ABSTRACT
Before German reunification, there were four different countries in which authors wrote their works in German: the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, Switzerland, and Austria. German is the official and the dominant language in these countries, even though there exist minorities who speak other languages and who have their own literature, for example, the Slovene minority in Carinthia in the southern part of Austria next to Yugoslavia. The political and literary interpretation by Austrians of the importance of the year 1945 has differed from its respective treatment in the Federal Republic. In 1947 sixty-one publishing houses existed in Austria that produced works of prose and poetry. This was approximately one-quarter of all Austrian publishing firms. Relations in the literary sphere between Austria and the Federal Republic are distinctly different from that of economic and political relations. Knowledge of the literature of the superordinate country is a necessity for Austrian writers, but the challenge is greater than that.
