Art Litigation: Nazi Art Looting and Judicial Amnesia at DePaul Law March 9, 2011

The Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology, the Center for Art, Museum & Cultural Heritage Law, the Art and Cultural Heritage Legal Society and the Center for Jewish Law & Judaic Studies
present Arts Law Colloquium Series - Jennifer Kreder
Judicial Amnesia and the Historical Record in Nazi-looted art litigation

Wednesday, March 9, 2011
11:45am – 12:45pm
DePaul University
Lewis Center - Room 805
25 E Jackson Blvd
Chicago, IL 60604

This presentation will demonstrate the wave of dismissals of claims to Nazi-looted art on technical grounds such that, with few praiseworthy exceptions, the courts of the United States no longer act as beacons of justice for the Holocaust restitution movement. In fact, they are being used by some museums to circumvent federal executive policy and distort the historical record. Tales of our most respected institutions acquiring what they knew or should have known was trafficked and laundered art likely seem outrageous and counter to common sense to those unaccustomed to hearing about the widespread infection of the market with art that had been stolen or extorted from Jews between 1933 and 1945. The truth, however, is that the modern claims are legally viable when viewed within the true historical context of the Holocaust and U.S. executive policy during the War, through the Cold War period and now.
DePaul University College of Law is an accredited Illinois MCLE provider. This program had been approved for 1 hour of CLE credit.
Please RSVP to Cecelia Story at cstory@depaul.edu.

Professor Kreder is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center. She has published extensively about and given many presentations in many domestic and foreign venues about legal issues affecting the international art market. With Norman Palmer, she is co-authoring the second edition of Museums and the Holocaust published by the Institute of Art and Law.
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Art Litigation: Feb 17 - Nazi Looted Art in the Federal Courts - Phoenix Federal Bar Association

Nazi Looted Art in the Federal Courts - Phoenix Federal Bar Association

February 17 lunch program in Phoenix Arizona. Sponsored by the Phoenix Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

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Nazi Art Looting: Sixth Circuit Cloaks Nazi-Era Atrocities in Sovereign Immunity

Flag of Tennessee

The United States won World War II. As part of the postwar cleanup, the US did everything in its power to undo the damage the Nazis had wrought. Nowhere was this damage more atrocious than in what the Nazis inflicted on the Jewish minority. The Jews were a non-violent, law abiding minority. Nazis expropriated and murdered them wholesale.

Some escaped. Some watched helplessly from abroad as their relatives were murdered. Such was the fate of the Westfield family. Residents of Tennessee, their relative was murdered, his assets auctioned off, the money went to finance the Nazi war machine.

In 1954, the Second Circuit, at the behest of the U.S. State Department, stripped the Nazis of sovereign immunity.

On February 2, 2011, the Nazis got sovereign immunity back in Westfield v. Federal Republic of Germany (6th Cir.).

I have posted the Westfield case below and the full text of the Second Circuit's Bernstein case.   This appears to be a circuit split over whether the Nazis were a criminal conspiracy or whether they were a legitimate government, a question that was resolved against the Nazis at Nuremberg in 1946 in the negative.

The Sixth Circuit did not cite Bernstein, nor did it cite Republic of Austria v. Altmann.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Austria_v._Altmann

The Sixth Circuit held that murdering Westfield and auctioning off his art collection (part of which is at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts), did not have a "direct effect" in the United States, even though the Nazis knew that his heirs resided in Tennessee.   Art museums in the U.S. today are actively concealing their role in laundering artworks stolen by the Nazis and battling all efforts at disclosure of Nazi-era and post War collecting practices.  U.S. museums now claim that they have a "fiduciary duty" to conceal documents and research relating to the provenance of stolen artworks in their collections and to force dispossessed Holocaust survivors and their heirs to litigate to track the artworks.

The U.S. State Department should intervene in the case and ask the Sixth Circuit to reconsider in light of Bernstein.   Tennessee shouldn't be the only state in the U.S. that lost World War II.

Westfield v Fed Rep of Germany 6th Circuit Feb 2 2011

210 F.2d 375

BERNSTEIN, v. N. V. NEDERLANDSCHE- AMERIKAANSCHE STOOMVAART- MAATSCHAPPIJ

(Chemical Bank& Trust Co., Third-Party Defendant). No. 21193.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Submitted Jan. 11, 1954.
Decided Feb. 5, 1954.
Bennet, House & Couts, New York City, for plaintiff-petitioner; Victor House, Albert I. Edelman and Werner Ilsen, New York City, of counsel.
Burlingham, Hupper & Kennedy, New York City, for defendant Holland-America Line; Harold M. Kennedy, and Harvey C. Allen, Jr., New York City, of counsel.

Sherman & Sterling & Wright, New York City, for Third-Party Defendant, Chemical Bank & Trust Company; John A. Wilson, M. VanVoorhies and Edmond K. Leach, New York City, of counsel.

Petition to amend the mandate of this court handed down in a prior appeal in this case, 173 F.2d 71. Petition granted.

Before AUGUSTUS N. HAND, CLARK and FRANK, Circuit Judges.

Petition to amend the mandate of this court handed down in a prior appeal in this case, 173 F.2d 71. Petition granted.

PER CURIAM.

In the prior appeal in this case, 173 F.2d 71, 75-76, because of the lack of a definitive expression of Executive Policy, we felt constrained to follow the decision of this court in Bernstein v. Van Heyghen Freres Societe Anonyme, 2 Cir., 163 F.2d 246, certiorari denied 332 U.S. 772, 68 S.Ct. 88, 92 L.Ed. 357, by ordering the plaintiff to refrain from alleging matters which would cause the court to pass on the validity of acts of officials of the German government. Following our decision, however, the State Department issued Press Release No. 296 on April 27, 1949, entitled: 'Jurisdiction of United States Courts Re Suits for Identifiable Property Involved in Nazi Forced Transfers.' The substance of this Release follows:
2

'As a matter of general interest, the Department publishes herewith a copy of a letter of April 13, 1949 from Jack B. Tate, Acting Legal Advisor, Department of State, to the Attorneys for the plaintiff in Civil Action No. 31-555 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
3
'The letter repeats this Government's opposition to forcible acts of dispossession of a discriminatory and confiscatory nature practiced by the Germans on the countries or peoples subject to their controls; states that it is this Government's policy to undo the forced transfers and restitute identifiable property to the victims of Nazi persecution wrongfully deprived of such property; and sets forth that the policy of the Executive, with respect to claims asserted in the United States for restitution of such property, is to relieve American courts from any restraint upon the exercise of their jurisdiction to pass upon the validity of the acts of Nazi officials.'
4
The letter from Mr. Tate is then quoted, pertinent parts of which follow:
5
'1. This Government has consistently opposed the forcible acts of dispossession of a discriminatory and confiscatory nature practiced by the Germans on the countries or people subject to their controls. * * *
6
'3. The policy of the Executive, with respect to claims asserted in the United States for the restitution of identifiable property (or compensation in lieu thereof) lost through force, coercion, or duress as a result of Nazi persecution in German, is to relieve American courts from any restraint upon the exercise of their jurisdiction to pass upon the validity of the acts of Nazi officials.'
7
In view of this supervening expression of Executive Policy, we amend our mandate in this case by striking out all restraints based on the inability of the court to pass on acts of officials in Germany during the period in question. See 173 F.2d at pages 75-76. This will permit the district court to accept the Release in evidence and conduct the trial of this case without regard to the restraint we previously placed upon it.
.
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Art Litigation: Nazi-Era Art Restitution - Legal Update Jan 24 New York State Bar Association

Nazi-Era Art Restitution Legal Update NYSBA EASL Jan 24 2011



On Monday January 24, 2011 I will be part of a panel organized by the New York State Bar Association' Entertainment Arts and Sports Law Section, flyer above, direct link and program description below.

http://www.nysba.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Event_List&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=45158

1:35-3:30 p.m. NAZI-ERA ART RESTITUTION: RECENT CASE DEVELOPMENTS


This program will address recent cases brought by heirs of Holocaust victims concerning the ownership of
artworks claimed to have been looted or sold under duress during the Nazi era. When the art resurfaced –
often decades later – in the hands of museums, collectors, galleries and auction houses, ownership disputes
have raised complex procedural, substantive, and policy issues. This panel includes lawyers representing
both sides of several high-profile cases, including the eleven-year battle which resulted in a $19 million
settlement with the Leopold Museum in Vienna in the Egon Schiele - Portrait of Wally case and the
seven-year battle with the Republic of Austria, which resulted in the restitution to the family of Holocaust
victims of a number of important works by Gustav Klimt, valued, in the aggregate, in excess of $300
million. The esteemed panelists will also discuss cases involving the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the
Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and descendants of families who are laying claim to works by Picasso,
Pissarro, Schiele, Kokoschka, Klimt, and Lucas Cranach the Elder

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Art Litigation: Stolen Art and Austria's "Jewish Exception" To the 1955 Austrian State Treaty

Rudolph Leopold's death on the eve of a criminal trial in the U.S. should have brought Austria to its senses.  Instead, yesterday it installed Leopold's family members as part of a continuing charade to conceal Austria's ownership of stolen Jewish property in the Leopold Museum.  More on Rudolph Leopold here.

Dead City III was stolen from Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer murdered in Dachau in 1941. In violation of Art. 26 of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, Austria has thus far failed to return the work, although Dr. Christoph Bazil, the head of an Austrian Commission that was founded because of the Dead City III scandal keeps promising me that he is investigating the matter.
This so-called "Commission for Provenance Research" recently came to NY, program here and claimed that they were reviewing every single item in Austrian museums. Apparently they have not reached "S" for Schiele in the alphabet, something that might safely occur in the next century.
This is of course a preposterous sham.

Dr. Bazil, who works for Minister Claudia Schmied, takes the opinion (that he has refused to put in writing) that Art 26 of the Austrian State Treaty does not require Austria to return property stolen from Jews. But it is written in English and is quite clear and unconditional, so there is no reason that the Austrian police should not simply enter the Leopold Museum and secure and restitute the property. In the United States we have police and prosecutors to handle stolen property. The situation is shocking to me because in Austria it appears that police and prosecutors refuse to act when property has been stolen from Jews, and this "Jewish exception" is nowhere in writing.

In contravention of Art 26 of the Austrian State Treaty, Austria has permitted its civil remedies for Jews to recover property to lapse. Additionally, Austria failed to restore property as required by the Austrian State Treaty, instead dragging its feet for 45 years.
I have included below the text of the Austrian State Treaty, you can easily see for yourself that Austria is in gross violation for failing to return the stolen artworks at the Leopold, the Albertina, and in private collections throughout Austria.
The Austrian State Treaty of 1955 was a contract between the English, the Russians, the French and the US, on the one hand, and Austria on the other. Nowhere in our jurisprudence can one find support for Dr. Bazil's "oral" interpretation of this Treaty, and Dr. Bazil's failure to cite any Austrian jurisprudence in support of his view casts doubts on his assertions.

The Austrian State Treaty of 1955 is the equivalent of the U.S. Constitution.   What is the remedy for a breach?  Should we re-occupy Austria?

Emphasis below is mine.

Article 26
PROPERTY, RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF MINORITY GROUPS
IN AUSTRIA
1. In so far as such action has not already been taken, Austria undertakes that, in all cases where property, legal rights or interests in Austria have since13th March, 1938, been subject of forced transfer or measures of sequestration, confiscation or control on account of the racial origin or religion of the owner, the said property shall be returned and the said legal rights and interests shall be restored together with their accessories. Where return or restoration is impossible, compensation shall be granted for losses incurred by reason of such measures to the same extent as is, or may be, given to Austrian nationals generally in respect of war damage.

2. Austria agrees to take under its control all property, legal rights and interests in Austria of persons, organizations or communities which, individually or as members of groups, were the object of racial, religious or other Nazi measures of persecution where, in the case of persons, such property, rights and interests remain heirless or unclaimed for six months after the coming into force of the present Treaty, or where in the case of organizations and communities such organizations or communities have ceased to exist. Austria shall transfer such property, rights and interests to appropriate agencies or organizations to be designated by the Four Heads of Mission in Vienna by agreement with the Austrian Government to be used for the relief and rehabilitation of victims of persecution by the Axis Powers, it being understood that these provisions do not require Austria to make payments in foreign exchange or other transfers to foreign countries which would constitute a burden on the Austrian economy. Such transfer shall be effected within eighteen months from the coming into force of the present Treaty and shall include property, rights and interests re quired to be restored under paragraph 1 of this Article.

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Art Litigation: Austria to Buy Back Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally?"

Die Presse reports today that the Republic of Austria may be preparing to try to purchase the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally.  German language link:  http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/578029/index.do?_vl_backlink=/home/kultur/577683/index.do&direct=577683

Use Google translate to get an idea of the article.  Background on the story from my past posts here. 

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On the Eve of Criminal Trial in U.S., Rudolph Leopold, Collector of Artworks Stolen from Jews, Dies in Vienna

Egon Schiele's Dead City

Art collector Rudolph Leopold died today in Vienna, Austria.

In 1998, D.A. Robert Morgenthau seized two stolen artworks at the Museum of Modern Art that Leopold had loaned to the MoMA:  Egon Schiele's Dead City and Schiele's Portrait of Wally.

Leopold was scheduled to stand criminal trial this summer before the Hon. Loretta A. Preska in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after Judge Preska determined that Portrait of Wally was stolen.

But MoMA returned the stolen Dead City to the Leopold Museum in Austria.  The Austrian Provenance Commission's head Dr. Christoph Bazil, has repeatedly promised to investigate Dead City's provenance and those of other Schiele's stolen from Fritz Grunbaum that are in the Leopold and Albertina Museums in Vienna, but after 11 years, no report has issued.

Austria purchased Leopold's collection and made Leopold director of the Leopold Museum for life.  It remains to be seen whether Austria will carry through on its promises to investigate and return the stolen works in Leopold's collection.

Article 26 of the 1955 Austrian State Treaty requires Austria to return all property stolen from Nazi persecutees.  Yet Austria has not only failed to return the property, but repeatedly set up enabling legislation designed to frustrate claims and then let the legislation lapse.

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Austria Returns Stolen and Extorted Altar Panels to Jewish Heir

According to the article linked below, Austria's Provenance Commission has recommended the return of artwork stolen by the Nazis, but then blocked in Austria by a post-War export ban.  After World War II, Austrian museums used the export ban to systematically extort Jews of their property.

Today, American museums that hold property stolen from Jews systematically extort them in one-sided "settlements" wrapped in great confidentiality, and bury the research to conceal the wrongdoing of the museum's former trustees and employees.   History will view this practice of systematic extortion by the members of the American Association of Museums with the same horror that we view the post-War extortion practices of the Austrian museums.

Austria also let the Leopold Museum keep an extorted work on the false pretext that the government of Austria doesn't own the Leopold Museum, so a law covering "federal museums" doesn't cover it.   This is a scandalous lie, since the government of Austria purchased Leopold's collection and will assume complete control of it on the death of Leopold and his wife.

Leopold brought the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally into the United States and is supposed to stand trial this summer on the issue of whether or not he knew it was stolen when he brought it here.

Austria Urges Return of Altar Panels to Jewish Heir (Update1)

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June 15 Cocktails and Dinner - Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City Dinner at the Harmonie Club NYC

 Egon Schiele's Dead City - Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum

Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City

Cocktails: 6:30 Dinner and Speaker to Follow

When:  Tuesday June 15, 2010

Where:  Harmonie Club

4 East 60th Street (212) 355-7400

Cost:  $150

NYS Medical Defense Bar Association $125

Payment:  Check to "New York State Medical Defense Bar Association"

RSVP  Andrew M. Neubardt

Rende, Ryan & Downes LLP

(914)  681-0444

aneubardt@rrd-law.com

In 1998 D.A. Robert Morgenthau created worldwide headlines when he entered the Museum of Modern Art and seized two stolen artworks, Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally and Egon Schiele's Dead City. After more than a decade, litigation surrounding both artworks is still raging, with Dead City at the center of an appeal to the first Holocaust-era art trial ever in a U.S. federal court. Ray Dowd of Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP represents the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, the Jewish cabaret performer and owner of Dead City when he died in the Dachau Concentration Camp. He will take us on a visually-compelling tour of Nazi art looting and discuss its implications for U.S. museums today.

Praise for Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City

The program was outstanding and participants offered many positive comments on their evaluations, including the following: “Better than excellent; Hauntingly brilliant in every way! Extraordinary research and amazing cadence in relating it; Subtly spellbinding, no speaker more thorough!; Nice guy; Wonderful!; Fascinating; Very knowledgeable—impressive; Very interesting; Very well done, detailed explanation of subject.”


Mindy Blechman, Continuing Legal Education Director, Gratz College

The thoroughness with which you presented the diabolically methodical process that the Third Reich used to despoil Jews of their property kept the class riveted during your lecture. The horror of the Nazi art looting came to life for the audience as you presented the evidentiary issues and the legal problems associated with restitution litigation for holocaust victims and families. Since your presentation, many of the attendees have contacted me and commented on how astonished they were after your lecture. It is chilling to realize how methodical and relentless the Third Reich was in their pillaging operations.

Filippa Marullo Anzalone
Assoc. Dean, Boston College Law School

Ray's presentation was dynamic and deeply moving. He is an entertaining speaker, and supremely knowledgeable about Holocaust art recovery and the legal and ethical issues associated with this complex topic. He presented before a Bar Association audience of judges and lawyers in Cincinnati, and gave a second presentation at the Cincinnati Museum Center. His talk was compelling and very well received.

Michael Newman
Federal Bar Association, Vice President for the Sixth Circuit


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April 16 2010 Art Litigation - Nazi Art Looting - Following the Trail To Egon Schiele's Dead City

Egon Schiele's Dead City III (1911)

April 16, 2010 lecture at Gratz College - more information:  www.gratzcollege.edu/cle

Full brochure here

Program description:

Following the Trail to Dead City

Raymond J. Dowd, Esquire
1:00 pm – 4:30 pm

This course presents the intriguing story of Egon Schiele’s painting, Dead City, after it was stolen by the Nazis and legal efforts to bring it back into the Grunbaum family.

Mr. Dowd will discuss how Fritz Grunbaum’s art collection surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 under disputed
circumstances and was later found in the Leopold and Albertina museums in Austria. In 1998, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Dead City (along with Portrait of Wally) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and unleashed an international debate over what countries should be doing to return art to Jewish heirs. Mr. Dowd will underscore the role of the Swiss in laundering Nazi looted art; the response of the Austrian government, which has been somewhat less than cooperative; and the new commission the U.S. may establish to assist Holocaust victims and their heirs. Mr. Dowd has spoken on this topic at the Jewish Museum in Berlin and at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. A terrific companion to last year’s popular course on “Reclaiming Nazi Looted Art.”

Three (3) substantive credits: $100

Audio Recording and Powerpoint of Nazi Art Looting Presentation at Yad Vashem

Egon Schiele's Self-Seers - Stolen from Fritz Grunbaum and Still Missing

Last week I gave a lecture at Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research in Jerusalem.   I dealt with the problems faced by attorneys who need to prove that the Holocaust happened and to prove that transactions involving Nazi persecutees during the period 1933-1945 were presumptively duress transactions.

If you would like to listen to my presentation, the link is here.   The Powerpoint presentation that illustrates the audio is here.  The invitation reproduced below.

The International Institute for Holocaust Research-Yad Vashem


cordially invites you to attend the lecture

Egon Schiele's Dead City

Current Issues In Nazi Art Looting and Recovery
Raymond Dowd, Esq.

Partner - Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller LLP New York

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

10:00-12:00

Lecture Hall, Room 223, Administration and Research Building

Yad Vashem, Mount of Remembrance

In 1998, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized Egon Schiele's Dead City and Portrait of Wally at New York's Museum of Modern Art, creating a scandal that changed the legal landscape of Europe and the United States for victims of Nazi persecution and their survivors. Ray Dowd represents the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer murdered in the Dachau Concentration Camp. Fritz's wife Lily died in the Minsk Death Camp. Grunbaum's art collection surfaced in Switzerland in 1956 under disputed circumstances, and in the first Holocaust-era art recovery trial in U.S. history, Bakalar v. Vavra, the District Court found that passing the artwork through Switzerland gave it clean title. The case is on appeal. Many of Fritz's artworks are in the Leopold Museum and the Albertina Museum in Austria. In over ten years, Austria has not even bothered to respond to the heirs' claims.

Austria and Fritz Grunbaum's Stolen Schieles at the Albertina Museum

In 1955, Austria signed a treaty with the United States promising to give back all of the property it stole from Jews during the period of Nazi "occupation" of Austria.   Ever since, Austria has treated this obligation largely as a joke, thumbing its nose at Jews who attempted to get their property back.  Only in the 1990's through a combination of class action lawsuits and the actions of the Clinton Administration spearheaded by Amb. Stuart Eizenstat, did Austria instead agree to pay pittances to Jewish persecutees in lieu of giving them their property back.   The sad tale is well told in Eizenstat's book Imperfect Justice.

But the class action settlements did not cover stolen artworks in Austria.  In 1998, in reaction to D.A. Morgenthau's seizure of Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally and Dead City (Dead City belonged to Fritz Grunbaum), Austria passed an Art Restitution Law that permitted claims to be made against artworks in Austria's federal museum collections.  On April 13, 1999, the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum made claims to the following works by Egon Schiele that were stolen from Grunbaum while he was in the Dachau Concentration Camp:

Egon Schiele, Female Nude Seated on Red Drape, Back View
Sitzender weiblicher Rückenakt mit rotem Rock

Jane Kallir: Egon Schiele, The Complete Works 1998, New York №:1504
Gouache, watercolor, and pencil. Signed and dated, lower right. (48.2 x 31.8 cm).
Gutekunst & Klipstein, Nov. 24, 1955, lot 107 1

Exhibitions: London, 1964, no. 67, ill.; Hamburg, 1981, no. 214, ill.
Inventorylist Albertina: 39.931

Jane Kallier: Egon Schiele, The Complete Works 1998, New York №:1797: Heinrich Rieger; Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern; Galerie St. Etienne, New York; Rudolf Leopold;

Provenance as per Catalog: "Egon Schiele" Würthle Gallery, Vienna 1925:
"Mutter und Kind", sign Egon Schiele 1915 Sammlung Fritz Grünbaum
Austria never responded to the claims of Fritz Grunbaum's heirs.  From 2000 through 2009, Austria claimed that it was "investigating" the status of the works.  In 2006, Mag. Eva Blimlinger was called in to oversee the investigation together with Mag. Annaliese Schallmeiner.


 Blimlinger is a respected Austrian historian and oversaw the Austrian Historian Commission's report found at http://www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/    The Blimlinger and Schallmeiner Report, which was supposed to have issued in the fall of 2009, never has seen the light of day, apparently the victim of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture.   Why was that report killed and what did it say?
 
In the summer of 2009, at the Prague Conference on Holocaust Era Assets, Minister Claudia Schmid promised Congressman Wexler that she would investigate the status of the Grunbaum works at the Albertina.  I spoke to Dr. Christophe Bazil and Dr. Thomas Baier, who reassured me that they would investigate the issue and be in contact.   I wrote to them and never got any response.
 
In February, a client alerted me to a forum to take place in New York on Austrian Restitution.  The program is here.    I was rather shocked that the very Austrian officials who had promised to look into the Grunbaum affair and who did not have the time to answer my communications were to be speaking in New York City.
 
By failing to return property belonging to Jews, Austria has breached its obligations under the Austrian State Treaty of 1955.  This treaty was a condition of Austria's existence, like our Constitution.  The Allies - Russians, French, British and Americans - pulled out of Austria on the promise that all property would be returned to Jews.   Instead, Austrians continue to live in homes stolen from Jews, operate businesses stolen from Jews, and to buy, sell and enjoy art stolen from Jews.
 
Since the Allies left Austria, Austria has enacted successively a system of inadequate and insulting postwar laws that failed to restore property to Jews.   To understand Austria's obligations clearly (the treaty is written in plain English), we look to the actual writing. Article 26 of the 1955 Austrian State Treaty states as follows:

PROPERTY, RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF MINORITY GROUPS IN AUSTRIA

1. In so far as such action has not already been taken, Austria undertakes that, in all cases where property, legal rights or interests in Austria have since 13th March, 1938, been subject of forced transfer or measures of sequestration, confiscation or control on account of the racial origin or religion of the owner, the said property shall be returned and the said legal rights and interests shall be restored together with their accessories. Where return or restoration is impossible, compensation shall be granted for losses incurred by reason of such measures to the same extent as is, or may be, given to Austrian nationals generally in respect of war damage.

The full text of the Austria is found here, courtesy Wikipedia.  You will see that there are no "if's" ands or "buts" in the Treaty.  Its language is unconditional and does not depend on enabling legislation.  Indeed, any enabling legislation that fell short of the absolute terms of the Treaty would be unconstitutional in Austria.

It is to be hoped that the U.S. State Department will assist the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum in obtaining a copy of the Blimlinger/Schallmeiner Report and in facilitating conversations through the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, consistent with the Washington Principles on Holocaust-Era Assets.   It is to be hoped that President Obama's Ambassador to Austria, Amb. William Eacho will take a personal interest in the plight of Jews dispossessed in the Holocaust.