Victim thesis

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Artistic processing of the victim myth at the Liberation Monument in Graz

The victim thesis was a widespread argumentation pattern in Austria after the Second World War about the time before the " Anschluss " (ban of the NSDAP , attempted Nazi coup in 1934 , Nazi attacks in Austria, " Thousand-Mark-Block " etc.) or the Role of Austria in the time of National Socialism . According to the victim thesis, the state of Austria was the first victim of the National Socialist aggression policy. Sacrifice myth is also used as a synonym for sacrifice thesis (based on terms such as Habsburg myth , imperial myth or founding myth ) . The victim thesis is - since it caused the denial and suppression of Austrian complicity in the crimes of the National Socialists in the collective memory - also as the " life lie " of the Second Republic .

origin

As a legitimation for assuming Austria's victim status - in line with the imprisonment of Austrian government officials immediately after the German troops marched in - reference was made to the involuntary demise of Austria as a subject of international law. This thesis was supported by a passage in the “ Moscow Declaration ” of November 1, 1943, in which the Foreign Ministers of Great Britain , the United States of America and the Soviet Union took the view that “Austria [was] the first free country that Hitler's typical aggressive policy should fall victim [and] should be freed from German rule ”and that the“ Anschluss ”of 1938 was considered“ null and void ”. As a result, the state of Austria was considered a victim of Nazi policy under constitutional law.

In addition, after the end of the war, individual victims became victims. In the legal treatment of these, a distinction was made between political victims and war victims.

The victim thesis was strongly supported by a variety of cultural activities: The Salzburg Festival invoked the recall of the festival president Heinrich Freiherr von Puthon and the Mozarteum director Bernhard Paumgartner by the National Socialists as well as their removal of the festival play Jedermann am Domplatz . The Wiener Eisrevue presented operettas and waltzes all over Europe , the Viennese Mozart Ensemble made guest appearances in Florence , Paris , Amsterdam , Brussels , London and Moscow . The Sissi - trilogy with Romy Schneider and Karlheinz Böhm portrayed an innocent Austria's excellent kindness and absolute harmlessness.

Effects and long-term consequences

The victim thesis found early expression in the formulations of the declaration of independence of April 27, 1945. Because by means of this, Austria renounced the German Reich and the document is considered a founding document of the Second Republic. It says u. a., "that the Anschluss of 1938 [...] was initiated by military threats from outside and the treasonable terror of a Nazi-fascist minority [... and] was forced upon the helpless people of Austria through military and warlike occupation of the country".

The victim thesis already showed effects in the post-war period insofar as denazification in the first post-war years ( Prohibition Act 1947 ) was initially more stringent than in Germany , but was practically discontinued in the course of the Cold War and, in retrospect, did not take place to a sufficient extent. The restitution of stolen assets has also been increasingly delayed.

The suppression of the complicity of numerous Austrians in the atrocities during the Nazi era was also responsible for the fact that reparations to the political victims of National Socialist persecution ( Jews , Roma, etc.) were extremely slow. The "war victims", however, were treated differently. Since "the National Socialist Reich government of Adolf Hitler [...] led the powerless and willless people of Austria into a senseless and hopeless war of conquest, which no Austrian has ever wanted", it was easy to call members of the Wehrmacht as war victims. These included members of the Waffen SS who had joined on October 1, 1943, because from this date membership was considered to be forced. It was largely about the internal political division of the “ Third Camp ” by the two parties SPÖ and ÖVP .

The victim thesis was further used in the negotiations on the Austrian State Treaty by the Austrian government members (who were all victims of Nazi persecution as concentration camp prisoners, emigrants etc.) to negotiate away the passage of state complicity and to fend off far-reaching demands by the USSR.

By consistently maintaining the victim thesis over several decades, the time of National Socialism was hardly dealt with in Austria until the early 1990s and the perpetrator status of many Austrians was hardly noticed. It was not until 1986, in the wake of the Waldheim affair and the "year of reflection" (also: "year of remembrance") in 1988, that a differentiated analysis of the Nazi past began. In 1991 , Federal Chancellor Franz Vranitzky was the first official representative of Austria to admit the crimes committed by Austrians and to apologize for them. The Wehrmacht exhibition was therefore discussed in a correspondingly controversial manner, as it openly displayed content that had previously been taboo. This rethinking also made it possible to carry out the memorial service proposed by Innsbruck political scientist Andreas Maislinger at the end of the 1970s by the Minister of the Interior, Franz Löschnak, who is responsible for community service .

Very late, namely only in 1998, Austria - under massive international pressure, in particular through lawsuits from the USA - set up the historian's commission of the Republic of Austria to research and report on the confiscation of property between 1938 and 1945 as well as provisions and compensation after 1945 . As a result of this research and efforts, a large number of restitutions took place from this point onwards.

In summary, the constitutional process of 1938 with regard to the Republic of Austria is to be understood as a Janus-like act, the interpretation of which in the post-war period is to be seen in connection with the most diverse interests during the Cold War. While the state of the Republic of Austria fell victim to Nazi politics from one point of view, from another point of view citizens of the Republic of Austria were compliant perpetrators in the implementation of Nazi policy.

Some journalists see the reactions to the so-called " EU sanctions " as the last manifestation of the victim thesis (here with opposite signs) : When the then 14 other EU member states opposed the participation of the right-wing populist FPÖ in the new government had pronounced and - after the coalition of the ÖVP with the FPÖ - diplomatic sanctions had been initiated against this government, these were interpreted by the political side and in the country's media as patronizing "measures against Austria", i.e. against the entire country.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quotation from Marriage Driver 2007, keyword “Victim Thesis”.
  2. ↑ a b Acoustic document on page no longer available , search in web archives: www.staatsvertrag.at , publisher: Technisches Museum Wien with Austrian media library, accessed on November 30, 2008.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.staatsvertrag.at
  3. ↑ See for example Nina Horaczek : “Echte Patrioten” versus “Österreich-Vernaderer”. In: Martin Strauss, Karl-Heinz Ströhle (ed.): Sanctions. 10 years later. The measures of the countries of the European Union against the Austrian government in 2000. Studienverlag, Innsbruck [u. a.] 2010, ISBN 978-3-7065-4823-6 .

literature

  • Gerhard Botz : History and Collective Memory in the Second Republic. “Victim thesis”, “life lie” and “history tabu” in contemporary historiography. In: Wolfgang Kos , Georg Rigele (Ed.): Inventory 45/55. Austria in the first decade of the Second Republic. Special number, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85449-092-5 , pp. 51-85.
  • Ewald Ehtreiber: keywords: " victim theory ", " overcoming the past ", " Wehrmacht Exhibition " and " reparations ". In: Oswald Panagl , Peter Gerlich (Hrsg.): Dictionary of political language in Austria. öbv, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-209-05952-9 .
  • Anton Legerer: Memorial Services: Coping with National Socialism in Austria. In: Tatort: ​​Reconciliation. Action atonement in the FRG and the GDR and memorial service in Austria. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2011, ISBN 978-3-374-02868-9 , pp. 409–458.
  • Andreas Maislinger : " Coming to terms with the past" in the Federal Republic of Germany, the GDR and Austria. Psychological-educational measures in comparison . In: Germany Archive , September 1990.
  • Günther Sandner: politics of the past in the cabinet. The debates about the Austrian war victims at the beginning of the Second Republic. In: Oswald Panagl, Ruth Wodak (Ed.): Text and context. Theory models and methodological procedures in a transdisciplinary comparison. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2838-4 , pp. 131-147.

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