ABSTRACT
Historians can be divided into 'lumpers' and 'splitters'. The 'lumpers' impose order on the past by making sense out of entire epochs and systematizing complexity. They make sweeping generalizations and fit the chaos and untidiness of history into neat patterns. The 'splitters' write the micro-history of vast phenomena. They dwell on the incongruities and paradoxes of given events. Thomas Klestil's notion of the "geistige und kulturelle Grossmacht Osterreich" may be true for fin-de-siecle Vienna, when Jewish intellectuals and artists made their marks, but is pure myth when it comes to postwar Austria sans Jews. The deeper one delves into these issues of failed return of the exiles after the war, the more one has to question the notion of the 'heroic age' of Austria's postwar reconstruction years. The general consensus among politicians of all camps seems to be that the Second Republic was a dramatic 'success story'.
