ABSTRACT
Employing quantitative and qualitative analysis, Heinz P. Wassermann examines official lesson plans and textbooks from the 1950s through the late 1990s with an emphasis on their treatment of the Second World War, fascism, and the Holocaust. Verfalschte Geschichte im Unterricht runs into problems near the beginning. Wassermann’s qualitative analysis focuses upon key categories that are subdivided. For example, there are three categories of fascism: Austro-fascism, National Socialism, and “other” fascisms. National Socialism is then subdivided by time: the period up to 1933,1933-1939, and 1939-1945. The result of Wassermann’s methodology is a thorough book-by-book analysis of the themes of Nazism, the war, the Holocaust, and the role of Austrians in them as portrayed in the textbooks. These analyses could very useful to anyone wanting a summary of particular postwar Austrian textbooks, especially Austrian high school teachers who want an overview of post-war textbooks and how they have changed from the 1950s to the 1990s.
