Suchergebnisse

The 1970s were an interesting and significant decade for the historiography of contemporary Austria. Among Austrian scholars, the tradition of Koalitionsgeschichtsschreibung, a reflection of the political and bureaucratic system of Proporz which reigned in the 1950s and 1960s, began to break down. With the triumph of Social Democracy under Bruno Kreisky, fewer historians—especially those of the "left"—were willing to continue sharing in the orderly division of responsibility for the recent past. Moreover, some of the controversy aroused in Germany by Fritz Fischer's work began to invigorate Austrian historical studies. Both in Austria and abroad, historians became less inclined to treat Austria as a unique case, and increasingly interested in the Alpine state as a study in the general development of contemporary central Europe. The publication of Norbert Schausberger's Der Griff nach Österreich in early 1978—the fortieth anniversary of the Anschluss—marked in some respects a milestone in this direction; it provides the opportunity to review a sampling of the more interesting recent literature, and to reflect, as well, on some general problems of conceptualizing contemporary Austrian history.

The Anschluss problem was one of the most vexing legacies of nineteenth-century nationalism and the peace settlement of 1919. Seen in broad perspective, the Anschluss movement belongs to the final chapter in the history of the idea of Grossdeutschland, a dream born in 1848 and shared after 1867 by German-Austrians of the most varied cultural backgrounds and political opinions. Support for German union intensified following the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918, but was frustrated by the restrictions placed upon union by the treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain. After 1919 sympathy for Anschluss transcended party lines in the infant Austrian republic, and grew more rapidly than within Germany itself. For many members of the "front generation," young men who had served in the Habsburg army and who felt the humiliation of defeat with special intensity, the cause of Anschluss became a life-shaping force. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the career of Hermann Neubacher