After the expropriation of Brioni by the Italian state, various attempts were made by the heirs, the Kupelwieser and Mautner Markhof families to win back their property.
Leopold “Lony” Kupelwieser, son of Paul Kupelwieser and father of Maria “Pussy” Mautner Markhof, renounced his inheritance in favour of the daughters after his divorce from Anna Katharina Hiller. In 1932 he wrote the following letter to his cousin Hans (son of the lawyer Carl Kupelwieser), in which he mentioned a “general settlement”. A legal comparison was therefore made around 1932. The families in the Castel (Annie Kupelwieser and her three daughters) and in the Kupelwieser Villa (Elda) had remained hopelessly fallen out.
In 1937, Elda Kupelwieser, the second wife of Carl(o) Kupelwieser, who had voluntarily put an end to his life in the course of the Brioni insolvency, filed a lawsuit against Manfred u. Maria Anna Mautner Markhof, August Schenker-Angerer and wife, the legacy of the recently deceased Anna Maria Kupelwieser (née Hiller) and Pietro Gunoldi and wife at the civil district court.
The corresponding note can be found in the journal documentation of the Austrian National Library in the newspaper “Neues Wiener Tagblatt” from March 26, 1938, lunchtime edition, p. 2. The inquiry in the Vienna City and State Archives regarding the availability of the process files resulted in the following:
The requested act is entered in the register of the regional court for civil law matters, namely as a dispute between the defendants Maria and Manfred Mautner Markhof and Mrs. Elda Kupelwieser. The file number is 2 Cg 74/1937. Unfortunately, the years 1933 – 1938 in the 2Cg series of the regional court for civil law cases have not survived, which is why the order of the file was negative.
La baronessa Elda Lonzar Kupelwieser continued to seek restitution and compensation after the war. In 1956 an inter-ministerial commission for compensation for goods left behind was formed in Rome. Elda Lonzar Kupelwieser was called to be part of it.
In Aldo Cherini’s chronology of the activities of exiled Istrians in Italy, the following is mentioned (p. 31/58/73):
| 1960 16 September | Baroness Elda Lonzar Kupelwieser resigns from the Ministerial Commission for goods left behind where she represented the Association of Istrian Communities. |
| 1972 1 September | Baroness Elda Kupelwieser says goodbye to the inter-ministerial commission regulating compensation for property left behind. She was the deputy representative of the Association of Istrian Communities. |
| 1981 16 December | Baroness Elda Kupelwieser Lonzar passed away. |
The deposited assets claims listed at the “Swiss Claims Resolution Tribunal” did not produce any results at the time. According to the Swiss banks, the accounts did not exist.
