Introduction

Austrian identity built on the myth of Austrians as the better Germans became a focal point in the ideology of the Salzburg Festival. Bruckmüller approaches the Austrian nation from a broad social science perspective, tracing the deep historical and institutional roots of Austrian identity. The intense anti-communism of people from both Austrian Lager like Foreign Minister Karl Gruber or Interior Minister Oskar Helmer in fact was as attractive to the Anglo-American powers, as their anti-German animus was to the French. The defensive reaction of some Austrian intellectuals to the Erdmann thesis may indicate that postwar Austrian identity may be more fragile than the chroniclers of Austrian consciousness had been led to believe by the polls. The dramatic transformation of the Austrian memory of the war is best exemplified by the report of an international commission on the meaningful construction of an adequate historical memory of Austria’s only concentration camp at Mauthausen.