Great article of a rarely discussed subject. I think the Waldheim affair might have been an impetus for the 1991 speech as well. I remember one of my history professors in college musing that the Austrians had convinced the world that Hitler was a German and that Beethoven was an Austrian.
You beat me to it! I can still recall being rather shocked to see Waldheim in Nazi uniform. Though the 'first victim' claim never quite stood up to even the vague notion of the facts we were aware of in Britain; Austria was (and I think still is) regarded very differently here to Germany. The Neujahrskonzert alone is a triumph of soft power; at least for those of us us subject to its allure.
A friend wrote his PhD on Britain and the Anschluss using National Archive records that had just been released at the time so I have sent him this essay. When I took my uni option in politics of the German speaking countries I was taught by experts on the BRD and Switzerland, but I had to read Austria up for myself. The country had some very distinctive features in terms of the Proporz system, the long-lasting Grand Coalition and corporatist arrangements. I haven't followed contemporary Austrian politics very closely, but the populist right seems to be strong. Another stimulating essay.
The name Hedi reminds me of a woman who used to live near us ,she was Austrian, her father was killed on the eastern front before she was born ,after the her mother met an English soldier and they got married and move to the UK. Hedi's mother worked as a domestic servant and one day the woman she worked for threw a bucket of water over her simply because she was Austrian and Hedi was witness to this and never forgot it .Hedi is still with us and lives in Bedford.
Also when you travelled 10 hours south in i guess was a Trabbie ,could you go thru czechoslovakia or did you stay in Germany until the Austrian border .
My awareness of Austria's victim/accomplice narrative began with my father, a WW2 vet who was a translator for Army Intelligence from 1945-47; saying the Austrians were willing accomplices. Later, I heard the news that Kurt Waldheim was an intelligence officer in the WW2. A number of years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger said his father being influenced by nationalist ideology had been a member of the SA.
Here in the U.S. we have our own Blut und Boden issues, now that anti-Semites and white nationalists are running parts of the Federal government, and terrorizing and killing American citizens. I simultaneously fear and hope we are going to have our own victim/accomplice reckoning.
Another interesting read with my Sunday morning coffee. During one of my trips south last year I visited The Wiener Holocaust Library and saw a publication, a booklet, that was one of the first instances of the ‘first victims’ myth. In my jaundiced, cynical Scots mind I thought “aye right!” (Sounds better in my soft Glaswegian accent). I have just finished reading Lea Ypi’s book Indignity, good book. She writes about the German occupation of Albania; most of the troops were actually Austrian. Given the geographic proximity that makes sense. A couple of years ago I read Giles MacDonough’s After The Reich: From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift, again a good book. I didn’t know that the Austrians had such a hard go of it immediately post war; it was was easy to see in the early years of the Cold War how it suited the Allies and Austria to sweep the history under the carpet. The history of the SWW and shadow thereof isn’t going away or diminishing in complexity.
Great article of a rarely discussed subject. I think the Waldheim affair might have been an impetus for the 1991 speech as well. I remember one of my history professors in college musing that the Austrians had convinced the world that Hitler was a German and that Beethoven was an Austrian.
You beat me to it! I can still recall being rather shocked to see Waldheim in Nazi uniform. Though the 'first victim' claim never quite stood up to even the vague notion of the facts we were aware of in Britain; Austria was (and I think still is) regarded very differently here to Germany. The Neujahrskonzert alone is a triumph of soft power; at least for those of us us subject to its allure.
Good read 👍why do you think that the Soviets conceded in the partition of Austria, beings as the Austrians had this connection with nazi germany
A friend wrote his PhD on Britain and the Anschluss using National Archive records that had just been released at the time so I have sent him this essay. When I took my uni option in politics of the German speaking countries I was taught by experts on the BRD and Switzerland, but I had to read Austria up for myself. The country had some very distinctive features in terms of the Proporz system, the long-lasting Grand Coalition and corporatist arrangements. I haven't followed contemporary Austrian politics very closely, but the populist right seems to be strong. Another stimulating essay.
Two words.........KURT WALDHEIM
The name Hedi reminds me of a woman who used to live near us ,she was Austrian, her father was killed on the eastern front before she was born ,after the her mother met an English soldier and they got married and move to the UK. Hedi's mother worked as a domestic servant and one day the woman she worked for threw a bucket of water over her simply because she was Austrian and Hedi was witness to this and never forgot it .Hedi is still with us and lives in Bedford.
Also when you travelled 10 hours south in i guess was a Trabbie ,could you go thru czechoslovakia or did you stay in Germany until the Austrian border .
My awareness of Austria's victim/accomplice narrative began with my father, a WW2 vet who was a translator for Army Intelligence from 1945-47; saying the Austrians were willing accomplices. Later, I heard the news that Kurt Waldheim was an intelligence officer in the WW2. A number of years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger said his father being influenced by nationalist ideology had been a member of the SA.
Here in the U.S. we have our own Blut und Boden issues, now that anti-Semites and white nationalists are running parts of the Federal government, and terrorizing and killing American citizens. I simultaneously fear and hope we are going to have our own victim/accomplice reckoning.
Another interesting read with my Sunday morning coffee. During one of my trips south last year I visited The Wiener Holocaust Library and saw a publication, a booklet, that was one of the first instances of the ‘first victims’ myth. In my jaundiced, cynical Scots mind I thought “aye right!” (Sounds better in my soft Glaswegian accent). I have just finished reading Lea Ypi’s book Indignity, good book. She writes about the German occupation of Albania; most of the troops were actually Austrian. Given the geographic proximity that makes sense. A couple of years ago I read Giles MacDonough’s After The Reich: From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift, again a good book. I didn’t know that the Austrians had such a hard go of it immediately post war; it was was easy to see in the early years of the Cold War how it suited the Allies and Austria to sweep the history under the carpet. The history of the SWW and shadow thereof isn’t going away or diminishing in complexity.
Schon?