As one of the measures by which the Nazi German Reich pursued the gradual humiliation, expropriation, expulsion and murder of Jewish persecutees, in 1939 the Nazi regime ordered the compulsory surrender of precious metal objects, jewels and pearls. A number of regulations preceded the actual compulsory surrender. The Regulation on the Registration of Assets of Jews of 26 April 1938 required Jewish persecutees with assets worth more than 5,000 Reichsmarks to make a detailed declaration, including precious metal objects, jewellery, precious stones and pearls. Three weeks after the November Pogrom, Walther Funk, Reich Minister for Economic Affairs, and Wilhelm Frick, Reich Minister of the Interior, promulgated the Regulation on the Use of Jewish Assets of 3 December 1938, § 14 of which forbade Jewish persecutees from selling jewels, jewellery and art objects to anyone other than public purchasing centres. On 16 January 1939, the pawnshops operated by the municipalities were designated as public purchasing centres for precious metal objects, jewels and pearls. In Klagenfurt, Linz, St. Pölten, Villach, Wiener Neustadt and Vienna, this function was assumed by branches of the Dorotheum.
The Third Decree on the Basis of the Regulation on the Declaration of Assets of Jews of 21 February 1939 ordered persecutees to surrender gold, platinum or silver objects, and precious stones and pearls to the public purchasing centres within two weeks of the entry into force of the Regulation on 22 February 1939. According to an announcement by the Reich Ministry of Economic Affairs of 1 March 1939, wedding rings, silver pocket watches and wristwatches, silver cutlery – two knives, forks, spoons and teaspoons per person – silver objects up to 40 g per item and a total weight of up to 200 g per person, and "precious metal dentures insofar as they are for personal use" were exempt from the compulsory surrender. In addition, it stated that "a Jewish spouse living in a mixed marriage, insofar as there are offspring from the marriage who are not considered to be Jews", even if the marriage no longer existed, was also exempt from the compulsory surrender, as was "the Jewish wife in a childless marriage provided that the husband is of German blood or a 2nd degree Mischling". Up to 300 deliveries per day were dealt with in the Dorotheum. As there were around 15,000 households or persons in Vienna in early 1939 who had to surrender objects, the action was estimated to take over 50 days. The regime also realized early on that the two-week deadline for surrender was too short and extended it until 31 March 1939. Compulsory surrenders in Vienna in fact continued until 1940. The "purchase prices" paid to those who were obliged to surrender their assets were extremely low, and a further 10 per cent was deducted from this amount. The transactions were documented on receipts with several carbon copies. The persons surrendering the objects received a copy, one was attached to the asset declarations in the Property Transaction Office, and a third copy remained in the Dorotheum or with the surrendered objects. The main aim of the § 14 surrender was not to secure silver, gold or platinum art objects or jewellery for the State or museums, but to obtain the precious metals and to convert them into capital. The total amount of precious metal surrendered in Austria under § 14 ran to around 50 t silver, 154 kg gold and 2.9 kg platinum. But "interested museums" also had the possibility of selecting pieces before they were melted down and of obtaining them at favourable prices. Around 1942, for example, the State Arts and Crafts Museum in Vienna, now the MAK, acquired 77 silver objects from the Dorotheum.
From 1947, the Jewish Community (IKG) Vienna collected data on losses as a result of persecution in its attempt to obtain restitution. In 1953 it gained access to the archive of the Dorotheum, so that two of its members were able to write a detailed documentation of the § 14 deliveries, which has been lost today. To assert financial claims against the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), in 1958 Georg Weis, head of collection points A and B, arranged for the Dorotheum to create a file of the 17,700 delivery receipts. This work ultimately resulted in 11,715 claims for melted precious metals and 5,137 for compensation for jewellery expropriated in the FRG. Unlike the delivery receipts from the Dorotheum, which have been mislaid, the file – called the "Dorotheum file" or § 14 file – has been kept in the Austrian State Archives with the documents referring to the Property Transaction Office. During the research by the Austrian Historical Commission from 1998 to 2003, the § 14 file was "rediscovered" and digitized in 2007 in a joint project by the IKG Vienna and the Dorotheum. In this way, the previous owners of 17 silver objects in the MAK were identified. The Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended restitutions to the heirs of Gittel and Samuel Bauer, Erny and Richard Gombrich, Emil and Amalie Iwnicki, Alfred Kirchenberger, Anna Kutscher, Elise and Ernst Müller, Hermine Schütz, Isak Wunderlich, and Jacques Ziegler.
Some of the compulsory surrendered objects in post-war Germany were restituted. However there are still large amounts of § 14 silver objects in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, among other places, whose previous owners cannot be determined for lack of relevant documentation.