page_title: Austria victim theory
section_title: Declaration of 'Victimhood'
hierarchical_section_title: Austria victim theory / Declaration of 'Victimhood'
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Österreich, Wien, Schwarzenbergplatz, Heldendenkmal der Roten Armee English: Austria, Vienna, Schwarzenbergplatz, Heroes Monument of the Red Army Русский: Австрия, Вена, Шварценбергплац, Памятник советским воинам, погибшим при освобождении Австрии от фашизма Français&#160;: Autriche, Vienne, Schwarzenbergplatz &#160; This media shows the protected monument with the number 7916 in Austria. (Commons, de, Wikidata)
context_page_description: The Victim Theory, encapsulated in the slogan "Austria – the Nazis' first victim", was the ideological basis for Austria under allied occupation and in the Second Austrian Republic until the 1980s. According to the founders of the Second Austrian Republic, the 1938 Anschluss was an act of military aggression by the Third Reich. Austrian statehood had been interrupted and therefore the newly revived Austria of 1945 could not and should not be considered responsible for the Nazis' crimes in any way. The "victim theory" which was formed by 1949 insisted that all of the Austrians, including those who strongly supported Hitler, had been unwilling victims of the Nazi regime and were therefore not responsible for its crimes.
  The "victim theory" became a fundamental myth in Austrian society. It made it possible for previously bitter political opponents – i.e. the social democrats and the conservative Catholics – to unite and bring former Nazis back into social and political life for the first time in Austrian history.
context_section_description: On April 13, 1945 the Soviet troops captured Vienna. Two weeks later, on April 27, the Provisional Government, formed by the Soviet forces under Karl Renner, promulgated the "Proclamation of the Second Republic of Austria", which literally reprinted the text of the Moscow Declaration. Renner, who had previously been an active supporter of the Anschluss, still considered it a historical necessity, and  expressed his regret over the forced separation of Austria and Germany under the pressure of the Allies in his address to the nation. The majority of Austrians agreed with him. But the proclamation of April 27, which was addressed not so much to the nationals as to the victorious states, declared the opposite: events of 1938 were not the result of agreement between equal parties or expression of the popular will, but the result of "an uncovered external pressure, a terrorist plot by own National Socialist [Nazi] minority, deception and blackmail during talks, and then – an open military occupation … The Adolf Hitler's Third Reich deprived people of Austria of their power and freedom to express their will, led them to a senseless and pointless massacre, which no one Austrian has not wanted to take part in."
  The proclamation of April 27 gingerly repudiated the claim of the Moscow declaration about Austria's own contribution to its liberation: since, as the fathers of the Second Republic asserted, during the 1938–1945 period Austrian statehood had been temporarily interrupted, the revived Austria should not have been responsible for crimes of "invaders". In May–June 1945 the Provisional Government recorded this proposition in an official "doctrine of the occupation" (German: Okkupationsdoktrin). All the guilt and responsibility for the crimes of occupation regime was laid at the door of Germany – the only successor of the Hitlerite Reich. The position of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Austria on the Jewish question became a practical consequence of this doctrine: as there had not been Austrians to persecute Jews, but German occupiers, then "according to the international law Austrian Jews should submit their claims for reparations not to Austria, but to German Reich". The Foreign Minister of Austria Karl Gruber organized the compilation and publishing of "Red-White-Red Book" in order to persuade the victorious Allied Powers. The intent of the Austrian politicians, in publishing this collection of real documents and "historical comments" that were selectively compiled, was to persuade the victorious Allied Powers of the forced nature of the Anschluss (that was true) and also in a mass rejection of Hitler regime by Austrians (that was not true). The book was planned to have more than one volume. But the second volume, the "story of Austrian resistance", was not published: according to the official version not enough archive evidence was found. The authors affirmed, for instance, that in 1938 70% of Austrians had not simply been against Anschluss, but they were said to feel a "fanatic animosity" against it. This is how the myth was established to later become an ideological foundation of the postwar Austria.
  Founders of the Second Republic probably had a moral right to consider themselves to be victims of political repressions. Twelve of the seventeen members of the Cabinet of Leopold Figl, that headed the government in December 1945, were persecuted under Dollfuss, Schuschnigg and Hitler. Figl himself was imprisoned in Dachau and Mauthausen and for this reason he was insolent towards emigrants who had "escaped from difficulties". So this is not surprising that the myth of "the road to Dachau" (German: Der Geist der Lagerstrasse) followed "the first victim" myth: according to this legend during their imprisonment Austrian politicians came up with the agreement to stop interparty squabbles and to unite forever for the sake of building a new and democratic Austria. Representatives of the major parties of the First Republic – conservatives, social democrats and communists – did unite, but only in the beginning of April 1945. Ac
caption: Heroes' Monument of the Red Army in Vienna. The phrase "…in battle against the German fascist invaders" carved on the stone tablet in front of the monument, from the Austrian politicians' point of view, confirmed innocence of Austrians.[61]
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