Wie sich NationalsozialistInnen selbst sahen. Opferthese und „Ehemalige“
(The de-Nazification Discourse of Former Nazis since 1945)
Project in co-operation with the Centre for Jewish Cultural History at the University of Salzburg
This project of the Centre for Jewish Cultural History at the University of Salzburg is funded by the Jubiläumsfonds of the Austrian National Bank and examines self-appraisals of former Nazis. To begin with, applications made to the federal government and collected in the Austrian state archive were quantified and discourse-analytically examined in order to establish how Austria’s “first victim” claim of the time was reflected in the way “former Nazis” depicted themselves. Due to time and financial constraints, it was not possible within the project framework to expand the resulting findings by including the files from the “People’s Courts” established in Austria between 1945 and 1955 to deal with Nazi crimes. However, it was desirable to include this source material in a more inclusive study in order to illuminate the perspective of the perpetrators and thus be able to elaborate more effectively on the justifications that were provided as well as their evaluations by the investigating offices or the People’s Courts.
This follow-up project was conducted by the VWI in co-operation with the Centre for Jewish Cultural History. The project results were presented ready for publication in a final report in 2013.
The project was conducted by Siegfried Göllner and supervised by Albert Lichtblau.