this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 20 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Vienna's a lovely city, a lot of Austrians are great people, yadayada.

I get the impression that, unlike Germany, it's a country that hasn't fully come to terms with its Nazi past. A lot of Austrians seem to be in denial about the Anschluss or how popular it was. Many will even argue that Austrians were victims, while ignoring that there was overwhelming popular support for the Anschluss at the time.

Here's a relevant article:

Otto von Habsburg ... told a meeting of the ruling conservative People's Party: "No state in Europe has a greater right than Austria to call itself a victim." He went on to dismiss an Allied wartime declaration that Austria shared responsibility for the Nazis as "hypocrisy and lies". ... followed publication of an opinion poll on Tuesday which showed that almost two thirds of Austrians wanted an end to what was described as the "endless discussion" about the country's role during the Second World War. ... new evidence and a growing mass of research about Austria's role during the Third Reich suggests that the argument that the vast majority of its citizens were willing accomplices to Nazi rule has become incontrovertible. ... The poll conducted on 10 April 1938 showed that 99.75 per cent of Austrians were in favour of the annexation. ... the results were doctored by the Nazis ... But recent research suggests that the actual number in favour of Nazi rule was still about two thirds of the electorate. ... a historian at Vienna University who has researched the period closely, said yesterday: "Hitler was welcomed into the country as a successful Austrian who was returning home from abroad and suddenly letting his own people take part in his successes. He was a sort of ersatz monarch."

This isn't just Austria, obviously.

For example, my grandfather would often sarcastically remark that the Dutch resistance gained most of its members after 1944. To quote Adolf Eichmann on Dutch collaboration: "The transports run so smoothly that it is a pleasure to see."

In Belgium, you have a similar issue where some Flemish nationalists (sometimes disingeniously) minimize the extent of their relatives collaboration during the war, as it's politically incovenient and embarassing. Same thing in France with Vichy. Same thing in much of Europe, tbh.

[–] rentar42@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That is unfortunately pretty true. The So-called Austria victim theory, which is basically "oh, we poor Austrians were Nazi Germanys first victim!", is obvious bullshit.

This was only really officially stated to be definitely false in the late 1980s ... and there's still plenty of people who probably would believe it or at least like to pretend that that was the case.

But as I said: at the very least we got to the place where pretty much any official/political actor has to acknowledge that it's wrong.

I was literally taught this in schools, " the first victim of Nazi Germany was Austria who was annexed against their will."

It wasn't until after highschool with me getting more into ww1/2 history that I found out that was total bullshit.

"anschluss" was just a word nobody would explain to me from the Sound of Music. Watching that movie was somewhat different afterward too, since a lot of references went over my head as a kid.

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Same in Japan too. Search for 'unit 713' if you hate your mental peace.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

*731 but yeah, that's some heinous shit to say the least! 😬

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

What scares me more is that researchers found many more units and branches in that network. Yes, it wasn't just one institution in Harbin that most talk about for it was discovered first. They were all over occupied China torturing whoever they can get a hold of.

They were pretty clever about hiding it, moreso than germans who were running when the first camps got seen by the armies. I'm pretty depressed at a thought that monsters like that could've succeed in it, or that many attrocities are still unknown to us.

WW2 was very, very toned down in every aspect of my formal education.

Basically the only war crimes we learned about was "Germany starved Jewish people and worked them to death"

But holy shit that's just the surface level.

It wasn't just jews, it wasn't just death camps, it wasn't just Germany and it wasn't just starvation.

If I had learned everything, I'd have had nightmares about humanity.

[–] Assman@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's like they've never seen the sound of music

[–] rentar42@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago

Fun fact: that movie is in fact way less known in Austria than elsewhere. Fun fact: I once saw Michael Moore talk in Vienna and he made some "Sound of Music" joke/reference and the reaction by the audience was ... crickets. No one knew what he talked about.

[–] Retrowizard@piefed.social 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Austrians haven't still come to terms with the fact that the main Nazi was an Austrian, I don't really expect them to come to terms to Nazism in Austria as a whole

[–] rentar42@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I don't believe "Hitler was an Austrian" is as important for Austria to come to terms with as it is to accept/finally internalize that Austria wasn't "the first victim", but to a large degree welcomed the Anschluss (not 100%, obviously, but quite a big majority).

[–] Retrowizard@piefed.social 3 points 9 months ago

It is, because the denial regarding Hitler's origin is part of Austria's victimisation. It is when you see Austrians argue they're the good guys and Germans the bad guys because "Hitler was German" or when they use it as an argument to deny/not acknowledge the long history of state backed antisemitism in what it's now modern Austria.

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What? France is more than open about Vichy's collaboration. I don't know about Belgium and the Netherlands, but it seems you're trying to dilute the responsability and lack of accountability of the Austrians

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Some French people have come terms with their past. Some haven't.

I'll give you an example:

On 9 April, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s Front National, denied on TV that France or the French state were responsible for the infamous Vel d’Hiv round-up of Jews in Paris on 16-17 July 1942. Corralled by French police into the eponymous cycling stadium, most of these 13,000 Jews ended up in Nazi death camps. But for Le Pen, widely expected to top the first round of the presidential elections on 23 April, “if there are people responsible, it’s those who were in power at the time. It’s not France.” ... In a follow-up statement, she invoked the authority of former presidents de Gaulle and Mitterrand to insist that France and the Republic were in London during the German occupation, and that the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime “was not France”. Drawing on their respective inferences that Vichy was merely an aberration of the French Republic and imposter as representative of France, she holds that while individuals shared responsibility for the atrocities of the period on a personal basis; none could be imputed to France as such.

This is just one example, obviously. I didn't need to go back to Jean-Marie. 40% at the last election, wouldn't be surprised if she becomes the next French president.

Not singling out France. Not trying to dilute Austria's responsibility, given I was the one who brought it up in this thread. Just saying that much of Europe had a collaboration problem and that a lot of Europe is still in denial about their role in the war.

Similar thing for the US too. German-American Bund, Father McCoughlin, Charles Lindbergh, "America First Committe", etc. Once again with a perhaps predictable impact on the current political situation in their country.