The “Allied Occuption” and the Collective Memory of Austrians after 1945: “Ending a 17 year-long path of bondage full of thorns” (Leopold Figl, 15 May 1955)

This chapter focuses on ways in which the Allied liberation of Austria has been represented in the Austrian public sphere and on political narratives of the Allied liberation as compared with those of the “Allied occupation”. It also focuses on high points of the debate, from 1945 to 1955, and deals with a debate from 2002 in an effort to describe briefly the main perceptions in the collective public memory. The concepts of “liberation” of Austrians and of the integration of innocent “little Nazis” into the new society without major purges came out of Soviet political language at the time. The Austrians were described purely as victims of the Nazi regime even when commemorating Allied losses during the liberation of Austria. In a young nation with a still very weak national identity, Austrian political elites and public opinion continued throughout 1945-1955 to use the Allies as targets and scapegoats.