Pezold has already filed other suits with Czech courts, claiming the return of dozens of other buildings owned by the Hluboka branch of the Schwarzenberg family, but she has failed so far. The Supreme Court confirmed the previous rulings of the district and regional courts that rejected Pezold's complaints aimed to determine the property ownership.
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Czech ForMin wants Prague to ratify Lisbon treaty by year-end ... she could claim the property only on the basis of restitution laws. The 19th-century chateau in Hluboka nad Vltavou, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Czech Republic, was the main seat of the Hluboka branch of the Schwarzenbergs the property of which Pezold, an heiress of its last noble owner Adolf Schwarzenberg, seeks. The Supreme Court today also released the verdict rejecting Pezold's claim that concerned the 19th-century Schwarzenberg vault in Domanin, south Bohemia. The Hluboka branch of the family owned the estates of Hluboka, Cesky Krumlov, Lovosice, Postoloprty, Protivin, Vimperk and Trebon at the beginning of the 20th century. The property was confiscated by the Nazis in 1940. Adolf Schwarzenberg left for exile from which he never returned after WWII. He died abroad in 1950. After the war, his property was subject to "national administration," and the agricultural land and premises were confiscated on the basis of the post-war Benes decrees that provided for the confiscation of the property of collaborators, traitors, ethnic Germans and Hungarians, except for those who themselves suffered under the Nazis. Moreover, the Czech courts recall that the Hluboka branch of the Schwarzenberg family lost the property, including the chateaus in the UNESCO-listed Cesky Krumlov and Hluboka nad Vltavou, both South Bohemia, on the basis of a special law from 1947, which is still embedded in the Czech Republic's legal order. Pezold considers the step unjust, arguing that Adolf Schwarzenberg was well known as an opponent of Nazism. Experts now estimate the value of the confiscated property of the Hluboka branch of the Schwarzenberg family at 40 billion crowns. The second, Orlik branch, of the Schwarzenberg family, represented by current Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, has regained its immense property in the Czech Republic in restitution proceedings. (USD1=16.960 crowns)
(Ceske Noviny)
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