The court in Břeclav will decide regarding the lawsuit of the Liechtensteins, they want their castles back

Břeclav – The District Court in Břeclav will announce its decision today regarding the lawsuit filed by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation against state institutions. The foundation is seeking the return of property that it claims is unjustly used by the Czech state, as well as lost profits. This includes, for example, the Lednice-Valtice Area, as well as the Lednice and Valtice castles. The Liechtenstein princely family claims that the Czech state unlawfully seized the property based on the Benes decrees after 1945. The defendants have labeled the lawsuit as unfounded.

The foundation filed lawsuits with 26 Czech district courts at the end of 2018, with the Břeclav court being one of them. The foundation emphasizes that the last holder of extensive family properties in Czech territory, František Josef II, was not a citizen of Germany, but of neutral Liechtenstein, and moreover, the head of a sovereign state. Thus, according to the foundation, the confiscation of property was unlawful. However, the Liechtenstein prince František Josef II registered with the German nationality in the 1930s according to the then administrative authority, and therefore his property fell to the state after World War II based on the Benes decrees.

Among the 14 state institutions contesting the lawsuit at the Břeclav court are the National Heritage Institute, Morava River Basin Authority, Forests of the Czech Republic, State Land Office, and the Agency for Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection of the Czech Republic. According to their legal representatives, the foundation's claims are unfounded, and they do not recognize the foundation's claims. They pointed, for instance, to a lack of active legitimacy and referred to the course of the confiscation proceedings. They proposed that the lawsuit be dismissed as unfounded.

The Liechtenstein family was among the wealthiest nobility in the Czech lands, particularly in Moravia. They owned extensive properties including the present-day Lednice-Valtice Area, which is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. However, they lost a significant portion of their properties in the territory of former Czechoslovakia as a result of land reforms after World War I, and the remaining property was seized by the state after World War II.