Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution: Last filing period for applications to reopen proceedings comes to an end

The last deadline for filing reopening applications to the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution expires at the end of August 2020. The Arbitration Panel, established in 2001 at the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism, was appointed to examine applications for in rem restitution of assets (in particular real estate) that had been seized during the Nazi era and were now publicly-owned, and to recommend restitution if the legal requirements were met. Since the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution first convened in 2001 it has been composed of the same three Members, Josef Aicher, Erich Kussbach and August Reinisch, all jurists acting in an honorary capacity. The Washington Agreement on the Settlement of Questions of Compensation and Restitution for Victims of National Socialism and the General Settlement Fund Law formed the basis for their work.

By the end of 2018, the Arbitration Panel had finished processing all of the 2,307 applications for in rem restitution received up to that date and issued 1,582 decisions on those applications. The total value of the properties for which the Arbitration Panel recommended restitution amounts to an estimated 48 million euros.

Upon expiry of the last filing period, the Arbitration Panel will have completed its task. Once the Main Committee of the National Council has acknowledged receipt of its Final Report, the Arbitration Panel will be dissolved. Its work is documented in a manner that is also accessible to the public: the decisions are available in anonymous form online and are also published in a bilingual book series. The geographical location of the properties on which the Arbitration Panel has ruled in its decisions can be viewed online at https://maps.nationalfonds.org. In 2021, the Final Report of the Arbitration Panel will be published in book form in German and English.