Moreover, the media in 2015 covered war crimes, especially final phase crimes, and presented biographies of perpetrators and victims, revealing political continuities in post-war Austria.Īfter 1945 and the end of WWII, denying the Holocaust became an explicit taboo in most European countries. This longitudinal perspective, with detailed case studies contrasting 2005 with 2015, indicates notable changes from generalised and collectivised representations of perpetra-tors and victims to a critical engagement with Austria’s responsibility and past failure to acknowledge that responsibility. In a discourse-historical framework, it traces discursive strategies employed in the construction and transformation of national identities since 1945, focusing in particular on the roles of perpetrators, victims and bystan-ders in the context of increasingly trans-national commemoration and a resur-gence of nationalisms. This paper examines recent Austrian co-mmemorative discourse about World War 2, the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes on the official political level (speeches) as well as in the media (reportage).
