This case seeks recovery of six paintings by Gustav Klimt owned by Maria V. Altmann, but in the wrongful possession of the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Gallery.

Mrs. Altmann was born in Austria but fled, for her life, when Austria delivered itself into the hands of the Nazis in 1938.  In 1938 as well, the Nazis and their Austrian accomplices seized the property not only of Mrs. Altmann, but the rest of her family, including all property of her uncle, Ferdinand BlochBauer.  They did so for no other reason than because Altmann and her family were Jewish.  Included among Ferdinand’s possessions at the time were six fabulous paintings by Gustav Klimt (copies of which are reproduced as Exhibit A hereto), consisting of two portraits of his wife (Adele Bloch-Bauer I and Adele Bloch-Bauer II), three landscapes (Beechwood; Apple Tree I; Houses in Unterach am Attersee), and a portrait  of a close friend (Amalie Zuckerkandl). A seventh painting (Schloss Kammer am Attersee III) had been donated by Ferdinand to the Austrian Gallery in 1936, prior to the Austrians’ rejection (and for those who were unable to flee, murder) of its Jewish population.

Ferdinand died in exile in Zurich, childless and a widower, in November 1945.  He left his entire estate to three of his brother Gustav Bloch-Bauer’s children: 25% to Mrs. Altmann, then living in Los Angeles; 25% to Robert Bentley, then living in Vancouver, Canada; and 50% to Luise Gattin, then living in Zagreb, Yugoslavia). His will was admitted to probate in Zurich in 1947.  Mrs. Altmann, age 84, is the last surviving named heir.

Notwithstanding Ferdinand’s bequest to his nieces and nephews; notwithstanding the fact that the paintings were stolen from Ferdinand; notwithstanding the fact that no party took good title from the defeated Nazis and their Austrian accomplices; and notwithstanding that the Republic of Austria had the legal – not to say moral – obligation to deliver the paintings to the heirs upon probate of Ferdinand’s will, the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Gallery did not do so.  Instead, motivated entirely by a now-admitted hatred of the Jews that continued even after they and their Axis partners were defeated in World War II and after the depths of the Holocaust were exposed, the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Gallery extorted the heirs out of their possessory rights in exchange for purported “export permits” allowing the heirs to retrieve other property stolen from them.

Only in 1999 did the true facts about the Republic of Austria’s and the Austrian Gallery’s wrongful possession begin to come to light.  Prior to then, the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Gallery hid these facts from the heirs and from the world, claiming – falsely – that they in fact had taken good title, honestly acquired. To their continuing disgrace, the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Gallery refuse to return the paintings or to pay for them.

There being no other recourse, Maria V. Altmann alleges against the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Gallery as follows:

Plaintiff MARIA V. ALTMANN alleges as follows: