ABSTRACT
The years 1938– 45 were long omitted from Austrian history and relegated to the history of Germany. It was not until external pressure was applied during the Waldheim Affair that political leaders began integrating these years into Austrian history. Indeed, historians had gotten a much earlier start in demolishing the victim myth, but it was not until 1988 that the first book was published in which Austrian historians and social scientists analyzed the entire Nazi era in Austria. Hitler's Austria, by an American expert on Austria has now filled this gap. From a wealth of previously unknown archival sources, Evan Burr Bukey has put together a fair, conscientiously multifaceted, though unsparingly frank picture of the Austrian people during the period of Nazi rule. Bukey does not fail to mention the examples of modernization that Nazi rule brought to many aspects of life, and which are a prominent part of recollections to this day.
