In the methodical considerations leading to the analysis of the legal aspects of restitution and compensation, two levels, and thus two different subjects of research, should be distinguished.

The first level is the legislative programme for restitution, i.e. all laws and regulations by which the legislators and the issuers of implementing ordinances regulated restitution. These are more or less abstract norms. The second level are the proceedings conducted on the basis of that abstract programme: these were about specific individual cases. The two levels have to be distinguished because they pose different problems and therefore require different methods of investigation.

At the legislative level, one can ask in a relatively abstract mode what the content of the laws was and then make a legal evaluation of that content.

In this kind of study one will, for example, ask how far the legislation was in accord with other values enshrined in the country's legal order. Thus it is conceivable that exceptions were allowed from general rules such as the provisions to prevent undue enrichment - exceptions to the detriment of applicants for restitution. There were also certain deviations from the General Civil Code with regard for example to the restriction of succession by inheritance. This analysis should already be made with an eye to the application of the laws in question. It is common experience, after all, that many problems which a law raises only become apparent when it is applied. Hence already in the course of these studies, concrete decisions will have to be taken into account at least where they are available in published format.

Moreover, the intentions pursued by the legislators should be discovered, i.e. the formal aims and objectives stated when these laws were passed. This will enable researchers to look at the question of how far the substance of these laws did justice to their professed intentions. One may have to look, for example, whether there may not have been certain contradictions between what the legislators said was their purpose and what they wrote into the provisions of the laws, which were sometimes full of verbal complexities.

In analysing the proceedings conducted on the basis of the legislation, the general principles governing the implementation of statutes will have to be consulted. For example, one will have to ask: Did the authorities observe the laws relevant in the context? Were the laws interpreted to the disadvantage of applicants or to the disadvantage of the people who should have returned the property in question? Were the proceedings conducted in accordance with the procedural standards accepted at the time? In the light of all these questions, did the proceedings produce the "correct" results? This is a very delicate question since in contentious proceedings - and most restitution proceedings were contentious - what really happed, i.e. the alleged "aryanizsation", can only be discovered from what the plaintiff said.