The Austrians were as guilty as the Nazi Germans

Today (March 30) in 1945 Russian troops invaded Austria.  Austrians tend to portray themselves as a victim of Hitler Nazi Germany.  But, that is absolutely not the case.  They’re as guilty, if not more, as Nazi Germans.

When Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938; Austrians made up 8% of the total population, whereas 30% of high officials responsible of the Holocaust were Austrians.  Hitler, Adolf Eichmann, and Ernest Kaltenbrunner (head of Gestapo) were all Austrians.

In his In Search of Memory (the first one third of the book is an excellent review of the history of neuroscience), Eric Kandel has a chapter (Rediscovering Vienna via Stockholm) talks about this issue. When the president of Austria wrote to congratulate him, claiming him as an Austrian Nobel laureate (Being Jewish, Kandel, at age of 9, escaped from Vienna to the U.S. with his family in 1938).  He used this chance to organize a symposium to discuss Austria’s response to the Hitler period.  The future generation will learn no lesson from history denying the wrongdoing of that era.