Brno, July 4 (CTK) – Rothschild descendants have failed with their complaint to determine ownership of some 40 plots which are now owned by Silherovice in the Opava vicinity, north Moravia, the Supreme Court (NS) decided recently and it now released the verdict’s justification on its web page.
Before World War Two the Rothschilds owned extensive property in Silesia. However, they gave way to pressure and transferred the real estate, including plots in Silherovice, to the German empire. After the war, the property was confiscated by the Czechoslovak state in line with the Benes decrees.
The Benes decrees provided for the confiscation of the property of collaborators, traitors, ethnic Germans and Hungarians, except for those who themselves suffered under the Nazis. They also formed a basis for the transfer of the former groups from Czechoslovakia.
By filing the complaint, two living heirs and two family trusts sought the determination of the ownership of the real estate by Alphonse Mayer von Rothschild as from the day of his death.
This would practically negate both the transfer to the German empire and the post-war confiscation.
A district court in Ostrava, north Moravia, rejected the complaint in 2015 and the regional court upheld the verdict in appeals proceedings.
The key reason was that the widow of the last property owner did not fully apply her right to seek her ownership right after 1945, which the legal order made possible. The respective national committee advised her to turn to court.
“Unless she did so, the restitution legislation valid then cannot be circumvented with a property ownership complaint,” the NS says in its verdict’s justification.
“Even if it were possible to recognise that the confiscation did them a wrong, this would be a wrong caused before February 25, 1948 [when communists seized power in former Czechoslovakia] and such wrongs are not redressed according to settled judgements,” the NS writes.
Theoretically, it is possible to file a constitutional complaint.
Silherovice said it takes due care of the real estate and that it plans to continue using it. It warned of breaching legal certainty.
Media covered the Rothschilds’ claims mainly in 2009. One of the heirs, Geoffrey Hoguet, repeatedly said the family is only interested in real estate that is held by state or municipalities. The heirs did not want to claim land in private hands.
