HISTORY AND CURRENT PERCEPTIONS OF GERMANY
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Christian Fleck:
Some Austrian politicians see a role for the former
Hapsburg monarchy. I do not share that opinion. I think there is no
place and no role for Austria outside its boundaries. A couple of weeks
ago, Austria became a member of the European Union, one of fifteen
members. Domestically, there are a lot of problems, though small ones,
compared to those of Germany. Austrian politicians, Austrian intel–
lectuals and academics are in favor of developing an accurate historical
image of Austria. But this cannot be done in two or three years. It's a
large discussion, especially about the role of Austria during the Nazi past.
Jeffrey Herf:
A question for Christian Fleck. My father is a German
refugee, and he will never go back to Germany. I've gone to Germany
many times since 1975. I have many German friends . Germany to me, and
Europe, is a very differentiated, complex affair. I just want to address
what Annie Cohen-Solal rightly noted, namely the aggressive tone of
some of the questions here . We in America are suffering from treating
people as groups instead of as individuals. There is also a tendency not to
recognize that Europe is very different in 1995 from what it was in 1945.
When I hear these questions I wonder what all the discussions on CNN
and world-wide communication and travel mean, when people seem to
still operate with images of Europe today that are out of date. I say that
as an historian of Nazism who has spent a lot of time wading through
the muck and mire of very dark days.
My question to Christian Fleck is whether you really think that the
Stasi
files should be closed. Not everyone in East Germany knows every–
thing about everyone else. I have had a fair bit of contact w!th the
NAME, the office in East Berlin that oversees access to the
Stasi
files,
and my experience has been that they are as judicious and careful of pro–
tecting the rights of privacy as the American government is when it deals
with Freedom of Information Act requests, and are very careful not to
release the names of third parties who themselves are not historically sig–
nificant individuals. The
Stasi
files do not only include rumors and
blackmail and gossip about individuals, but also invaluable records con–
cerning the history of political justice in the East German regime, trials
that we did not know about before in the supreme court of East Ger–
many. They also contain what will be invaluable and essential documents
and information concerning East German foreign policy in Europe and
the Middle East, for example. A history of this period cannot be written
without them. I would be very careful about not lending one's voice to
encourage closing these files prematurely. Remember that the files on the
