HISTORY AND CURRENT PERCEPTIONS OF GERMANY
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have you ask the participants what you'd like to know. Please state your
name first.
Karl Hyman:
I'd like to comment about Austria and France.
Obviously the rewriting of history by presenting Austria as a victim is
pure nonsense. The most vicious Nazis starting with Hitler,
Kaltenbrunner, Eichmann, even Seyss-Inquart, came from Austria. Wald–
heim, who of course hid it quite successfully for some time, was a super–
Nazi. Dollfuss was murdered by the Nazis. Schuschnigg was more or less
held captive in Berchtesgaden until he surrendered and handed Austria
over to Seyss-Inquart. He became the Austrian Benedict Arnold, and
went on to become the governor of Holland. The famous Austrian of
Jewish descent whom we remember was the founder of Zionism,
Theodor Herzl.
Edith Kurzweil:
Could you turn this into a question, please?
Karl Hyman:
The question is, how does Austria justify its anti-Semitism
compared to Germany?
Christian Fleck:
The notion of the first victim is derived from the
declaration between the three allies in 1943 in Moscow, and all Austrian
politicians of the Second Republic, after World War II, referred to this
expression, which came out of the Nazi legacy. So it is part of the offi–
cial policy of Austria to declare itself as the first victim. You are right, it
is nonsense to hang onto this as an historical view of Austria's past. But I
meant to clarify that there is a difference between the Austrians' non–
coping with their past and, in my opinion, the Federal Republic's having
reasonably copied with their past. Obviously, I haven't been very success–
ful.
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you.
Karl Hyman:
As to France: it delivered seventy-five percent of its Jews
to the Nazis under the Vichy government of Petain. France has a history
of anti-Semitism, going back to the Dreyfus Affair. What you say about
Germany and France today just doesn't make sense. There is no way that
the Germans will collaborate to please the French. France has .had part
of German-speaking AIsace Lorraine since World War
I.
De Gaulle, who
was to save the honor of France in World War II, was again in favor of
a treaty of shame
a
la the Treaty of Versailles. Luckily, Harry Truman
