November 1945 in Zurich; he left a
will establishing the legal succession of the claimants with regard to his
estate.
After the end of the war, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer entrusted Viennese
lawyer Dr. Rinesch with the recovery of his artworks as well as generally
with restitution of his seized assets. After Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's death,
Dr. Rinesch also acted as the representative of the Ferdinand Bloch-
Bauer's heirs. He tried to locate the scattered assets, in particular the
paintings from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's collection, and attempted to
arrange for their return and export. At that time, it was common
administrative practice to grant an export permit for rediscovered or
restituted artworks of expelled or exiled victims of the Nazi regime only if
they in turn declared that they would “donate” to the Republic valuable
parts of their restituted assets. This was what happened in the case of
numerous objects from the Bloch-Bauer collection, including the five
arbitrated paintings by Gustav Klimt. An attempt was made to pass off this
procedure as an acknowledgment of Adele Bloch-Bauer's (in fact legally
invalid) legacy.
A request by the claimants for restitution of the five Klimt paintings
pursuant to the 1998 Art Restitution Act was informally rejected by the
minister under whose mandate it fell.
In legal terms, the submitted facts lead one to conclude that Adele Bloch-
Bauer's will regarding the five or respectively six paintings was merely a
non-binding request; furthermore, even if it was construed as a legacy that
was intended to be binding, the validity of this request was incompatible
with the principle of testamentary freedom, as it was at best a reversionary
legacy of an asset that did not belong to the testatrix, but rather to the heir
(Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer). Furthermore, his declaration made in the Adele
Bloch-Bauer probate proceedings, namely that he would faithfully fulfil
the request, was neither a constitutive acknowledgment nor a valid
promise to donate. Nothing regarding the legal position of the other five
paintings can be derived from the donation of one painting to the gallery
in 1936 .
Accordingly, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer was, in 1938, the unencumbered
owner of the paintings. The paintings, of which the Republic acquired the
ownership without remuneration only as part of the export application,
therefore fulfil the first element of the 1998 Art Restitution Act. In eventu,
the second element of the 1998 Art Restitution Act is also fulfilled.
The claimants therefore submitted the following:
We hereby argue that the Republic of Austria only acquired
ownership of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Adele Bloch-Bauer II,