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

Terms of reference

The file series Finanzlandesdirektion – Vermögensrückstellung (“Financial Directorate – Restitution of 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 its investigations on seized properties.

Digitization

The records of the file series “Financial Directorate – Restitution of assets” (abbreviated: FLD – VR) 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 worksheet, under the BVVR section, 1,585 records can be found under the title “Financial Directorate – Restitution of assets”. These records were 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. In addition, if more than one natural person was entered in each line, they were each given their own line in the columns for either the legal and/or natural person as appropriate. Due to this division the total number of the file series “Financial Directorate – Restitution of assets” increased from 1,585 to a total of 2,761 records.

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 and international addresses with a country.
The formal processing standards developed were also applied.

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

The file series is stored in 26 boxes in which the names (natural and legal persons) are listed in alphabetical order. In order to protect and conserve the original files, the holding was documented on 27 microfilms.
When submitting orders to the Archives of Upper Austria, it is (exceptionally) neither necessary to indicate the box number nor the microfilm number, but rather the name of the holding, the file number or the address of the seized property. The respective boxes in which the file series are stored will then be located with the help of a special directory of the Archives of Upper Austria.