Vienna, the Rothschilds and ‘Nazi theft’
A 100-YEAR-OLD hospital in southwest Vienna is at the centre of a bitter legal struggle between its administrator, the City of Vienna, and Geoffrey R. Hoguet, a descendant of its founder, Nathaniel Meyer von Rothschild.
According to the great-grandson of Albert von Rothschild, Nathaniel’s brother, the City of Vienna is guilty of “in effect perpetuating” the Nazis’ “expropriation and Aryanisation program” via its management of the Neurological Centre Rosenhügel.
The city rejects allegations of wrongdoing, maintaining that without its support — £122 million between 1991 and 2005 — the hospital would not have been able to fulfil its original mission.
Mr Hoguet, who lives in New York and works as an investment fund manager, began legal proceedings against the city in November 2019.
Vienna’s Administrative Court ruled on 22 March that Mr Hoguet does not have standing to pursue his case against the city.
His lawyer, Wulf Gordian Hauser, informed the JC that his client intends to appeal before Austria’s Constitutional Court.
The history of the Neurological Centre
Rosenhügel began in 1905, when the childless banker Nathaniel von Rothschild died.
His will allowed for 20 million crowns (the equivalent of £107 million today) to be placed into an endowment to establish a hospital for patients with nerve-related ailments.
The Neurological Centre Rosenhügel opened in 1912; its sister hospital, the Maria-Theresien-Schlössel, opened two years later.
Both were Aryanised following the Anschluss. The Rothschild foundation was dissolved and its assets given to Vienna, then a district within the Third Reich, in December 1938.
Only in 1956 was the foundation reconstituted, not as an independent body but one administrated by the City of Vienna.
Mr Hoguet argues that, in doing so, the city “systematically and deliberately evaded the legal and moral obligation to re-establish the endowment according to the founder’s original intentions”.
In 2002, the Maria-Theresien-Schlössel was sold to the City of Vienna for the sum of £5.8 million, a fee which Mr Hauser believes undervalued the property. The Lauder Business School currently has a 99-year lease on the former hospital.
The final straw for Mr Hoguet seems to have been a change to the foundation’s constitution, executed in 2017, making the City of Vienna the ultimate beneficiary of its assets (the Neurological Centre Rosenhügel) were it to be dissolved.
The city maintains this change was necessary to maintain the endowment’s charitable status and, were the City to inherent the hospital, it would be compelled by law to use it for charitable purposes.
But Mr Hoguet asserts Vienna’s actions “represent a grievous case of self-dealing”.
This very public and sometimes nasty feud between Vienna and the Rothschilds has become both a legal and political battle.
Vienna is governed by the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), while some of the leading lights defending Mr Hoguet, such as the President of the Austrian Parliament Wolfgang Sobotka, come from the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP).
Vienna’s Jewish community has also split along party lines:
ÖVP MP Martin Engelberg speaking for Mr Hoguet; for- mer community president and SPÖ member Ariel Muzicant accusing Mr Engelberg of mounting a “revenge campaign” against his party.
Mr Hoguet’s strategy consultant is Daniel Kapp, known to be close to the ÖVP. A spokesperson for the City of Vienna told the JC they are currently examining whether to take legal action over rothschildstiftung.at, a website run by Mr Kapp whose content they believe may be defamatory.
Mr Kapp said that the City of Vienna was “childish” to bring up his party affiliation to journalists and drew comparison to how voices critical of historical issues are treated in Poland.
“The intention is to intimidate people who are supporters of this cause”, Mr Kapp said. “This is not a partisan issue but a question of moral and historical justice”.
For Mr Hoguet, the goal remains the reconstruction of the foundation according to its pre-1938 format: a governing board of 12 including nine nominated by the Rothschild family.
Mr Hauser told the JC his client fears a future sale of the Neurological Centre Rosenhügel. By restoring the independent foundation, the future of the hospital can be secured.
The City of Vienna denies Mr Hoguet’s claims. In September, it established a commission to investigate the history of Nathaniel von Rothschild’s foundation. A final report is due this autumn.