ABSTRACT
Numerous private corporations such as German and Austrian banks and insurance companies set up their own private historical commissions to probe the extent of their companies' World War II collaboration with the Nazi regime and the utilization of slave labor. The German investigations and settlements put further pressure on Austrian corporations and the government to act and address Austrians' involvement in Nazi victimization and exploitation. The new Schussel government had to operate in a unique pressure-cooker environment of intense international scrutiny. On the one hand Schussel and his coalition partner had no choice but continue previous Austrian efforts to make amends—at last—for its long record of procrastinating its confrontation with the unsettled World War II past. As a result of Schaumayer's negotiations, the Austrian government set up a reconciliation fund to pay restitution to some 150,000 former slave laborers still alive in Eastern Europe.
