Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

treat those large numbers of people who in one way or another
were involved with the regime that had just been destroyed.
To find the right balance between the necessary cleansing of a society
and punishing of strongly involved people on the one hand,
and the integration of all the others into the new society, on the
other, cannot be easy. Shortly after the end of the war a large consensus
was formed in favour of a fast and very broad re-integration.
If this is often criticized today – and in many cases rightly so – one
should also remember the words of Eugen Kogon who immediately
after the war spoke of a “right of political error” and the challenge
of convincing former followers of Nazism that democracy is better
than what was there before.
The integration of former Nazis into the Austrian post-war society
certainly helped a fast political and economic stabilization of the
country. But a price had to be paid: There was, especially among
elites, a strong continuity of people who kept their positions after
the war. And the recent past was turned into a taboo which should
not be talked about – with all the respective consequences for the
victims of Nazism and their descendants.
This is one of the important and long lasting contradictions of the
Austrian past, which we have lifted from silence over the last two or
three decades, and a lot has been researched, written and openly
discussed over the years. And there is, today, a broad consensus
about the assessment of this period in our history.
Our first period of fascism, however, with its violent conflict between
the two major political camps in this country, is still waiting
for an open debate and a national consensus on questions of
responsibility for the eruption of violence, the role of patriotism, the
resistance to the rising Nazi forces and so on.
So, the past is still haunting Austria, as well as every other country
and nation on our continent. In Europe, we have come a long way
from the conflicts of former centuries, from the terror of fascism and
communism, towards democracy and a common peaceful future.
Facing and analysing the complex history of our continent can be
very helpful on this way.
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