FROM RATIONALITY TO SUBJECTIVITY
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produces fears that are transformed by means of aggressive language-the
metaphor of "war" used at the last fin de siecle is now often heard, for
instance, in the "war for jobs." Though this is an international phenome–
non, its European version is a consequence of 1989. Europe's fundamental
changes after the collapse of the Soviet empire hit Austria especially hard:
the country lost its privileged position between the power blocks, along
with its feeling of superiority over the socialist countries and their inferi–
or economy.
Thus we recognize pan-European and Austrian feelings of an "end"
and its transformation into collective feelings of crisis. But, despite the fact
that the word "turn" belongs to central European political folklore, there
is neither the feeling of a "turn" nor a will to the "new"-which was so
characteristic for the last Viennese fin de siecle.
Austria does not really seem to be engaged in the coming turn of the
century. But this is not the result of a general disregard of the charm of
round numbers. The celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the second
republic and the birthday of one-thousand years of Austria were quite
popular. Their disproportionate public interest requires an explanation.
Apparently, the republic has an unbalanced account wi th the past. Still, I
hesitate to say this, because it tends to be connected to the cliche of the
country suffering from its fascist past and fighting against neo-fascism. The
issues are more complicated. As the eminent historian Friedrich Heer
found, the characteristic tensions of Austria's political culture are older
than fascism and result from the period of counter-reformation, of which
fascism itself was a consequence. Furthermore, we need to examine the
country's postwar mentality, in order to understand Austria's confronta–
tions with national socialism and its impact on the new fin de siecle
mentali ty.
We know that the founding myth of the second republic was the idea
of a "point zero": due to the Moscow declaration the country defined itself
as Hitler's first victim. A certain continuity among the elite of national
socialism and postwar Austria was hidden underneath, and the moral con–
frontation with national socialism and especially with Austria's part in the
Third Reich's crimes were neglected. Such collective behavior can also be
observed in other peoples of the former "Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis".
In
their book
The Inability to Mourn,
Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich
diagnosed postwar Germany as suffering from the loss of the beloved
Fuhrer. The loss of collective fantasies of greatness and the perception of
their own guilt induced collective melancholy. The Germans defended
themselves against this melancholy by transforming it into the collective
mania of reconstruction. The political sterility of Adenauer's Germany was
interpreted by the Mitscherlichs as resulting from the denial of the past:
they describe Germany as oriented to a non-reali ty, as de-realized.
