ABSTRACT
The subject of how National Socialism was dealt with in post-war German and Austrian society is often linked to the hushing up and repression of the past and the view that one did not want to discuss this past but rather wished to draw a line under it-in other words, to let post-war history begin at point zero. This hushing up and drawing a line under the past should not be understood only literally, however, as National Socialism and the Shoah were and are still discussed. Therefore, the manner in which they are discussed is revealing, saying much about the treatment of what has come to pass and the relationship between this past and the present. Within this relationship, memory is located, which according to Walter Benjamin does not reflect the past itself, but is rather an expression of the past in the present. The manner of remembering and what is contained in memory, therefore, only indirectly speaks to the past; primarily, it speaks to the present in which this memory is embedded. Memory determines the relationship of the present to the past.
