The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

The goal of my work in this international framework will be to further
deconstruct the outmoded Austrian „Opferthese” 7 and to show, that many
Austrians were not only working wheels in the NS-Apparatus, but often also, as
in the case of Eichmann will be significantly, used their granted freedom and
set accents out of their own initiatives, leading to a „cumulative
radicalization” 8 of the Nazi power apparatus and consequently to a further
deterioration of the living condition of Jews and other minorities like the Roma
and Sinti, homosexuals, the so-called anti-socials and others.
The functioning of this power structure and its simultaneous continued
radicalization that took place with the participation also of many Austrians,
some in high places, as can be seen at the position of Eichmann, was finally
culminating in a state terror that killed millions of people.
However, for all these considerations of a unfortunately, all too well
functioning „machinery of death” 9 , as it is defined in the investigations of Raul
Hilberg, it must not be overlooked on the fact, that the apparatus is composed
of individual persons, and therefore of individual offenders. One of those
7 Under the term „Opferthese” („victim theory”) is meant a long time course of argument in
Austria. It says that Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression policy. As a result, an
Austrian complicity was denied in the collective memory of whole generations. For this reason it
is also commonly called the „Life lie” („Lebenslüge”) of Republic II. The consequences of the
„Opferthese” was in addition to an inadequately implemented denazification in post war years,
also a long time insufficient „compensation policy” from the Republic towards the victims of the
National Socialism. Accordingly, it lacked until late in the 1990s to a reappraisal of the Austrian
past in the era of National Socialism. It was not until the year 1986 during the Waldheim affair
and also in the commemorative year 1988, that a sophisticated discussion of the Nazi past of
Austria set in. In 1991 Chancellor Franz Vranitzky was the first official representative of the
Republic, who admitted the crimes, that where committed by Austrians, and also asked for
excuse. Also the reactions of the Republic to the sanctions of the formerly 14 other states of the
EU after the ÖVP-FPÖ Coalition formation, is regarded as a late symptom of the „Opferthese”,
because also in that case the Republic see itself as an innocent victim.
8 The term comes from the discourse of the various and contradictory interpretations of the
development of Nazi genocide policies.
9 This Term, in the original „Vernichtungsmaschinerie” came from Raul HILBERG’s
standard work „Die Vernichtung der Europäischen Juden”. With this term he refers to the
Nazi Apparatus, which carried out the genocides and he made clear, that this Apparatus was
composed out of four hierarchic groups: The officials brought in their incorruptible planning
and managerial thoroughness. From the Wehrmacht the machinery of destruction got military
discipline, precision and endurance. The influence of the industry got visible both in the
emphatically driven accounting, thrift and recycling as well as in a factory environment
efficiency of the extermination camps. The party finally supplied the machine with „idealism”,
the „sense of mission” and the sense of „making history” […]. In the original: „Die
Beamtenschaft brachte ihre unbestechliche planerische und verwalterische Gründlichkeit ein.
Von der Wehrmacht erhielt die Vernichtungsmaschinerie militärische Disziplin, Präzision und
Ausdauer. Der Einfluß der Industrie wurde sowohl in der mit großem Nachdruck betriebenen
Buchführung, Sparsamkeit und Wiederverwertung als auch in der fabrikmäßigen Effizienz der
Vernichtungszentren sichtbar. Die Partei schließlich versah den Apparat mit „Idealismus”,
„Sendungsbewusstsein” und dem Gefühl, „Geschichte zu machen”. […]” HILBERG, Raul:
The destruction of the European Jews. Chicago, 1961. 39.
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