Delayed reaction: The long history to the Art Restitution ActFor a long time, Austria saw itself as the“first victim” of the Naziregime and refused to face up to its responsibility for Nazi crimes.This disregard for the unlawfulness of the regime was reflected, inthe post-war period and beyond, in the general attitude to victimsof the Nazis, as well as in legislation.Under pressure from the Allies, restitution laws were enacted after1945. They were complicated, bureaucratic, and demanded that thevictims took the initiative themselves. The application deadlines wereshort. In many cases neither the people who had been persecutedand expelled, nor the survivors knew anything about the where-abouts of their assets, which made claims for restitution difficult or­impossible.Even if objects were restituted, usually with a delay of manyyears, export prohibitions sometimes prevented the owners from­taking ­possession of them. In other circumstances, agreements weresought; for example, export approvals were granted for only selecteditems, in exchange for a donation being made to an Austrian museum.It was not until the 1980s, not least as a result of the WaldheimAffair, that public opinion slowly began to change. The transfer of titleto the Republic of Austria of several thousand unclaimed looted artobjects stored in Mauerbach Charterhouse gave rise to increasingpublic outcry in Austria and abroad. National and international news-papers reported on it. The“victim myth” began to crumble. The 1990ssaw the first admissions by politicians that Austria also bore respon-sibility for its Nazi past.An article appearing inThe New York Timesin 1997 drew world-wide attention to the question of the origins and whereabouts ofobjects looted by the Nazis. Austria needed finally to react becausetwo works from the Leopold Collection were at the centre of thedebate.A historical Commission was finally established in 1998. Expertsexamined the systematic looting by the Nazi regime and the wayit was dealt with after 1945. Other significant publications on the­subject appeared at the start of the new millennium.MR53