A spring return apparatus for elastically prestressing sliding pads against a sliding bearing face of an axial piston machine. The sliding pads are positioned on working pistons mounted axially movably in cylinders of a cylinder barrel that drives a drive shaft including a spring plate and a supporting plate. The spring plate includes a ring region surrounding a central opening, and levers extending radially from the ring region. The levers are arranged spaced apart or distributed uniformly in the circumferential direction, and are elastically flexible and/or elastically pivotable in the axial direction. Every two adjacent levers delimit a receiving region for receiving a tapered section of a working piston or a sliding pad. The supporting plate has a circular ring-shaped supporting region configured to support radially outer end sections of the levers if the supporting plate is arranged concentrically with respect to and axially adjacently to the spring plate.