Guilty Victim

Behind the façade of Gemütlichkeit can Austrians ever admit to themselves the extent to which they collaborated with Nazi Germany and became party to the Holocaust? So much has been written about post-war Germany, but what about Hitler's other willing executioners? Since 1945 Austria has succeeded in presenting an image of itself as a comfortable middle class society at the center of Europe, whose recent past, though awkward, was not shaming. Hella Pick explores Austria's search for a foolproof, internationally credible identity for itself after the Nazi era. She shows how the old ghosts will not go away.