ABSTRACT
The updating of restitution and compensation claims in Europe at the beginning of the 1990s has numerous motives and causes. In Austria, the discussion of Aryanization, property deprivation, compensation, and restitution began at the end of 1997 with the seizure of works of art from the Leopold collection. With regard to the length of time taken for restitution cases since 1947, a legal historical investigation of the files of the Highest Restitution Commission revealed no general tendency on the part of the Restitution Commissions to drag cases out or to deny legal rights. The restitution and compensation claims that were made possible by the laws passed since 1998—the Art Return Act and the General Settlement Fund Act—continue to persist, and here, too, there is no end in sight. A payment from the General Settlement Fund can be awarded, if an earlier decision or composition through a reparations commission or a negotiated settlement had resulted in an extreme injustice.
