Austrian Identity in Flux

Susanne FrÖ¶lich-Steffen. Die Ö¶sterreichische IdentitÖ¤t im Wandel. Vienna: Braumüller, 2003. x + 307 pp. EUR 35.90, paper, ISBN 978-3-7003-1436-3. Reviewed by Julie Thorpe Published on HABSBURG (June, 2005) Austria's shifting national identity over the reflect the shifting historical and geopolitical last half-century is the subject of Susanne boundaries of the national community. This FrÃ¶lich-Steffen's political study, Die process embodies the constructivist model of a Ã¶sterreichische IdentitÃ¤t im Wandel. Unlike national identity, which has at its core a sense of many of Austria's post-World War Two historians, collective belonging (Wir-GefÃ¼hl) and the inclu‐ who have grappled with the question of Austrian sion and exclusion of images of the national Self identity on both a personal and professional level, and the foreign or hostile Other.[1] FrÃ¶lich-Steffen avoids the emotion that has In an eighty-page overview of the nationality charged the debate on Austrian identity in recent question from imperial times to the present-day decades. She achieves this by examining the ex‐ republic, FrÃ¶lich-Steffen places the late twenti‐ ternal influences on Austria's sense of nation‐ eth-century period of Austrian identity in a larger hood. The international scandal in 1986 surround‐ historical context. The Austrian idea had its ori‐ ing presidential candidate Kurt Waldheim, the gins in the period from Baroque Catholicism to collapse of the Eastern European bloc in the post-Napoleonic wave of Habsburg patriotism 1989-1990, and Austria's entry to the European and fourishing bourgeois culture. These seeds of Union in 1995 are the turning points in her analy‐ an Austrian consciousness--the author uses the sis of a national identity in fux at the close of the terms identity and consciousness interchange‐ twentieth century. ably--were later rehabilitated as national stereo‐ Placed within the wider scholarship on nation types under the Second Republic, for example, building, FrÃ¶lich-Steffen's study fts the current through the Baroque imagery of Austrian thinking about national identity as the creation of Postkartenromantik (p. 37). But for FrÃ¶lich-Stef‐ mentalities. She applies the concept of a Willen‐ fen, as for most Austrian historians, allegiance to snation, frst put forward by Ernest Renan in 1882 an Austrian nation became a mass phenomenon and more recently adapted by Benedict Anderson, only in the years after 1945. Loyalty to an Austri‐ to Austria's Second Republic. Austria was an imag‐ an religious or dynastic tradition did not amount ined nation born out of the necessity to legitimize to a national consciousness but, rather, to identifi‐ the Austrian state after World War Two. However, cation with the supranational empire. between 1986 and 1995, the country's political Precisely this supranational consciousness elites were forced to re-examine the principles on made it impossible for Austrians to identify with which Austrian nationhood had been built in an Austrian nation after the collapse of the Habs‐ 1945. Government speeches and policies began to burg Empire. Here again, FrÃ¶lich-Steffen has ac‐ H-Net Reviews cepted the international consensus that Austrians Treaty was heralded from the balcony of the thought of themselves as Germans in the interwar Belvedere Palace, a symbol of Austria's baroque period. However, missing from FrÃ¶lich-Steffen's past, rather than the historic imperial palace, account is the historical basis for this pan-Ger‐ where Hitler had appeared in front of thousands manic nationalism, which lay in the revolution of of Austrians gathered on the Heldenplatz three 1848 and the longue duree of ethnic and cultural days after Anschluss. Similarly, the government's German-nationalism in Austria from empire to re‐ decision to revoke the Austrian citizenship of public. Further elaboration on the divergent un‐ Adolf Eichmann after he was arrested by the Is‐ derstandings of Gesamtdeutschtum amongst raeli secret service in 1960 demonstrated the offi‐ Christian Socials, Social Democrats and the dis‐ cial viewpoint that Austrians were not responsi‐ parate liberal and German-nationalist groups is ble for crimes committed under National Social‐ warranted in a historical overview of such length ism. and breadth. Although the damage wrought by the Wald‐ After 1945, Austria's elites distanced them‐ heim affair on Austria's international reputation selves from pan-Germanism, although, as is well known to most observers, the effect of the FrÃ¶lich-Steffen points out, the Catholic conserva‐ scandal on Austrian elites' conception of Austrian tives in the renamed Austrian People's Party (Ã? identity has received less attention.[2] In 1986, VP) were the chief manufacturers of a postwar when the wartime record of presidential candi‐ Austrian consciousness. The Austrian Socialist date Kurt Waldheim came under international Party (SPÃ?), in coalition with the Ã?VP between scrutiny, socialist and conservative politicians 1945 and 1966, initially remained skeptical of the were divided for the frst time on the question of conservatives' Austrianist agenda, suspecting re‐ Austria's national past. The Ã?VP saw the interna‐ actionary motives. But, after 1955, the socialists tional attacks on Waldheim as an attack on the took the lead in promoting Austria's image as a Austrian nation, whereas SPÃ? politicians called neutral nation-state, while the Ã?VP was forced to for Waldheim's resignation. The relativized victim play down its nationalist politics for fear of alien‐ thesis that was initially spawned after 1986 recog‐ ating voters still sympathetic to National Social‐ nized that many Austrians had also lost their lives ism. as a result of the war. But, in 1991, the SPÃ? chan‐ The staggering rapidity with which Austrian cellor, Franz Vranitzky, gave the frst public state‐ elites were able to embrace an Austrian national ment of Austria's co-responsibility (Mitverantwor‐ identity after 1945, and thus shift the meaning of tung) for the actions of the Nazi regime, fnally such words as nation and national consciousness annulling the original victim thesis and marking away from their previous associations with the end of the relativized victim thesis of the late Deutschtum, is not a point on which FrÃ¶lich-Stef‐ 1980s. fen dwells. This omission, while perhaps explica‐ While adept at tracing these transitions from ble due to her focus on the period after 1986, is victim thesis to relativized victim thesis to, fnally, disappointing given her substantial thematic the thesis of co-responsibility since 1991, treatment of Austria's victim thesis in the Second FrÃ¶lich- Steffen barely skims the surface of the Republic. Nevertheless, there are many fascinat‐ political motives of the two major parties ing examples in FrÃ¶lich-Steffen's book of the throughout the shifts in Austria's public memory. Austrian governments' deliberate political strate‐ For instance, the role of the SPÃ? in this identity gy to erase the public memory of National Social‐ shift is striking. On the one hand, the socialists ism. For example, the signing of the 1955 State had been in government almost continuously 2 H-Net Reviews since 1945 (except between 1966 and 1970), which shifted from an Austriacentric position in Euro‐ made them both the authors and guardians of the pean politics to a Eurocentric platform in Austri‐ nation-as-victim consensus. On the other hand, an politics, although each party formulated their the party formed a coalition government with the distinct programs for European integration. Aus‐ right-wing FPÃ? in 1983 under the socialist chan‐ tria's sporting achievements and cultural renown, cellor, Fred Sinowatz. Yet, three years later, which had been promoted since 1945 as the mea‐ Sinowatz was part of the SPÃ? faction calling for sure of Austria's national importance, took on Waldheim's resignation and Sinowatz himself was even greater significance in the wake of the coun‐ forced to step down from office following his out‐ try's diminished international role. spoken criticism of Waldheim. FrÃ¶lich-Steffen's fnal excursus on Austro- Given that Sinowatz's successor, Vranitzky, German relations since 1995 may be of particular was the frst Austrian chancellor to acknowledge interest to some readers. While there has been Austria's collective responsibility for the Holo‐ much noted antipathy between the two countries caust, the short- lived SPÃ?-FPÃ? coalition raises in the public arenas of sport and satire, the offi‐ questions that FrÃ¶lich-Steffen cannot answer cial stance has been one of cooperation. The rela‐ about the ideological motives of SPÃ? politicians tionship soured in 2000 during the EU sanctions prior to the Waldheim affair and during the iden‐ against Austria, but generally Austro-German re‐ tity shift that followed. Moreover, the division in lations are no closer together or further apart the late 1980s and 1990s between socialist and than ties between other EU nations. Yet the ano‐ conservative politicians regarding Holocaust dyne picture that FrÃ¶lich-Steffen presents fails memorials--an issue on which FrÃ¶lich-Steffen in‐ to consider Austrian attitudes to the official status dicates the Ã?VP stood closer to the FPÃ? while the of the German language, a factor that does have SPÃ?'s position became more aligned to the Green bearing on Austria's relationship to Germany. For Party--points to a gradual shift in the national example, issues such as bilingualism in Carinthia consciousness of the country's elites that was and the assimilation of postwar immigrants and symptomatic of a crumbling alliance between the asylum seekers raise questions about Austria's un‐ major parties and hinged on domestic politics, derstanding of itself as a German-speaking coun‐ rather than the international influences that try and need to be addressed within a broader de‐ FrÃ¶lich-Steffen describes.

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