Photographs |
Collection of Raoul Korty
Author:
Margot Werner
Margot Werner
Restitution: “Do ownership rights expire?”
In 1948, Korty’s daughter and sole heir, who had survived the war in Tyrol, approached the ÖNB for the first time to inquire about the whereabouts of her father’s seized collection. The Library issued a confirmation that “a picture collection without catalogue or inventory belonging to your father, Raoul Korty, was seized in 1938/39 by the German Gestapo and assigned without a transfer list to the Austrian National Library portrait department”. The collection could be handed over subject to an instruction by the competent provincial tax authority. Although the National Library had shown great interest during the Nazi period in the “valuable cultural objects from the Ostmark” and had warned against them being smuggled abroad, Nora Korty was now informed that it was not interested in purchasing the collection. Frau Korty, who had moved to Germany and owing to the housing shortage was living in a dressing room at the Bavaria film studios, did not have space to keep the collection. For that reason she did not follow up the restitution claim at the time.
In 1952, the ÖNB once again considered the still unresolved restitution issue and asked the Office of the Financial Procurator to clarify the legal situation. The letter indicates that the portrait collection was still interested in taking over the collection – without payment:
“Do ownership rights expire? If so, I would quietly keep the collection in storage until it reverted.” The Office of the Financial Procurator set the prescriptive acquisition – the transfer of title through uninterrupted ownership – at twelve years from the expiry of the deadline for submitting restitution claims.
A year later, in 1953, the heir’s legal counsel once again consulted with the ÖNB. In 1954, when it was evident that it would not be possible to obtain title through prescriptive acquisition – because of the negotiations regarding the establishment of collection points for unclaimed assets and the deadline for asserting claims under the First Restitution Act – the portrait collection for the first time made contact itself with the heir’s legal representative with a view to reaching agreement on the disposal of the collection.
For unexplained reasons, the collection nevertheless remained a further ten years in the ÖNB. In 1964, Nora Korty’s legal counsel once again asserted a restitution claim. However, the collection was not returned that year or in the following years. It was not until 1980 (!) that the heir’s legal counsel contacted the ÖNB one more time to inquire about the collection’s whereabouts. The Library pointed out that it was still willing to return the collection, but again asked the Office of the Financial Procurator to assess the legal situation. It established that the ÖNB could be seen only as the custodian of the collection and that “under these legal circumstances the basic condition for prescriptive acquisition of title [was absent]”.
This restitution case, which had dragged on for thirty-two years, seemed to have been resolved when the heir gave her agreement to the restitution terms – assumption of costs for transport and acknowledgement that the collection was complete. The correspondence between the ÖNB and the claimant ended on 31 July 1980. Although a satisfactory resolution of the case appeared imminent, the collection was not restituted. At the start of the project in 2002 to identify Nazi looted objects it was still in the ÖNB.
This complex case is typical of the approach by the ÖNB to its post-war restitution obligations. Although the heir had been in repeated contact since the end of the war, the restitution had not come about. This was due to a large degree to the lack of cooperation by the ÖNB and the denial of its role during the Nazi period.
The collection of around 30,000 photos was finally returned to Raoul Korty’s daughter in 2005, sixty-six years after its seizure and at her request purchased by the ÖNB for a sum determined by an independent expert.
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In 1948, Korty’s daughter and sole heir, who had survived the war in Tyrol, approached the ÖNB for the first time to inquire about the whereabouts of her father’s seized collection. The Library issued a confirmation that “a picture collection without catalogue or inventory belonging to your father, Raoul Korty, was seized in 1938/39 by the German Gestapo and assigned without a transfer list to the Austrian National Library portrait department”. The collection could be handed over subject to an instruction by the competent provincial tax authority. Although the National Library had shown great interest during the Nazi period in the “valuable cultural objects from the Ostmark” and had warned against them being smuggled abroad, Nora Korty was now informed that it was not interested in purchasing the collection. Frau Korty, who had moved to Germany and owing to the housing shortage was living in a dressing room at the Bavaria film studios, did not have space to keep the collection. For that reason she did not follow up the restitution claim at the time.
In 1952, the ÖNB once again considered the still unresolved restitution issue and asked the Office of the Financial Procurator to clarify the legal situation. The letter indicates that the portrait collection was still interested in taking over the collection – without payment:
“Do ownership rights expire? If so, I would quietly keep the collection in storage until it reverted.” The Office of the Financial Procurator set the prescriptive acquisition – the transfer of title through uninterrupted ownership – at twelve years from the expiry of the deadline for submitting restitution claims.
A year later, in 1953, the heir’s legal counsel once again consulted with the ÖNB. In 1954, when it was evident that it would not be possible to obtain title through prescriptive acquisition – because of the negotiations regarding the establishment of collection points for unclaimed assets and the deadline for asserting claims under the First Restitution Act – the portrait collection for the first time made contact itself with the heir’s legal representative with a view to reaching agreement on the disposal of the collection.
For unexplained reasons, the collection nevertheless remained a further ten years in the ÖNB. In 1964, Nora Korty’s legal counsel once again asserted a restitution claim. However, the collection was not returned that year or in the following years. It was not until 1980 (!) that the heir’s legal counsel contacted the ÖNB one more time to inquire about the collection’s whereabouts. The Library pointed out that it was still willing to return the collection, but again asked the Office of the Financial Procurator to assess the legal situation. It established that the ÖNB could be seen only as the custodian of the collection and that “under these legal circumstances the basic condition for prescriptive acquisition of title [was absent]”.
This restitution case, which had dragged on for thirty-two years, seemed to have been resolved when the heir gave her agreement to the restitution terms – assumption of costs for transport and acknowledgement that the collection was complete. The correspondence between the ÖNB and the claimant ended on 31 July 1980. Although a satisfactory resolution of the case appeared imminent, the collection was not restituted. At the start of the project in 2002 to identify Nazi looted objects it was still in the ÖNB.
This complex case is typical of the approach by the ÖNB to its post-war restitution obligations. Although the heir had been in repeated contact since the end of the war, the restitution had not come about. This was due to a large degree to the lack of cooperation by the ÖNB and the denial of its role during the Nazi period.
The collection of around 30,000 photos was finally returned to Raoul Korty’s daughter in 2005, sixty-six years after its seizure and at her request purchased by the ÖNB for a sum determined by an independent expert.
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