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00:02History is not an exact science. It is never set in stone.
00:17As time passes, knowledge of the past is refined and evolves.
00:30But, by definition, existing ideas have thick skins, and are hard to shift.
00:50To understand the realities of the world, you sometimes have to shake them up, and decipher
00:56the facts by looking at them another way.
00:59One, one, two.
01:21Posterity has made Nazism a strictly German affair.
01:24E ainda...
01:39Em octubre de 1907, a luz brilhante no Austro-Hungarian Empire.
01:47Mas atrás da confiança,
01:50foi o riso de nacionalismo e cultural isolamento que tinha chegado no streets.
02:00O mayor de Viena, Karl Lueger,
02:02fez anti-Semitism key to his policies,
02:07while Georg von Schoenere's first pamphlet
02:10called for a union of all Germanic peoples.
02:19A whole generation of young Austrians were indoctrinated with the ideas of the day.
02:24Among them, Adolf Hitler.
02:28He would later say,
02:29Vienna remains a true school of life.
02:32There, I learned the basics of a world vision,
02:35to which I merely added some details.
02:38Hitler left his homeland to shape his destiny in Germany.
02:42But in the country where he was born,
02:44the roots of evil continued to prosper.
03:07On November the 11th, 1918, World War One finally ended.
03:13The victors ceremoniously buried the last German shell.
03:18At the front,
03:19those who had survived the machine gun fire jumped for joy.
03:36After four years of deadly combat,
03:38it was a time for cheering.
03:46For the vanquished,
03:48it was a time for gravity.
03:50In Vienna,
03:52thousands of Austrians buried their imperial past
03:54in favour of a republic.
04:03Crushed in defeat,
04:05the Habsburg dynasty collapsed.
04:10The famous author Arthur Schnitzler was despondent.
04:15A historic day has drawn to a close,
04:18and viewed at close quarters,
04:19it is bathed in little glory.
04:23With the new European order,
04:25the vast empire was broken into pieces,
04:28its 50 million subjects divided.
04:32freed from their former tutelage,
04:34new independent countries rose from the ashes,
04:37and the once mighty Austria became a rump state.
04:50deprived of its former lands and industries,
04:53the fledgling republic found it hard to feed its population.
04:59Despite their ration books,
05:01Austrians faced hunger and cold.
05:05To heat their homes,
05:06Viennese were forced to collect wood in the forests,
05:09even taking it home by tram.
05:15Member of Parliament,
05:17Otto Bauer fatalistically declared,
05:19A country like ours,
05:21which has no coal of its own
05:22and has difficulties in feeding its people,
05:24has no chance of remaining independent.
05:33Humiliated and struggling for survival,
05:35the country plunged into instability.
05:39Worse,
05:40poverty and unemployment offered an ideal hunting ground
05:43for extremists on both sides.
05:47Starting with the NSDAP,
05:49the Austrian National Socialist Party,
05:52ready to cash in on its fellow citizens' frustration and distress.
06:00Founded in 1920,
06:02in the wake of its German big brother,
06:04its ranks continued to rise.
06:10Ten years later,
06:12thousands of members rallied to the swastika.
06:16Their program was based on one slogan,
06:19to unify all Germanic peoples in a single nation state.
06:23We, the Germans of the Ostmark here,
06:27we will have found home
06:29in the Holy Third Republic!
06:42Among these exalted pan-Germanists was a young lawyer,
06:48Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
06:51The man had very firm beliefs.
06:56At university, in keeping with tradition,
06:59he joined a student fraternity.
07:01The one he chose stood out for its particularly violent rituals,
07:05like sword fighting duels which left his face scarred.
07:12Scars that Kaltenbrunner wore with pride,
07:15as a sign of his belligerent nature and unwavering determination.
07:23As believers in the theories of Georg Ritter von Schörner,
07:27like Hitler before them,
07:29Austrian Nazis advocated racial purity.
07:32At the dawn of the 20th century,
07:35their mentor had already written,
07:37we will never consider a Jew to be one of us
07:39under the pretext that he speaks German.
07:44In an impoverished Austria,
07:46in the full throes of an identity crisis,
07:49these old ideas resurfaced.
08:051933 marked a turning point for Austrian Nazis.
08:09In Germany, Adolf Hitler came to power.
08:16His victory, duly celebrated in Austria,
08:19gave new impetus to the Nazi movement.
08:28At the University of Vienna,
08:30Nazi brownshirts prevented Jewish students from entering.
08:34To avoid a beating,
08:35some of them escaped through the windows.
08:47Official events were opportunities for the Nazis
08:49to show their hostility towards the government.
08:56Arms raised, they defied the authorities and sparked clashes.
09:02600 arrests were made by the police,
09:05mainly of young Nazis,
09:06who desire union of Austria with Germany.
09:10A fragile Austria was teetering.
09:17It was then that a small, insignificant-looking man
09:21was catapulted to the head of the country,
09:23Engelbert Dorfus.
09:25He would prove to be implacable.
09:27And to restore order,
09:29he brought an end to democracy.
09:34Austria became an authoritarian, corporatist state,
09:37where all opposition was repressed,
09:39inspired by fascism, not Nazism.
09:44Because the dictator relied on the Catholic Church
09:47and was determined to preserve his country's independence.
10:13In July of 1933, the National Socialist Party was banned.
10:19Overnight, Austrian Nazis were forced underground.
10:24No matter.
10:25They closed ranks
10:26and showed their continuing existence with posters.
10:38The provincial city of Linz,
10:39on the banks of the beautiful blue Danube,
10:42became the epicentre of Nazi underground activity.
10:48Hitler had spent part of his youth there,
10:50and still had a large number of admirers.
10:58His supporters regularly gathered at the grave of Alois and Clara,
11:02the Führer's parents.
11:10Restaurants were happy to open their doors to the movement
11:12for their secret meetings.
11:18It was at one of these that Ernst Kaltenbrunner
11:21was elected as the regional head of the Austrian Nazi Party.
11:25Having become a key informant for Berlin,
11:27he was appointed head of the Austrian SS.
11:30His background allowed him to infiltrate every milieu,
11:34including the police and the army.
11:37That way, public servants sympathetic to the cause
11:41could warn Nazi activists of imminent planned raids and arrests.
11:47Materials seized by the authorities were used
11:49to prove the Nazis' terrorist intentions.
11:54Along with Kaltenbrunner,
11:56other figures from Austrian high society
11:57would join the circle of initiates.
12:02Like Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a Viennese lawyer.
12:07And Adolf Eichmann,
12:08an accountant of German origin
12:10and the son of an industrialist.
12:13With their well-off backgrounds,
12:15these three men weren't on the fringes of society.
12:18They had embraced Nazism,
12:20not out of a social frustration or naivety,
12:23but because of its ideals.
12:33At the time,
12:34almost 15,000 Austrian Nazis exiled in Germany
12:38prepared for military action.
12:42Financed and trained by their German counterparts,
12:44they formed the Austrian Legion.
12:53all of them proudly wore a cornflower on their caps,
12:57the symbol of militants forced to go underground.
13:05Their comrades still in the homeland
13:07would soon benefit from their logistical support
13:10to step up their own lightning strikes.
13:18The train D,
13:19part of the West Viennese road,
13:21was derailed by the fact that
13:23the saboteurs
13:23left a long hill of 15 metres
13:26from the left side of the rail.
13:30But sabotage was only the prelude
13:32to much more dramatic action.
13:41on July the 25th, 1934,
13:44a Nazi commando unit entered Vienna.
13:49Their aim?
13:50To carry out a coup d'etat.
13:53Having ransacked the state radio headquarters,
13:55they turned their attention to the chancellery.
13:59At the same time,
14:00there was another,
14:01more,
14:01more,
14:01more,
14:02more,
14:02more,
14:02to the work of the Chancellor.
14:16The reign of Dolphus came to an end.
14:20But the attempted coup ended in failure.
14:35As Austria mourned its Chancellor,
14:37in Germany,
14:38Hitler distanced himself
14:40from his cumbersome compatriots.
14:43Even he judged their actions too radical.
14:47Of course,
14:48annexing Austria to build a great Germany
14:50was in his plans,
14:52but the Führer preferred a more discreet method.
14:55He knew that time was on his side.
15:02Irritated by political instability
15:03and dismayed by an unstructured economy,
15:06an increasing number of Austrians
15:08were ready to open their arms to him.
15:15Four years later,
15:17on February the 12th, 1938,
15:20Dolphus' successor, Kurt Schuschnigg,
15:22was summoned to Berthesgaden.
15:26The meeting with Hitler was far from amiable.
15:32As his eyes scanned the border with Austria,
15:35the Führer gave him an ultimatum.
15:38Appoint a Nazi as interior minister.
15:41Otherwise, he would invade Austria.
15:44An offended Schuschnigg refused.
15:47And in an attempt to whip up a storm,
15:50he addressed Parliament.
15:51What must remain,
15:54that our Österreich,
15:55Österreich must remain.
16:02We stand in the door!
16:04Good faith!
16:05Good faith!
16:14But support for the Chancellor went no further
16:17than the doors of the Federal Assembly.
16:19On the streets,
16:20a large number of Hitler's compatriots
16:22had already yielded.
16:26Under pressure from Berlin,
16:28Schuschnigg resigned.
16:30Arthur Seyss-Inquart,
16:32a stalwart from the early days of Nazism,
16:34was appointed Chancellor.
16:41The next day,
16:42March 12, 1938,
16:44German troops marched into Austria
16:46without firing a shot.
16:52Never had an occupying army been greeted with such fervour.
17:06The young Adolphin Jaunig wrote in her diary,
17:10After a brief moment of concern,
17:13we all realised that the Anschluss
17:14was the best solution for Austria.
17:17And even more,
17:18our salvation.
17:24What have you thought of the new house?
17:25How are we coming here?
17:27We have been waiting for a long time.
17:28Did you have been waiting for a long time?
17:30Yes.
17:30But we have been waiting for a long time.
17:33You have been waiting for a long time?
17:35You are ready?
17:35I am ready.
17:36I am ready for a long time.
17:37O que é isso?
17:47Para os soldados, é foi Hitler's turn to take the pulse of the Austrian population.
17:55The first stop on his tour, Linz, the city of his youth.
18:06Encouraged by his enthusiastic welcome, he continued his conquest of the masses.
18:17In Vienna, hundreds of thousands turned out to acclaim their new Führer.
18:23They were in a hurry to become Germans.
18:34On March 15th, 1938, on the Heldenplatz, Heroes Square, Hitler appeared before a crowd that obeyed him unconditionally.
18:50Deutsche, Männer und Frauen, ich proclamere nunmehr für dieses Land seine neue Mission.
19:01Die älteste Ostpark des deutschen Volkes, soll von jetzt ab das jüngste Volk der deutschen Nation und damit des Deutschen
19:09Reisern.
19:19This mission would be taken up by the majority of Austrians.
19:23As part of the Reich, they had finally rediscovered an identity.
19:27And to prove it, they proudly raised their new colours.
19:38Conrad Lorenz, a young Viennese biologist, wrote to a German colleague,
19:42You have no idea of the enthusiasm that reigns here.
19:47I believe that we Austrians are the most fervent and most convinced national socialists of all.
19:55A referendum was held amid great pomp to legalise the annexation.
20:02All the inhabitants of the Great Reich were invited to vote on their new unification.
20:08With more than 99%, the yes vote won.
20:18Austria vanished.
20:20Now, as a simple province of the Reich, it was given the new name of Ostmark, Eastern March.
20:30Its public officials henceforth swore an oath to Adolf Hitler.
20:35Overnight, they deployed the measures that Nazi Germany had taken five years to adopt.
20:42The priority? To reduce opponents to silence with terror.
20:49And the first targets were Social Democrats, Communists and Trade Unionists.
20:54Followed by Conservatives and Catholics.
20:59As head of the Austrian SS, Ernst Kaltenbrunner led the dance.
21:06Rewarded for his loyalty, he rapidly became the head of all of the security agencies.
21:14After years of underground action, he could finally give free reign to his designs.
21:24In Vienna alone, the Gestapo arrested 20,000 people in less than 10 months.
21:30Some of them were placed on the deportation list.
21:33Direction? The concentration camps of the Reich.
21:38The first shipment of Austrian prisoners to Dachau, near Munich, took place just two weeks after annexation.
21:54By August 1938, Austrian Nazis had their own concentration camp.
22:02Constructed in a granite quarry not far from Linz, Mauthausen met the demands of the SS.
22:08To eliminate undesirables through hard labour.
22:16One camp survivor testified,
22:20I was in hell.
22:22There were those who quarried the rock and those who had to carry 50 kilo blocks of it up 186
22:29steps, known as the Stairs of Death.
22:39In Mauthausen, prisoners were killed by exhaustion, disease or torture.
22:46They were also executed by firing squad, hanging or gassing.
22:52The Austrian camp was certainly no poor second to its German equivalence.
22:59But Mauthausen gave life too, to the local economy.
23:05Bakers, butchers and grocers supplied SS mess halls.
23:09Craftsmen were called on for building work.
23:12So people kept quiet.
23:16One tradesman admitted,
23:20We knew the camp was there.
23:22We saw lines of prisoners crossing the village from the station to get there.
23:27But what were we to do about it?
23:36As zealous pupils,
23:38Austrians not only supported the deadly methods of the regime,
23:42they actively took part in it.
23:45Especially in applying the hygienist policy set by Berlin.
23:49It aimed, quite simply, to eliminate all those that the Nazis judged as racially impure.
24:02Propaganda films denounced the costs of the care given to the physically and mentally handicapped.
24:21Disguised as euthanasia, they were systematically murdered behind closed doors.
24:32In Austria, the picturesque Harteim Castle near Linz was turned into a so-called euthanasia centre.
24:40Here, executioners used carbon monoxide in the first gas chambers in history.
24:49From doctors and nurses to cooks, most of the personnel was local,
24:53and they went about their work amid a spirit of open camaraderie.
25:01Like the bus driver, Walter Milch, who delivered the victims.
25:08We drove into Harteim through the gates.
25:11The buses were unloaded, and then we drivers could go to the cafeteria for lunch.
25:27Eager to please,
25:29Austrians went even further than Nazi demands.
25:35In Vienna, the personnel of the Amsteinhof Psychiatric Hospital
25:39extended racial hygiene methods to handicapped children.
25:43They were eliminated with strong sedatives.
25:48Some of the young patients were used as guinea pigs
25:51in ignominious medical experiments.
25:54On the programme, the testing of vaccines against deadly diseases.
26:10But it was in the treatment of the Jewish population that Austrians really stood out.
26:18On the day of the Anschluss itself, anti-Semitism unleashed its ugly head,
26:23without the slightest order from Berlin.
26:31Writer Stefan Schweik described the exactions endured by his community.
26:39They gave free reign to all desires for private revenge.
26:44University professors were made to scrub cobblestones with their bare hands.
26:52Pious old Jews were dragged to churches by rowdy youths,
26:56and forced to kneel before the cross and shout,
26:58and forced, Heil Hitler.
27:03But for the new masters, humiliating Jews wasn't enough.
27:11Brown shirts, law enforcement agencies,
27:14and ordinary citizens engaged in the pillaging of their assets.
27:22Jewelry, money, clothes, furniture, everything for the taking.
27:28One young Austrian woman wrote with satisfaction,
27:31those who were at the top are now at the bottom.
27:40Not even Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was spared.
27:46A gang of Nazis burst into his home, confiscated his family's passports,
27:51and emptied his safe.
27:55His daughter, Anna, was arrested by the Gestapo,
27:58and interrogated throughout the night.
28:03The family finally managed to go into exile in London,
28:07where Sigmund Freud died one year later, his heart broken.
28:13Like him, thousands of Viennese Jews saw their assets confiscated
28:18and redistributed among good Austrians.
28:27This systematic and later legalized theft was given the name of Aryanization.
28:33Employees thus took over businesses from their former Jewish bosses for a pittance.
28:42New owners moved into their apartments.
28:45They simply needed to redecorate.
28:52In Vienna alone, 60,000 homes changed hands.
28:59The irony of history is such that Berlin would wait nine months before following the example of Austria.
29:10This unprecedented unleashing of violence did not go unnoticed.
29:16The American press reported,
29:19the Jews of Austria are in a worse plight than German Jews.
29:31Austrian fanaticism inspired Berlin.
29:35In March of 1938, an intervention squad was dispatched to Vienna,
29:40led by no other than Adolf Eichmann, another Austrian Nazi stalwart from the early days.
29:47His task? To rid the city of its Jewish population.
29:51An obsession of the Führer since his youth.
29:57He wrote in Mein Kampf,
30:00I detested the conglomerate of races that the capital of the empire manifested.
30:04To me, the big city appeared as the personification of incest.
30:14The population of the capital of the former Austria was 10% Jewish,
30:19the highest percentage in any city within the Reich.
30:26The method established by Eichmann was forced emigration.
30:33He set up his headquarters in the sumptuous Palais Albert-Rostschild,
30:38yet another dispossession.
30:41His system was both ingenious and cruel.
30:44Jews were obliged to buy extremely expensive emigration permits.
30:48The wealthiest among them were forced to pay for the less well-off.
30:53And the height of cynicism,
30:55Eichmann ordered Jewish community leaders to collaborate with his lieutenants.
31:15And they followed these orders.
31:19Compared to the pillaging, torture and murders their people were facing,
31:23exile seemed like the lesser of two evils.
31:27The uprooted arrived in their host countries dispossessed of everything.
31:34The belongings they had forwarded never arrived.
31:37Stored in Austrian warehouses,
31:39they had already been auctioned off by the Gestapo.
31:43The money made from the sale of their clothes, furniture and artworks filled the coffers of the Reich.
31:53Nazi and proud to be so,
31:55Austria became the testbed for the regime's anti-Jewish policies.
32:01Eichmann's central agency for Jewish emigration would be duplicated several months later in Prague and Berlin.
32:07NATO
32:12AND ENERGINES
32:14Eichmann's central agency for Jewish emigration
32:22All levels of society adopted the new regime's anti-Semitic policies without raising an eyebrow.
32:30E, embora existem algumas tentativas para ajudar os víctimas,
32:33essas foram por individuos atingir alone.
32:40Júlios estudantes foram escondidos de universidades e o ensinador estava sacked,
32:44often com a complicidade de seus colegas australianos que declararam aliança a seus novos mestres.
32:53O biólogo, Conrad Lorenz, mostrou o fervor com muito entusiasmo.
32:57Ele escreveu,
32:59I will say loud and clear that my scientific work has always been in the service of National Socialist thought.
33:08Two years later, his loyalty was rewarded
33:11when he was appointed professor at the highly esteemed Königsberg University.
33:24The cultural world was no exception.
33:31At the prestigious Vienna Opera House, where the Jew Gustav Mahler was once resident,
33:36the Viennese elite now washed beneath the swastika.
33:46And the loyal supporters of the Nazis rose quickly.
33:52Like the conductor, Herbert von Karyan, who joined the party in 1933.
34:00A pan-Germanist since his youth,
34:02he denounced the Jewification of the Volksopper, the Vienna People's Opera.
34:10Hermann Göring invited him to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic.
34:27On September the 1st, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
34:38Hitler began toying with the idea of establishing a reserve for Jews chased out of the Third Reich.
34:46Once again, the task was entrusted to Adolf Eichmann and his Vienna team.
34:52One of his acolytes, Alois Brunner, a former Austrian legionnaire,
34:57organised and signed the first order for the deportation of Jews from Ostmark.
35:11Their destination, Nisko, a small Polish town chosen by Eichmann as the location of the reserve.
35:21The first deportation of Jews in history was from Austria and not Germany.
35:32Berlin wouldn't send its first convoys until two years later.
35:38The student had outdone his master.
35:47Conquest by conquest, the Nazi regime would rely more and more on its top Austrian officers.
35:54Especially to rein in countries which were now under its yoke.
35:59These faithful Nazis were promoted to export their know-how all over the Reich.
36:07In May of 1940, the governor of Annex's Austria, the Viennese lawyer Arthur Seyss-Inquart,
36:13became the Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands.
36:16The arrival of Reichscommissaris Dr. Seyss-Inquart.
36:26Niederländische Nationalsozialisten, vor allem für mich selbst,
36:31ist es eine große Freude und Genugtuung,
36:34dass die niederländischen Nationalsozialisten entscheidende Bedeutung gewonnen haben.
36:50After collaborating with the Dutch Nazis,
36:53Seyss-Inquart would set about eliminating the Jewish population of Holland,
36:57one of the largest in Western Europe.
37:04In his wake, followed other Austrian officials.
37:10Anne Frank and her family were arrested by one of them,
37:14the Viennese police officer Karl Silberbauer.
37:21As for Alois Brunner, the pioneer of deportation,
37:25he too would export his skills.
37:30Dispatched to France to run Drancy camp near Paris,
37:34his job was to round up Jews and deport them to Auschwitz.
37:40His terrifying efficiency earned him the nickname
37:43the Butcher of Drancy.
37:48But it was in Eastern Europe
37:50that the Austrians would truly excel in the art of killing.
37:55Odilo Globoknik
37:56was tasked with creating the first ever death camp.
38:03Belzeck in Poland,
38:04where almost 600,000 people were murdered.
38:17Obedient and ruthless,
38:19Globoknik also took on the job
38:20of emptying the Jewish ghettos of Poland.
38:31To gain efficiency,
38:33he employed the methods invented by Eichmann in Vienna.
38:38Forced into helping the SS,
38:40Jewish community leaders once again
38:42had to provide lists of those to be deported.
38:45A treacherous system that forced victims
38:48to participate in the extermination of their own kind.
38:58In the death camps,
38:59Austrian guards also clamped down on prisoners.
39:02The Nazi regime banked on their knowledge
39:05of the Slavic peoples
39:06acquired during the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
39:09but especially on the hatred they showed
39:12to those they considered subhuman.
39:16At Treblinka and Sobibor,
39:18Commandants Imfrid Ebel and Franz Stengel
39:21respectively sent hundreds of thousands of people
39:24to the gas chambers.
39:32At Plasau camp near Krakow,
39:35another Austrian struck terror among the prisoners.
39:39Amon Goethe played a game of life or death with them.
39:43One camp survivor recalls,
39:47He was capable of the worst abominations.
39:50Always armed with his machine gun,
39:52he regularly shot at prisoners
39:54from the roof of his quarters,
39:55just for the fun of it.
40:05On May the 29th, 1942, in Prague,
40:08an attack by the Czech resistance
40:10targeted Reynard Heydrich,
40:12one of the orchestrators of the final solution.
40:16A few days later,
40:17he died from his wounds.
40:38Himmler, the great architect of the Holocaust,
40:41chose a new right-hand man
40:42who had proved himself
40:44another devout Austrian,
40:46Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
40:53In Berlin,
40:54the choice of a provincial
40:55for such a sensitive post surprised many,
40:58but Hitler approved.
41:01Not only did he trust his compatriot,
41:03he knew his service record.
41:08At his second-in-command's induction ceremony,
41:12Himmler said,
41:13It's always good training
41:14to have worked unlawfully.
41:16The time when you entered into service
41:18this was the best school of your life.
41:29The new SS chief proved himself
41:31to be as ruthless as his predecessor.
41:41In the Netherlands,
41:43he contested the decision
41:44to exclude Sephardic Jews from deportation.
41:52He wrote in a telegram,
41:56There is no doubting the fact
41:57that Sephardic Jews are also Jews
42:00from a racial viewpoint.
42:12He made regular trips to his homeland
42:14and in particular to Mauthausen
42:16to attend gas chamber executions
42:18organized just for him.
42:28Kaltenbrunner had reached the peak of his career.
42:31After Himmler,
42:33the most powerful in Nazi repression
42:34and extermination
42:36was an Austrian.
42:46Moscow.
42:47Mr. Molotov waits at the airfield
42:49to welcome the American and British delegates.
42:51In the autumn of 1943,
42:54the Americans, British and Soviets
42:56met for talks.
43:01As the Germans were being forced back
43:03on all fronts,
43:04it was time to discuss
43:05the post-war European order.
43:09The first objective,
43:11to weaken Germany
43:13by breaking up its territory.
43:16Paradoxically,
43:17Austria was declared
43:19the first victim
43:20of Hitler's expansionist policy.
43:24The massive adhesion
43:25of its population
43:26to Nazism
43:27had not, however,
43:29escaped the Allies' attention.
43:31Stalin and Churchill
43:32were aware
43:32of the ferocious repression
43:34of the Austrian opposition
43:35and hoped
43:36that this declaration
43:37would encourage citizens
43:39to resist.
43:41They would soon be disappointed.
43:48Six months later,
43:49nothing had changed.
43:51The Führer's birthday
43:52was celebrated with fervour.
43:56The British Foreign Office noted,
43:58the great majority of Austrians
44:00are not prepared
44:01to take the risk
44:02of engaging in the resistance.
44:27On June the 6th, 1944,
44:29the Allies landed in Normandy.
44:35The fall of the Third Reich
44:36was only a matter of time.
44:40Over the coming weeks,
44:42German troops
44:42would retreat
44:43further and further,
44:44east and west.
44:46Even the most loyal Nazis
44:48realised the situation
44:49was hopeless.
44:52Save for a few indomitable men
44:55like Alois Brunner.
44:59The butcher of Drancy
45:00was determined
45:01to complete his mission.
45:07Despite the shortage of trains,
45:09which had been requisition
45:10for the withdrawal of troops,
45:12he desperately tried
45:13to organise
45:13a final convoy
45:15to the death camps.
45:17In late July 1944,
45:20more than 1,300 French Jews
45:22were sent to Auschwitz.
45:27among them,
45:28324 children and babies,
45:30rounded up
45:31at the last minute
45:32from orphanages.
45:43Part of the Austrian population
45:45shared this
45:46never-say-die attitude.
45:51In February 1945,
45:54at Mauthausen,
45:55as Austrians
45:56were enjoying the snow,
45:57500 Soviet prisoners
45:59managed to escape
46:00from the concentration camp.
46:04The next day,
46:06SS men swept the area
46:08and asked locals
46:09to help them
46:10track the fugitives.
46:12Without hesitating,
46:14the locals began
46:15a manhunt,
46:16cynically nicknamed
46:17the rabbit hunt.
46:25One local woman
46:26remembered this
46:27macabre spectacle.
46:29The fugitives were shot
46:30or stabbed to death.
46:32It was winter.
46:33There was fresh snow
46:34and the roads
46:36were covered in blood.
46:39The shameful thing is
46:41civilians took part in it.
46:46Of the 500 Soviet escapees,
46:49only 11 survived.
46:55Meanwhile,
46:56in Berlin,
46:57Ernst Kaltenbrunner
46:58persisted in hunting down
46:59all those who doubted
47:01the final victory,
47:02starting with his own boss,
47:04Heinrich Himmler,
47:05who was caught red-handed
47:07committing treason.
47:10To save his own skin,
47:12Hitler's second-in-command
47:13had tried to negotiate
47:14a secret agreement
47:15with the British.
47:18Denounced by his right-hand man,
47:20Himmler was immediately
47:21stripped of his post
47:22and party membership
47:23by the Fuhrer.
47:30A month later,
47:31Red Army troops
47:32entered Vienna.
47:35The waltz was once again
47:36back on the capital streets.
47:44The waltz was once again
47:48back on the capital streets.
48:01At the Nuremberg trials,
48:04only two Austrians
48:04sat among the accused.
48:08Ernst Kaltenbrunner
48:09and Arthur Seysingquart
48:11kept a low profile,
48:13playing the victims
48:14and denying
48:15the crimes
48:16they had committed.
48:21They are not guilty.
48:26They were both
48:27sentenced to death
48:28and were executed
48:29in October 1946.
48:36As for their compatriots,
48:38collaborators,
48:39followers and opportunists,
48:40all hurriedly sought
48:42to cover up
48:43their far-from-glorious past.
48:52Having been awarded
48:54the status of
48:55first victim
48:55of Hitler's aggression,
48:57Austria began
48:58to construct
48:58the image
48:59of a friendly,
49:00fun,
49:00and most importantly,
49:01innocent country.
49:08collective amnesia
49:10set in,
49:12allowing former Nazis
49:12to develop
49:13new careers.
49:19Goering's
49:20former protégé,
49:21Herbert von Karajan,
49:22continued his
49:23meteoric career.
49:29In 1973,
49:32the biologist
49:32Konrad Lorenz
49:33received the Nobel Prize
49:35in medicine
49:35for research
49:36he had begun
49:37under the Nazis.
49:47In 1986,
49:49Kurt Waldheim
49:49ran in the
49:50Austrian presidential election.
49:52As a former
49:53secretary-general
49:55of the United Nations,
49:56he had a proven
49:57international track record.
49:59But his career
50:00as a German army officer
50:01had been covered up
50:02when he had taken part
50:04in the murder
50:04of Yugoslav partisans
50:06during World War II,
50:07a detail
50:08that didn't
50:09bother voters.
50:18Despite the scandal,
50:20Austrians
50:21voted massively
50:22for him,
50:22a victory
50:23made possible
50:24by the myth
50:25of Austria
50:25being a victim
50:26of Nazism.
50:28No wonder
50:28the country
50:29decided not
50:30to refute it.
50:41It wasn't
50:42until 1993
50:44that an Austrian
50:45chancellor
50:45made a first
50:46official visit
50:47to Israel.
50:54The reason
50:55Franz Wranitzki
50:56was received
50:56with full honours
50:57by Yitzhak Rabin
50:59was due
50:59to a speech
51:00he had given
51:01in Parliament
51:01two years earlier.
51:05A lot of
51:06Austrians
51:07were involved
51:07in the
51:07murder
51:08and the
51:09murder
51:10of the
51:10Third Reich
51:11and the
51:12third
51:12of the
51:12most prominent
51:13place.
51:14We
51:14recognize
51:15all the
51:16data
51:16of our
51:16history
51:17and as
51:18we
51:18take the
51:18good
51:18for us
51:19in
51:19respect
51:19to us
51:20we
51:20to
51:21the
51:21dead
51:21and
51:22the
51:25dead
51:29Belated but necessary apologies after half a century of denial.
51:56Thank you.