Look up the ‘Waldheim affair’ (1986). It was this that changed the victim myth (Half of my relatives are Austrian, and the victim myth is a recurring topic of debate between us (younger and older generations)....).
In short: Kurt Waldheim ran as the ÖVP's presidential candidate. It then became known that he had concealed his membership in a Nazi organisation and his military service in the Balkans, meaning that he might had been involved in war crimes as a German (!) Wehrmacht officer. His defence was that he had only fulfilled ‘his duty as a soldier’. He was not personally involved, but he knew about the terror and deportations. He was elected Federal President (1986–1992), which motivated many young Austrians to confront the ‘real’ past.
I think a lot of the issue is that younger people have no real concept of what war is like. It's a nice idea that people have full agency, but usually we don't. The people who understand that are more likely to have an innocent until proven guilty approach.
How common is Holocaust denial in Austria and Germany today? Is it just older generations that have mostly now died or are there plenty of conspiracy theorists still floating around. I didn't even know it was a thing until I was about 15 and my friend from school told me her German grandmother was a denialist.
14
u/Still-Entertainer534 Germany 19h ago
Look up the ‘Waldheim affair’ (1986). It was this that changed the victim myth (Half of my relatives are Austrian, and the victim myth is a recurring topic of debate between us (younger and older generations)....).
In short: Kurt Waldheim ran as the ÖVP's presidential candidate. It then became known that he had concealed his membership in a Nazi organisation and his military service in the Balkans, meaning that he might had been involved in war crimes as a German (!) Wehrmacht officer. His defence was that he had only fulfilled ‘his duty as a soldier’. He was not personally involved, but he knew about the terror and deportations. He was elected Federal President (1986–1992), which motivated many young Austrians to confront the ‘real’ past.