estate entrepreneur, his wife with a practice in internal medicine and sports medicine and is a keen marathon runner. The two took to the heirs of contact, and the sale negotiations went quickly this time on the stage. A meeting between the Raven Steiner and several heirs in New York created a foundation of trust. Marietta Pritchard and Alfred Strasser remember a pleasant, excited Gespräch.Pritchard describes the new owners as “very civilized, young, energetic and enthusiastic.” Dagmar Rabenstein have a vision, “she wants to set up their medical practice and a therapy center on the first floor. Equates to what would serve at least partly back to his original purpose.” In the upper floors of luxury apartments to be rented or sold. The building is a historical monument since 2007, and so are in addition to the facade and the spacious atrium in the Art Nouveau style and the extensive gardens remain. In the ownership society “Schmid Gasse 14 Development GmbH” next to Raven Steiner company RID is registered and the Prospero-Holding. Behind her stands the Carinthian entrepreneur Karl-Heinz Strauss, since last summer, CEO of construction company “Porr”. Neither Strauss nor Rabenstein want currently provide information about their project. However, most heirs believe in a happy ending, “the new owners are responsible with the house deal,” says Pritchard.Ist really the story end there? For the heirs already, but genealogist Herbert Gruber expected in the near future similar difficult cases such as the Sanatorium Fürth. The 2001 launched a general compensation fund for victims of National Socialism was only equipped with $ 210 million. Thus, the demands could only be met each 10.5 percent. . “For ten times, ie more or less $ 2.1 billion, could have meet the entire demands of the injured in Holocaust families this sum would have been lower than the simultaneous investment in the Euro Fighter,” says Gruber: “But it was re-once only pretended as if. “For it is clear “that this issue will come back in a few years”. Alfred Strasser also wonders about the Republic of Austria, who was so stingy in compensating “.. $ 210 million for 20,000 applicants are ridiculous Germany spent billions” To another open point in the restitution process wants the Viennese lawyer Alfred Noll point – and takes it again sanatorium Fürth as occasion case. On behalf of an heiress Noll has written letters to the Austrian Financial Procurator and the U.S. embassy, in which he demanded justice for decades, lost rental income. The Republic had for 50 years enjoyed the benefits from the ownership, the US-Embassy of the low rent benefits “. These profit they will now return” Noll estimates the lost revenue to around ten million euros. He initially wanted only an opinion. But do not get the, “we will sue. It’s all here not to buy a house, but missed opportunities in life.” Other heirs had considered such an action, but then again discarded. Marietta Pritchard felt today “little desire to even more litigation” and Alfred Strasser “this story concluded” is. ■ ________________________________________ © DiePresse.com