All language subtitles for h.u.s03e01.1080p.web.h264-cbfm_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR:
History is not an exact science,

it is never set in stone.

(CROWD CHEERS AND CHANTS)

As time passes,

knowledge of the past is refined
and evolves.

(INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT)

(WHISTLE)

But by definition,
existing ideas have thick skins

and are hard to shift.

(CLAPS)

MARTIN LUTHER KING: I have a dream
that all the men are created...

(CROWD CHEERS)

To understand the realities
of the world

you sometimes have to shake them up

and decipher the facts
by looking at them another way.

(CROWD CHEERS)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Posterity has made Nazism
a strictly German affair.

And yet...

(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

In October 1907,

the sun shone brightly
on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

But behind the brimming confidence,

was the worrying rise
of nationalism and cultural isolation

which had reached the streets.

The Mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger,

made anti-Semitism key
to his policies,

while Georg von Schonerer's
first pamphlets called for a union

of all Germanic peoples.

A whole generation of young Austrians

were indoctrinated
with the ideas of the day,

among them Adolf Hitler.

He would later say,

"Vienna remains
a true school of life.

"There, I learned the basics
of a world vision,

"to which I merely added
some details."

Hitler left his homeland
to shape his destiny in Germany.

But in the country where he was born,

the roots of evil
continued to prosper.

(INDISTINT CHATTER)

(SOFT MUSIC)

On 11 November, 1918,
World War I finally ended.

The victors ceremoniously buried
the last German shell.

At the front, those who had survived
the machine-gun fire

jumped for joy.

(CHEERING)

After four years of deadly combat,
it was a time for cheering.

(THUNDER RUMBLES)

For the vanquished,
it was a time of gravity.

In Vienna, thousands of Austrians
buried their imperial past

in favour of a republic.

(THUNDER RUMBLES)

Crushed in defeat,
the Habsburg dynasty collapsed.

The famous author,
Arthur Schnitzler, was despondent,

"A historic day has drawn to a close.

"And viewed at close quarters,
it is bathed in little glory."

With the new European order,

the vast empire was broken
into pieces,

its 15 million subjects divided.

Freed from their former tutelage,

new independent countries
rose from the ashes,

and the once-mighty
Austria became a rump state.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Deprived of its former lands
and industries,

the fledgling republic found it hard
to feed its population.

Despite their ration books,
Austrians faced hunger and cold.

To heat their homes,

Viennese were forced to collect wood
in the forests,

even taking it home by tram.

Member of parliament,
Otto Bauer fatalistically declared,

"A country like ours,
which has no coal of its own

"and has difficulties
in feeding its people,

"has no chance
of remaining independent."

(CHILDREN PLAYFULLY SCREAMING)

Humiliated and struggling
for survival,

the country plunged
into instability.

Worse, poverty and unemployment
offered an ideal hunting ground

for extremists on both sides.

Starting with the NSDAP,

the Austrian
National Socialist Party,

ready to cash in on its fellow
citizens' frustration and distress.

Founded in 1920, in the wake
of its German big brother,

its ranks continued to rise.

Ten years later, thousands of members
rallied to the swastika.

Their programme
was based on one slogan,

to unify all Germanic peoples
in a single nation-state.

(CROWD APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

(CROWD CHANTING)

Among these exalted Pan-Germanists
was a young lawyer,

Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

The man had very firm beliefs.

At university,
in keeping with tradition,

he joined a student fraternity.

The one he chose stood out

for its particularly
violent rituals,

like sword-fighting duels
which left his face scarred.

Scars that Kaltenbrunner wore
with pride,

as a sign of his belligerent nature
and unwavering determination.

As believers in the theories
of Georg Ritter Von Schonerer,

like Hitler before them,

Austrian Nazis advocated
racial purity.

At the dawn of the 20th century,
their mentor had already written,

"We will never consider a Jew
to be one of us

"under the pretext
that he speaks German."

In an impoverished Austria

in the full throes
of an identity crisis,

these old ideas resurfaced.

(CROWD CHANTING HAIL)

1933 marked a turning point
for Austrian Nazis.

In Germany,
Adolf Hitler came to power.

(SINGING)

His victory,
duly celebrated in Austria,

gave new impetus
to the Nazi movement.

At the University of Vienna,

Nazi Brownshirts prevented
Jewish students from entering.

To avoid a beating,

some of them escaped
through the windows.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Official events were opportunities
for the Nazis to show their hostility

towards the government.

Arms raised,
they defied the authorities

and sparked clashes.

REPORTER: 600 arrests
were made by the police,

mainly of young Nazis

who desire union of Austria
with Germany.

A fragile Austria was teetering.

It was then that a small,
insignificant-looking man

was catapulted to the head
of the country,

Engelbert Dollfuss.

He would prove to be implacable.

And to restore order,
he brought an end to democracy.

Austria became an authoritarian
corporatist state

where all opposition was repressed,
inspired by Fascism, not Nazism,

because the dictator relied
on the Catholic Church

and was determined to preserve
his country's independence.

In July of 1933,

the National Socialist Party
was banned.

Overnight, Austrian Nazis
were forced underground.

No matter, they closed ranks

and showed their continuing existence
with posters.

The provincial city of Linz,

on the banks of the beautiful
Blue Danube,

became the epicentre
of Nazi underground activity.

Hitler had spent
part of his youth there

and still had a large number
of admirers.

His supporters regularly gathered
at the grave of Alois and Klara,

the Fuhrer's parents.

Restaurants were happy to open
their doors to the movement

for their secret meetings.

It was at one of these
that Ernst Kaltenbrunner

was elected as the regional head
of the Austrian Nazi Party.

Having become a key informant
for Berlin,

he was appointed
head of the Austrian SS.

His background allowed him
to infiltrate every milieu,

including the police and the army.

That way, public servants
sympathetic to the cause

could warn Nazi activists of
imminent planned raids and arrests.

Materials seized by the authorities

were used to prove the Nazis'
terrorist intentions.

Along with Kaltenbrunner,

other figures
from Austrian high society

would join the circle of initiates.

Like Arthur Seyss-Inquart,
a Viennese lawyer.

And Adolf Eichmann,
an accountant of German origin

and the son of an industrialist.

With their well-off backgrounds,

these three men
weren't on the fringes of society,

they had embraced Nazism
not out of social frustration

naivety,
but because of its ideals.

(CROWD CHANTING)

At the time,
almost 15,000 Austrian Nazis

exiled in Germany
prepared for military action.

Financed and trained
by their German counterparts,

they formed the Austrian Legion.

All of them proudly wore a cornflower
on their caps,

the symbol of militants forced
to go underground.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Their comrades still in the homeland

would soon benefit
from their logistical support

to step up
their own lightning strikes.

(TENSE MUSIC)

But sabotage was only the prelude
to much more dramatic action.

(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

On 25 July, 1934,

a Nazi commando unit entered Vienna.

Their aim,
to carry out a coup d'etat.

Having ransacked the state radio
headquarters,

they turned their attention
to the Chancellery.

The reign of Dollfuss
came to an end.

But the attempted coup
ended in failure.

As Austria mourned its chancellor,
in Germany,

Hitler distanced himself
from his cumbersome compatriots.

Even he judged their actions
too radical.

Of course, annexing Austria
to build a great Germany

was in his plans,

but the Fuhrer preferred
a more discreet method.

He knew that time was on his side.

Irritated by political instability

and dismayed
by an unstructured economy,

an increasing number of Austrians
were ready to open their arms to him.

Four years later,
on 12 February, 1938,

Dolfuss' successor Kurt Schuschnigg
was summoned to Berchtesgaden.

The meeting with Hitler
was far from amiable.

As his eyes scanned the border
with Austria,

the Fuhrer gave him an ultimatum,

appoint a Nazi as interior minister
otherwise, he would invade Austria.

An offended Schuschnigg refused,

and in an attempt to whip up a storm,
he addressed parliament.

(CROWD APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

But support for the chancellor
went no further

than the doors
of the Federal Assembly.

On the streets,

a large number of Hitler's
compatriots had already yielded.

Under pressure from Berlin,
Schuschnigg resigned.

Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a stalwart
from the early days of Nazism,

was appointed chancellor.

The next day, 12 March, 1938,

German troops marched into Austria
without firing a shot.

Never had an occupying army
been greeted with such fervour.

The young Adolfine Jauernig
wrote in her diary,

"After a brief moment of concern,

"we all realised that the Anschluss
was the best solution for Austria,

"and even more, our salvation."

After his soldiers,

it was Hitler's turn to take
the pulse of the Austrian population.

The first stop on his tour,
Linz, the city of his youth.

(SOFT MUSIC)

Encouraged
by his enthusiastic welcome,

he continued his conquest
of the masses.

In Vienna, hundreds of thousands

turned out to acclaim
their new Fuhrer.

They were in a hurry
to become Germans.

(DISTANCT CHEERING)

On 15 March, 1938,

on the Heldenplatz,
Heroes' Square

Hitler appeared before a crowd
that obeyed him unconditionally.

(CROWD CHEERS)

This mission would be taken up
by the majority of Austrians.

As part of the Reich,

they had finally
rediscovered an identity.

And to prove it, they proudly
raised their new colours.

Konrad Lorenz,
a young Viennese biologist,

wrote to a German colleague,

"You have no idea of the enthusiasm
that reigns here.

"I believe that we Austrians
are the most fervent

"and most convinced
national socialists of all."

A referendum was held amid great pomp
to legalise the annexation.

All the inhabitants
of the Great Reich

were invited to vote
on their new unification.

With more than 99%,
the yes vote won.

Austria vanished.

Now, as a simple province
of the Reich,

it was given the new name
of Ostmark, Eastern March.

Its public officials henceforth
swore an oath to Adolf Hitler.

Overnight, they deployed the measures

that Nazi Germany
had taken five years to adopt.

(CHANTING)

The priority, to reduce opponents
to silence with terror.

And the first targets
were social-democrats,

communists and trade unionists.

Followed by conservatives
and Catholics.

As head of the Austrian SS,
Ernst Kaltenbrunner led the dance.

Rewarded for his loyalty,

he rapidly became the head
of all of the security agencies.

After years of underground action,

he could finally give free rein
to his designs.

(YELLING)

In Vienna alone,

the Gestapo arrested 20,000 people
in less than ten months.

Some of them were placed on
the deportation list,

direction, the concentration camps
of the Reich.

The first shipment of Austrian
prisoners to Dachau near Munich,

took place just two weeks
after annexation.

By August 1938,

Austrian Nazis had their own
concentration camp.

Constructed in a granite quarry
not far from Linz,

Mauthausen met the demands of the SS,

to eliminate undesirables
through hard labour.

One camp survivor testified,

"I was in hell.

"There were those
who quarried the rock,

"and those who had to carry
50-kilo blocks of it

"up 186 steps,
known as the 'Stairs of Death'."

In Mauthausen, prisoners were killed
by exhaustion, disease or torture.

They were also executed by
firing squad, hanging or gassing.

The Austrian camp was certainly
no poor second

to its German equivalents.

But Mauthausen gave life too,
to the local economy.

Bakers, butchers and grocers
supplied the SS mess halls,

craftsmen were called on
for building work.

So people kept quiet.

One tradesman admitted,

"We knew the camp was there,

"we saw lines of prisoners
crossing the village

"from the station to get there.

"But what were we to do about it?"

(CHATTERING)

As zealous pupils,

Austrians not only supported
the deadly methods of the regime,

they actively took part in it.

Especially in applying
the hygienist policy set by Berlin.

It aimed, quite simply,

to eliminate all those that
the Nazis judged as racially impure.

Propaganda films denounced
the costs of the care

given to the physically
and mentally handicapped.

Disguised as euthanasia,

they were systematically murdered
behind closed doors.

In Austria, the picturesque
Hartheim Castle near Linz,

was turned into
a so-called euthanasia centre.

Here, executioners
used carbon monoxide

in the first gas chambers in history.

From doctors and nurses to cooks,

most of the personnel was local,

and they went about their work
amid a spirit of open camaraderie.

Like the bus driver, Walter Miltsch,
who delivered the victims.

"We drove into Hartheim
through the gates.

"The buses were unloaded,

"and then we drivers could go
to the cafeteria for lunch."

(CHATTERING)

Eager to please, Austrians went
even further than Nazi demands.

In Vienna, the personnel of
the Am Steinhof psychiatric hospital

extended racial hygiene methods
to handicapped children.

They were eliminated
with strong sedatives.

(CHILDREN GIGGLING)

Some of the young patients
were used as guinea-pigs

in ignominious medical experiments.

On the programme

the testing of vaccines
against deadly diseases.

(CHILDREN CRYING)

But it was in the treatment
of the Jewish population

that Austrians really stood out.

On the day of the Anschluss itself,

anti-Semitism unleashed
its ugly head,

without the slightest order
from Berlin.

Writer Stefan Zweig

described the exactions
endured by his community,

"They gave free rein to all desires
for private revenge.

"University professors

"were made to scrub cobblestones
with their bare hands.

"Pious old Jews were dragged
to churches by rowdy youths

"and forced to kneel before the cross
and shout 'Heil Hitler'."

But for the new masters,
humiliating Jews wasn't enough.

Brownshirts, law enforcement agencies
and ordinary citizens

engaged in the pillaging
of their assets.

Jewellery, money, clothes,
furniture,

everything for the taking.

One young Austrian woman
wrote with satisfaction,

"Those who were at the top
are now at the bottom."

Not even Sigmund Freud,

the father of psychoanalysis,
was spared.

A gang of Nazis burst into his home,

confiscated his family's passports
and emptied his safe.

His daughter Anna was arrested

by the Gestapo and interrogated
throughout the night.

The family finally managed
to go into exile in London

where Sigmund Freud died
one year later, his heart broken.

Like him, thousands of Viennese Jews

saw their assets confiscated

and redistributed among
good Austrians.

This systematic
and later legalised theft

was given the name of 'Aryanization'.

Employees thus took over businesses

from their former Jewish bosses
for a pittance.

(MUSIC PLAYING AND LAUGHTER)

New owners moved into
their apartments.

They simply needed to redecorate.

In Vienna alone,
60,000 homes changed hands.

The irony of history is such

that Berlin would wait nine months

before following the example
of Austria.

This unprecedented unleashing
of violence did not go unnoticed.

The 'American Press' reported,

"The Jews of Austria are in
a worse plight than German Jews."

(TRAIN WHISTLES)

Austrian fanaticism inspired Berlin.

In March of 1938,
an intervention squad

was dispatched to Vienna,

led by no other than Adolf Eichmann,

another Austrian Nazi stalwart
from the early days.

His task,

to rid the city
of its Jewish population,

an obsession of the Fuhrer
since his youth.

He wrote in 'Mein Kampf',

"I detested the conglomerate of races

"that the capital of the empire
manifested.

"To me, the big city appeared
as the personification of incest."

The population of the capital
of former Austria was 10% Jewish,

the highest percentage in any city
within the Reich.

The method established by Eichmann
was forced emigration.

He set up his headquarters

in the sumptuous
Palais Albert Rothschild,

yet another dispossession.

His system was both
ingenious and cruel,

Jews were obliged to buy extremely
expensive emigration permits.

The wealthiest among them were forced
to pay for the less well-off.

And the height of cynicism,

Eichmann ordered
Jewish community leaders

to collaborate with his lieutenants.

(CHATTERING)

And they followed these orders,

compared to the pillaging,

torture and murders
their people were facing,

exile seemed like
the lesser of two evils.

The uprooted arrived in their host
countries dispossessed of everything.

The belongings they had forwarded
never arrived.

Stored in Austrian warehouses,

they had already been auctioned off
by the Gestapo.

The money made from the sale of their
clothes, furniture and artworks

filled the coffers of the Reich.

Nazi and proud to be so,

Austria became the test-bed
for the regimes anti-Jewish policies.

Eichmann's Central Agency
for Jewish Emigration

would be duplicated several months
later in Prague and Berlin.

(SINGING)

All levels of society adopted

the new regime's
anti-Semitic policies

without raising an eyebrow.

And although there were some attempts
to help the victims,

these were by individuals
acting alone.

Jewish students were
chased out of universities

and the teaching staff was sacked,

often with the complicity
of their Austrian colleagues

who declared allegiance
to their new masters.

The biologist Konrad Lorenz displayed
his fervour with much enthusiasm.

He wrote,

"I will say loud and clear

"that my scientific work
has always been in the service

"of national-socialist thought."

Two years later,
his loyalty was rewarded

when he was appointed professor

at the highly esteemed
Konigsberg University.

(CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS)

The cultural world was no exception.

(CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS)

At the prestigious
Vienna Opera House,

where the Jew Gustav Mahler
was once resident,

the Viennese elite now waltzed
beneath the swastika.

('SYMPHONY NO. 40 IN G MINOR,
K.550: I. MOLTO ALLEGRO' PLAYS)

And the loyal supporters
of the Nazis rose quickly.

Like the conductor
Herbert von Karajan,

who joined the Party in 1933.

A Pan-Germanist since his youth,

he denounced the jewification
of the Volksoper,

the Vienna People's Opera.

(APPLAUSE)

Hermann Goring invited him
to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic.

(EXPLOSIONS)

On 1 September, 1939,

Germany invaded Poland.

Hitler began toying with the idea

of establishing a reserve for Jews
chased out of the Third Reich.

Once again, the task was entrusted

to Adolf Eichmann
and his Vienna team.

One of his acolytes, Alois Brunner,
a former Austrian Legionnaire,

organised and signed the first order

for the deportation of Jews
from Ostmark.

Their destination, Nisko,
a small Polish town

chosen by Eichmann
as the location of the reserve.

The first deportation of Jews
in history

was from Austria and not Germany.

Berlin wouldn't send its first
convoys until two years later.

The student had outdone his master.

Conquest by conquest,

the Nazi regime
would rely more and more

on its top Austrian officers.

Especially to rein in countries
which were now under its yoke.

These faithful Nazis

were promoted to export
their know-how all over the Reich.

In May of 1940,
the governor of annexed Austria,

the Viennese lawyer
Arthur Seyss-Inquart,

became the Reich Commissioner
for the Netherlands.

(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(CHANTING)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

After collaborating
with the Dutch Nazis,

Seyss-Inquart would set about

eliminating the Jewish population
of Holland,

one of the largest in Western Europe.

(MAN YELLING)

(DOG BARKING AND CHILD CRYING)

In his wake,
followed other Austrian officials.

Anne Frank and her family
were arrested by one of them,

a Viennese police officer,
Karl Silberbauer.

As for Alois Brunner,
the pioneer of deportation,

he too would export his skills.

Dispatched to France
to run Drancy camp near Paris,

his job was to round up Jews
and deport them to Auschwitz.

(WHISTLES BLOWS)

His terrifying efficiency earned him
the nickname the 'Butcher of Drancy'.

But it was in Eastern Europe

that the Austrians would
truly excel in the art of killing.

Odilo Globocnik was tasked with
creating the first ever death camp,

Belzec in Poland, where almost
600,000 people were murdered.

Obedient and ruthless,

Globocnik also took on the job

of emptying the Jewish ghettoes
of Poland.

To gain efficiency,

he employed the methods
invented by Eichmann in Vienna.

Forced into helping the SS,

Jewish community leaders once again

had to provide lists
of those to be deported.

A traitorous system
that forced victims

to participate in the extermination
of their own kind.

In the death camps, Austrian guards
also clamped down on prisoners.

The Nazi regime banked on

their knowledge
of the Slavic peoples,

acquired during the days
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,

but especially on the hatred
they showed

to those they considered sub-human.

At Treblinka and Sobibor,

Kommandants Imfried Eberl
and Franz Stangl

respectively sent
hundreds of thousands of people

to the gas chambers.

(YELLING)

At Plaszow camp, near Krakow,

another Austrian struck terror
among the prisoners.

Amon Goth played a game
of life or death with them.

One camp survivor recalls,

"He was capable
of the worst abominations.

"Always armed with his machine gun,

"he regularly shot at prisoners

"from the roof of his quarters
just for the fun of it."

On 29 May, 1942, in Prague,

an attack by the Czech resistance
targeted Reinhardt Heydrich,

one of the orchestrators
of the Final Solution.

A few days later,
he died from his wounds.

Himmler, the great architect
of the Holocaust,

chose a new right-hand man
who had proved himself,

another devout Austrian,
Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

In Berlin, the choice of a provincial
for such a sensitive post

surprised many, but Hitler approved.

Not only did he trust his compatriot,
he knew his service record.

At his second-in-command's
induction ceremony, Himmler said,

"It's always good training
to have worked unlawfully.

"The time when
you entered into service

"was the best school of your life."

The new SS chief proved himself
to be as ruthless as his predecessor.

In the Netherlands,
he contested the decision

to exclude Sephardic Jews
from deportation.

He wrote in a telegram,

"There is no doubting the fact

"that Sephardic Jews are also Jews
from a racial viewpoint."

He made regular trips
to his homeland,

and in particular to Mauthausen,

to attend gas-chamber executions
organised just for him.

Kaltenbrunner had reached
the peak of his career.

After Himmler,

the most powerful in Nazi repression
and extermination was an Austrian.

REPORTER: Moscow,
Mr Molotov waits at the airfield

to welcome the American
and British delegates.

In the autumn of 1943, the Americans,
British and Soviets met for talks.

As the Germans were being forced back
on all fronts,

it was time to discuss
the post-war European order.

The first objective,

to weaken Germany
by breaking up its territory.

Paradoxically, Austria was declared

the first victim of Hitler's
expansionist policy.

The massive adhesion
of its population to Nazism

had not, however,
escaped the Allies' attention.

Stalin and Churchill were aware

of the ferocious repression
of the Austrian opposition,

and hoped that this declaration
would encourage citizens to resist.

They would soon be disappointed.

Six months later,
nothing had changed.

The Fuhrer's birthday
was celebrated with fervour.

The British Foreign Office noted,

"The great majority of Austrians

"are not prepared to take the risk
of engaging in the resistance."

(EXPLOSIONS)

On 6 June, 1944,
the Allies landed in Normandy.

The fall of the Third Reich
was only a matter of time.

Over the coming weeks,

German troops would retreat
further and further, East and West.

Even the most loyal Nazis realised
the situation was hopeless.

Save for a few irreducible men,
like Alois Brunner.

The Butcher of Drancy was determined
to complete his mission.

Despite the shortage of trains,

which had been requisitioned
for the withdrawal of troops,

he desperately tried to organise
a final convoy to the death camps.

In late July 1944,

more than 1,300 French Jews
were sent to Auschwitz.

Among them, 324 children and babies

rounded up at the last minute
from orphanages.

Part of the Austrian population
shared this never-say-die attitude.

In February 1945, at Mauthausen,

as Austrians were enjoying the snow,

500 Soviet prisoners managed to
escape from the concentration camp.

The next day, SS men swept the area

and asked locals to help them
track the fugitives.

Without hesitating,
the locals began a manhunt,

cynically nicknamed
the 'rabbit hunt'.

One local woman remembered
this macabre spectacle,

"The fugitives were shot
or stabbed to death.

"It was winter, there was fresh snow
and the roads were covered in blood.

"The shameful thing is,
civilians took part in it."

Of the 500 Soviet escapees,
only 11 survived.

Meanwhile, in Berlin,

Ernst Kaltenbrunner
persisted in hunting down

all those who doubted
the final victory.

Starting with his own boss,
Heinrich Himmler,

who was caught red-handed
committing treason.

To save his own skin,
Hitler's second-in-command

had tried to negotiate
a secret agreement with the British.

Denounced by his right-hand man,

Himmler was immediately
stripped of his post

and party membership by the Fuhrer.

A month later,
Red Army troops entered Vienna.

The waltz was once again
back on the capital's streets.

At the Nuremberg trial,

only two Austrians
sat among the accused.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner
and Arthur Seyss-Inquart

kept a low profile,

playing the victims and denying
the crimes they had committed.

They were both sentenced to death
and were executed in October 1946.

(PLAYING TUNE)

As for their compatriots,

collaborators, followers
and opportunists,

all hurriedly sought to cover up
their far-from-glorious past.

Having been awarded the status

of first victim
of Hitler's aggression,

Austria began to construct
the image of a friendly,

fun and most importantly,
innocent country.

Collective amnesia set in,

allowing former Nazis
to developed new careers.

Goring's former protege
Herbert von Karajan

continued his meteoric career.

In 1973,

the biologist Konrad Lorenz
received the Nobel Prize in Medicine

for research he had begun
under the Nazis.

(APPLAUSE)

In 1986, Kurt Waldheim ran in
the Austrian presidential election.

As a former Secretary-General
of the United Nations,

he had a proven
international track record,

but his career as a German Army
officer had been covered up,

when he had taken part
in the murder of Yugoslav partisans

during World War II.

A detail that didn't bother voters.

Despite the scandal,
Austrians voted massively for him.

A victory made possible by the myth

of Austria being
a victim of Nazism.

No wonder the country
decided not to refute it.

It wasn't until 1993

that an Austrian chancellor made
a first official visit to Israel.

The reason Franz Vranitzky

was received with full honours
by Yitzhak Rabbin,

was due to a speech he had given
in parliament two years earlier.

(APPLAUSE)

Belated but necessary apologies
after half a century of denial.

Captioned by Ai-Media
ai-media.tv