Anti-Semitism after the Shoa in Postwar Austria 1945-1960

Despite decisive historical changes and breaks, 1945 was by no means a zero hour. The Shoah was a caesura, but anti-Semitism did not completely disappear; instead, it continued in different forms and fields. The project deals with anti-Semitism in postwar Austria, in general, and in the milieu of former National Socialists, in particular. Anti-Semitic incidents and statements will be systematically reconstructed and the central actors and targets of anti-Semitism will be analyzed. Central hypotheses on anti-Semitism after the Shoah (anti-Semitism without anti-Semites and anti-Semitism without Jews) will be critically investigated for the first time in this context. Moreover, examined will be which old anti-Semitic stereotypes and arguments survived the war, and what new forms of anti- Semitism (secondary anti-Semitism) appeared after the Shoah? The project aims to carry out a historical and political contextualization. Therefore, anti-Semitism of former Nazis will be connected with general public discourse on Jews in postwar Austria, including also critical counter discourses on anti-Semitism. The project will also go beyond the national Austrian framework. A transnational comparison of Austria and Germany will show similarities and differences in ways of dealing with Jews and anti-Semitism after the Shoah and will also investigate the responsible historical, political, and social-psychological causes. The project focuses on three research fields (discourse-levels): First, the private and social field (inner discourse) by using the example of the Glasenbacher, second, the political field (external discourse) of the VdU und FPÖ, and finally, the public and media field (counter discourses). These different and partly overlapping levels of discourse will be jointly analyzed, linked, and compared. A central subject of the investigation is the presumptive double speak, i.e., the discrepancy between the internal and external discourses on Jews carried out by former National Socialists. The timeframe to be investigated extends from the end of World War II in 1945 to 1960. This timeframe functions as a fundamental basis for Austrias politics of the past. It can be divided into three different phases (19451947; 19481955 and after 1955), which will be examined in terms of the central research questions. The project is based on various sources including contemporary media (media of former Nazis, a broad spectrum of postwar media in general, Jewish press, etc.), various archived sources (NS documents, US army reports, files on denazification, Camp Glasenbach; material from the VdU and FPÖ, etc.), autobiographical sources of former Nazis (memoirs, interviews, personal estates), and published sources (e.g., minutes of the parliament, US reports). Finally, the project intends to fill a substantial gap in the research and make an empirical and theoretical contribution to research on post-fascist anti-Semitism. The research can be viewed as a first step in a comprehensive history of anti-Semitism after the Shoah in Austria.

For all its upheaval and change, 1945 was not a zero hour. There were continuities in both personnel and ideology; these were investigated in detail in the project, including under the aspect of anti-Semitism. The focus was on those National Socialists who remained more or less true to their convictions even after 1945 and were generally known in Austria as Ehemalige. These former National Socialists moved in a shared milieu, which represented a community of like-minded people and memory. Now, for the first time, it has been reconstructed and examined on the basis of a broad range of sources. As is the case after any regime change, former National Socialists had to find new political orientation after 1945. In 1949, many of them came together in the Verband der Unabhängigen (Association of Independents VdU) and in the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party FPÖ), founded in 1955/56. There was considerable overlap in terms of personnel and ideology between the milieu of former National Socialists and the VdU and FPÖ. The project gives a detailed account of the process of political formation of the former National Socialists and, in doing so, raises critical questions about some established interpretive frameworks. For example, the theory of a liberal VdU versus a national FPÖ cannot be maintained in light of the existence of continuities in personnel and ideology between the two parties. The project also aimed to present and analyze the central political actors. In this respect, it was above all Anton Reinthaller, a former Nazi minister and first chairman of the FPÖ, who embodied a specific Austrian perpetrator type given little attention in research to date. For the first time, his biography under National Socialism and his central role as a national figurehead in the founding of the FPÖ have been illuminated on the basis of new archive material. The example of anti-Semitism was used to examine ideological continuities, but also processes of transformation, within the milieu of former National Socialists. What was, in some cases, the very open anti-Semitism of the former National Socialists contradicts the theory of an anti-Semitism without anti-Semites. Both older anti-Semitic stereotypes as well as new forms of anti-Semitism were in evidence. A lack of dissociation from National Socialism and the German nationalism of the VdU and FPÖ were also highlighted in more detail as further examples of ideological continuity. Three concrete levels of discourse were investigated: the private and social level (internal discourse), the political level (external discourse) and the public counter discourse. In many respects this revealed a discrepancy (double speak) between the internal and external discourse of the former National Socialists. While many findings have already been published, the project will also result in a monograph with the title Die Ehemaligen. Der Nationalsozialismus und die Anfänge der FPÖ published by the renowned Wallstein Verlag (Göttingen 2019).