Information on data processing: Restitution files of the Financial Directorate of Upper Austria – Confiscated assets

Terms of reference

The file series Finanzlandesdirektion – Beschlagnahmte Vermögen (“Financial Directorate – Confiscated assets”) of the Archives of Upper Austria contains specific files regarding the Erstes Rückstellungsgesetz (“First Restitution Act”) or the Zweites Rückstellungsgesetz (“Second Restitution Act”), as well as files regarding “aryanizations” of properties for which no restitution claim was filed after the end of the National Socialist Regime.
These file series were of relevance to the General Settlement Fund in the course of research into seized properties.

Digitization

The records of the file series “Financial Directorate – Confiscated assets” (abbreviated FLD - BV) were obtained from the access database “Aryanizations” compiled by the Provincial Government of Upper Austria on 17 October 2002. This “aryanization database” is divided into three sections: BVVR (“Confiscated assets, restitution of assets”), RK Linz (“Restitution Commission Linz”) and RSTG (“Restitutions”). The BVVR section, containing the five following file series: FLD – BV (“Financial Directorate – Confiscated assets”), ARIS (“aryanizations”), GSV (“Reich independent regional administration”), FLD - VR and FiRK (“Restitution Commission of the Financial Department of the Province of Upper Austria”), has been entered into an excel spreadsheet for further processing. These files consisting of a total number of 1,763 records constitute the “aryanization files” of the Archives of Upper Austria.

Processing the digitized data

In the excel spreadsheet, under the BVVR section, 471 records can be found under the heading “Financial Directorate – Confiscated assets” (abbreviated: FLD – BV). These records have been entered in several stages and adapted according to the requirements of the Findbuch.

Both, natural and legal persons have been recorded in separate columns in order to distinguish them from one another. Data on the aggrieved person was either assigned to the legal and/or natural person accordingly and incorrect spellings were corrected. In addition, if more than one person was entered in each line, they were each given their own line in the column for either the legal and/or natural person as appropriate. Due to this division the total number of the file series “Financial Directorate – Confiscated assets” increased from 471 to a total of 586 records.

Moreover, the following columns were added: type of file, holdings, file number, signature, archive and data source.
The entire data holdings were edited and standardized using the following criteria: obvious spelling mistakes were corrected and spellings standardized.
Abbreviated place names were written out in full. To facilitate geographical location, Austrian residential addresses were supplemented with a district and province while international addresses with a country.
The formal processing standards developed were also applied.

The records in the excel worksheet were edited for the Findbuch between October and December 2011.

The files are stored in 64 boxes in which the names (natural and legal persons) are listed in alphabetical order. In order to protect and conserve the original files, the holdings were documented on 28 microfilms.
It is necessary to state both the holdings “Financial Directorate – Confiscated assets”, as well as the box number when submitting orders to the Archives of Upper Austria. References to the file numbers of the Oberfinanzpräsidenten (“Chief Finance President”), indicated in the database, have been entered into the data field “remarks” in order to better locate the files in the boxes as well as on the microfilms.