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Austria The First Victim Austria represents itself as a country that was violently occupied in March 1938 and liberated by the Austrian Resistance and the Allies in the spring of 1945. Thanks to this successful externalization of the NS period and its own NS past, Austrian society was able to stylize the population as innocent victims of the War. This status as victim was also used as an argument to protest the presence of the occupying forces. If Austria, as was upheld in the Moscow Declaration, was occupied in 1938 and liberated by the Allies in 1945, why should freedom be withheld from the Austria people? The self-portrayal continued to base itself on the legend of the country as victim on through the 1980s. |
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The interpretation of National Socialism as foreign tyranny was the underlying idea for the exhibition "Never Forget", which was organized by the city of Vienna in 1946. The cover page of the catalogue shows the huge figure of a proletarian demolishing a swastika with a hammer. The "victim legend" had not yet found its way into the national narrative. However, the connection between the Resistance and the liberation by the Allies was clearly established. This is visualized in the flags of the Allies, which, however, are almost covered over by the red-white-red of the Austrian flag. |
| The notion that foreign rule by one power was followed by foreign rule of another finds expression in a poster on the 10 th anniversary of the "Anschluss". Ten years after Austria was taken into the German Reich and three years after the end of the War, Austria is still behind bars. The flags of the Allies on the shadows of the prison bars symbolize who the real rulers of the country are. | |
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