Habsburg Law

April 1919 betreffend die Landesverweisung und die Übernahme des Vermögens des Hauses Habsburg-Lothringen) was a law originally passed by the Constitutional Assembly (Konstituierende Nationalversammlung) of the Republic of German-Austria, one of the successor states of dissolved Austria-Hungary, on 3 April 1919.

The law dethroned the House of Habsburg-Lorraine as rulers of the country, which had declared itself a republic on 12 November 1918, exiled them and confiscated their property.

However, in 1938, following the Anschluss, the Nazis reintroduced the Habsburg Law, and it was retained when Austria regained its independence after World War II.

With the help of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lisle Strutt, a British Army officer sent by King George V, who was shocked by the fate of his Russian relatives, on 23 March Charles and his family departed from Eckartsau for Switzerland in the former Imperial train, Charles wearing a field marshal's uniform.

This was intended to turn the Burgenland aristocrats (who included members of the Habsburg family) more pro-Austrian, for pragmatic reasons.

After the "Anschluss", Reichsstatthalter Arthur Seyss-Inquart, head of the "Austrian State Government", enacted the "Law on the cancellation of the transfer of property to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine", on 14 March 1939, on the grounds of a personal Führer decree; thus, the property passed without compensation to the "Land Austria", part of the Third Reich.

Permission to enter was granted to the last empress, Zita of Bourbon-Parma, without a waiver, in 1982, because she was a Habsburg only by marriage and could therefore make no claim to the imperial throne.

The Arbitration Panel of the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism (decisions 5/2004, 6/2004, 7/2004) has declared that it lacks jurisdiction over applications of the Habsburg family, for reasons of constitutional and international law.

In a subsequent complaint of the Habsburg family concerning decisions of the Arbitration Panel, the Austrian constitutional court has declared that it lacks jurisdiction.