Collective Memory in International Relations 2020949012, 9780192895363, 9780192648631

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Collective Memory in International Relations

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Collective Memory in International Relations KATHRIN BACHLEITNER

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Kathrin Bachleitner 2021 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2021 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949012 ISBN 978–0–19–289536–3 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192895363.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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To Julia Always in my memory

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Acknowledgements This book has benefitted from the intellectual guidance of my teachers and mentors at the University of Oxford and beyond: Alexander Betts, Derek Penslar, Paul Betts, Todd H. Hall, and Francis Fukuyama. I am indebted to Brent Steele for his insights, conceptual inspiration, and truly generous review of the chapters. I equally want to thank those who critically read parts or the whole of this book: David Batho, for his philosophical advice; Charles Lauder Jr, for his development editing; and last but not least, my mother, Gudrun Held, for reading (and really doing) everything for me. A big thank you also to my editor at OUP, Dominic Byatt, and the senior assistant commissioning editor Olivia Wells for having supported me throughout and for having made the text come together nicely into the final form of a book. I would like to acknowledge the IKEA Foundation for their generous financial support of my research activities; and my father, Reinhard Bachleitner, for offering one of his paintings as this book’s cover. The end result of any monograph is different from what one sets out to achieve. The final version necessarily reflects a mere snapshot of a much larger universe of ideas that came to life during the long process of thinking and writing. Equally, out of a multitude of historical documents collected, and sources investigated, only a tiny proportion made it into print. Still, I remain indebted to the Austrian State Archives and the Bruno Kreisky Archive in Vienna for giving me access to their collections. Special thanks also to Chancellor Franz Vranitzky for allowing me, in an interview, to look back at his historical decision to admit co-responsibility on Austria’s part for the tragedies of the Holocaust. Remembering—in this book—is viewed as a public act, as a political strategy that begins to form a country’s collective identity, state behaviour, and national values. For me personally, remembering means a private space of recall and reliving the happy times I spent with my twin sister Julia until she was tragically killed ten years ago. This book is dedicated to her memory. Oxford, July 2020

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Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Collective Memory in International Relations

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1. Temporal Security in IR: Combining Ontological Security with Collective Memory

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2. Memory as Political Strategy

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3. Memory as Public Identity

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4. Memory as State Behaviour

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5. Memory as National Values

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Bibliography Index

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List of Tables and Figures Tables 1.1 Distinction between physical and ontological security concepts

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1.2 Distinction between ontological and temporal security concepts

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4.1 Predictive routes for state behaviour in different IR approaches

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4.2 Predictive results for the distribution of sympathies in 1967

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4.3 Predictive results for the distribution of sympathies in 1973

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Figures 1.1 Collective memory’s varying forms and their impact on politics over time

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4.1 Cartoon comparing Nasser with Hitler, published in an Austrian newspaper in 1967

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4.2 Call for solidarity with Israel, published in an Austrian newspaper in 1967

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List of Abbreviations AfD CDU/CSU EC EEC FDP FRG GDR IR KPÖ NATO OPEC ORF ÖVP PLO SPD SPÖ UAR WEU

Alternative for Germany Christian Democratic Union of Germany/Christian Social Union in Bavaria European Communities European Economic Community Free Democratic Party (Germany) Federal Republic of Germany German Democratic Republic International Relations Communist Party of Austria North Atlantic Treaty Organization Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Austrian Broadcasting Corporation Austrian People’s Party Palestine Liberation Organization Social Democratic Party of Germany Social Democratic Party of Austria United Arab Republic Western European Union

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Introduction Collective Memory in International Relations

‘Memory—what a strange thing it is! . . . We can only think of it, in the line of an abstract time that is deprived of all thickness . . . Memories are motionless, and the more securely they are fixed in space, the sounder they are’, writes the philosopher Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space (1958).¹ Memory—what a strange thing it is indeed! It is always present yet forever in the past. In its unique temporal character, it traverses time. It is knowledge from the past, but it is neither history, nor necessarily knowledge about the past. It is instead the ‘active past’. In its contemporary presence, memory looks backwards and forwards. It builds a bridge over time, and thus connects past, present, and future. Memory—it is everywhere, yet nowhere tangible! In its ideational nature, it touches everything. It is a product of cognition, but it is not solely idea, thought, or knowledge. Remembering is related to but not the same as thinking. Instead it is ‘being in time’: we remember therefore we are. In its manifestation, memory thus becomes identity. It interweaves who we were to who we are and who we will be. Memory is private, personal, yet social and political! It is a function of individuals’ minds and, equally, a product of their world. While people remember in the lonely spaces of their heads, their memories are but echoes from the busy social spheres of their societies. Memory can be thought only in time-contexts and remembering happens within social frames. As such, memory is always also ‘collective’. In attempting to grasp the ‘strange’ nature of memory, this book focuses on collective memory and sets out to find its imprints on international politics. The concept ‘collective memory’, as it is used throughout, implies two basic notions: first, that not only individuals, but also a collective can remember.

¹ Cited from the 2014 Penguin edition of Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, which is a translation of his original La Poétique de l’Espace, first published in French in 1958. The quote can be found on p. 31 of the 2014 edition.

Collective Memory in International Relations. Kathrin Bachleitner, Oxford University Press (2021). © Kathrin Bachleitner. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192895363.003.0001

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In the case of this book, the collective that remembers is the ‘country’, used synonymously with ‘state’ and sometimes ‘nation’. Countries are viewed as the bearers of collective memory, which in this context is also called ‘national memory’ or ‘national narrative’. Importantly, either term refers to the national interpretation of a country’s ‘history’ or ‘historical legacy’. The attribute ‘collective’ preceding the noun ‘memory’, however, implies not necessarily that the subject which remembers is a collective, but it, secondly, means that the process of remembering happens collectively, that is within social frameworks. This idea goes back to the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, who is considered to be the founding father of the collective memory concept. ‘It is in society that people acquire their memories’, suggested Halbwachs (1992, 38) with an eye to individuals’ faculty of memory. What applies to individuals is equally applicable for collectives: they too remember within social frames. Translated into the discipline of international relations (IR) and this book’s focus on states as the primary level of analysis, collective memory is assumed to be constituted in the social frames in which countries operate. In IR, these include a domestic and an international dimension. In global politics, Halbwachs’ societal space thus refers to the entire world. It is in the ‘society of states’ that countries acquire their collective memory. To analyse the impact of collective memory on IR, this study allows memory to travel between the international and domestic spheres of countries. However, importantly, the concept of collective memory not only needs a designated social space, but also a certain timespan to unfold. According to Halbwachs, collective memory describes the process through which ‘the past is not preserved but is reconstructed on the basis of the present’ (1992, 40). The concept thus contains not only a spatial, but also a unique temporal component. This has two implications for any research agenda on the influence of collective memory on political outcomes. First, it means that memory’s content and nature changes with time as the past is reconstructed on the basis of ‘different presents’. Furthermore, memory also shows a changing impact on these ‘presents’ as the country moves further away from ‘its past’ along a temporal line. Any research agenda interested in the influence of collective memory on politics thus must centrally account for time. In tracing the impact of collective memory in IR, this book therefore starts from the premise that (a) countries are the collective which remembers. Furthermore, (b), the process by which countries remember happens within the social frameworks in which countries interact. In IR, these social frameworks refer to both the domestic and the international environments.

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Moreover, (c), to account for collective memory’s impact on IR, memory as the explanatory variable must not only travel through space, but crucially also through time. The present study therefore necessarily adopts a longer timeframe to understand memory’s varying influence over world politics.

The Argument This book traces the influence of collective memory in international relations. To that end, it asks where a country’s collective memory first emerges and how it guides countries through time in world politics. For that purpose, this study challenges existing accounts which find the origins of collective memory in the domestic societal sphere. Instead, it locates the beginnings of a country’s memory in foreign policy strategy within the international environment. Once memory has formed internationally, the analysis returns to the domestic landscape. Among a country’s public, it finds memory as the carrier of collective identity over time. From there, collective memory, however, returns to the international sphere: in the medium term, it begins to channel a country’s international behaviour, whereas, in the long run, it circumvents also its normative horizon. With time, a country’s collective memory therefore is assumed to manifest in world politics in four varying forms: as its political strategy, as its public identity, as underwriting its international state behaviour, and finally, as a source for its national values. This book thus not only explores whether collective memory has an influence on political outcomes but also how and why it matters for IR.

Research Design Collective memory or the ‘politics of memory’ has not received much sustained attention in academic international relations. The concept is regarded as ‘too messy, illusive, and vague’, therefore, of lacking any explanatory power at all. Particularly, those scholars embracing the tenets of behavioural political science have been ill equipped to deal with the multifarious, yet subtle roles that memory plays in political processes. It follows that the discipline’s mainstream has avoided integrating the concept into its parsimonious models of utility maximization and instrumental rationality (Bell 2009, 349). Even constructivist scholars—with some exceptions—have predominantly not put

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collective memory at the centre of their research.² The same applies to IR’s ontological security literature. Despite the essential role that constructivists assign to ‘identity’ and its nexus with ‘state behaviour’, the function of collective memory within this process has rarely been explicitly highlighted.³ As a result, neither a unified empirical nor a common theoretical attempt to tackle collective memory exists within IR. Instead, there are several edited volumes presenting varying approaches, cases, and ‘collective memories’ (e.g. Müller 2002; Bell 2010; Resende and Budryte 2013; Langenbacher and Shain 2010). These ‘collected approaches’ propose a multitude of ways by which memory plays a role in global politics. This book is a contribution to those attempts to introduce the illusive and seemingly ‘ungraspable’ concept of collective memory into the vast space of IR. Yet it also aims to develop a common collective approach for IR to understand and trace the influence of memory on world politics. In that regard, the book starts with a theory-building effort. Guided by the overarching question of how collective memory can impact state behaviour, it borrows from the assumptions made by ontological security scholars who posit that states in IR act in accordance with their identities.⁴ In this book, their notion of ‘state identity’ will be refined by combining it with the insights offered by the interdisciplinary collective memory concept. Based particularly on the sociological descriptions of collective memory made by Maurice Halbwachs (1992) and, later, Jeffrey K. Olick (1999), the definition of identity in IR will be amended with unique collective and temporal characteristics. In fusing the ontological security scholarship and its insights on state behaviour with the interdisciplinary findings on collective memory, the book will thus develop its own approach termed ‘temporal security’. It posits a nexus between collective memory and state behaviour in IR: countries are now assumed to situate themselves in time and thus establish an integrity with their collective memory in their courses of action. Through the ontological security scholarship, the book gains a useful framework for transporting collective memory into IR and connecting it ² Exceptions are Cruz (2000), Lebow (2008), and Zehfuss (2007), as well as IR scholars who use terms related to collective memory, such as legacy, historical analogy, historical identity, myths, and trauma. ³ Exceptions are Innes and Steele (2014) and Mälksoo (2015), who explicitly talk about memory within the ontological security literature. ⁴ Scholars working within the burgeoning ontological security literature include, among others, McSweeney (1999); Steele (2005, 2008); Mitzen (2006, 2018); Zarakol (2010, 2017); Subotic and Zarakol (2012); Rumelili (2013, 2017); Mälksoo (2015); Subotic (2016, 2018); Kinnvall and Mitzen (2017, 2018); Kinnvall, Manners, and Mitzen (2017); Ejdus (2018, 2019).

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with state behaviour in particular. However, establishing a nexus between collective memory and state behaviour does not help to answer where the collective memory of a state originates. Neither does it tell us how memory’s impact can change over time. Thus, this book departs from the ontological security literature in three significant ways. First, it specifies the origins of state identity in collective memory in precise and replicable ways instead of assuming it is pre-existent. Secondly, it accounts for the possibility of change as countries move through time, contexts, and—domestic and international—spheres. With the dynamic collective memory concept at the basis of state identity, this study can therefore not only account for transformations in memory’s content, but it, thirdly, also factors in memory’s nature that changes with time. Importantly, these transformations in memory also significantly alter its impact over policy outcomes. However, how precisely is collective memory’s influence rendered manifest in countries? In this book, collective memory is assumed to convey itself in states in the four forms described earlier: as a country’s political strategy, as its public identity, in its international state behaviour, and finally, as underwriting its national value system. Memory thus initially becomes manifest in direct, deliberate, and instrumental ways as a political strategy. However, with time, it may also unfold its influence over international policy outcomes in unexamined, constructivist ways as underwriting a country’s identity, as channelling state behaviour, and finally, as forming the normative mindset of a country, that is, its values. The core chapters of this book therefore move collective memory through time and explore its varying impact on IR as a country’s strategy, as its identity, as manifested in state behaviour, and finally, as a source for its value system. The chapters, however, illustrate memory’s influence on political outcomes not only theoretically, but also empirically through a comparative study in two selected case countries: Germany and Austria.

Case Selection Both Germany and Austria have a history of National Socialism but very diverse collective memories thereof. How differently their memories played out in their political landscapes after 1945 becomes apparent from the following two, historically significant acts:

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15 May 1955, 12:00 am. The Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold Figl, together with his colleagues from the four Allied Powers, appears on the balcony of Vienna’s Belvedere. Like a trophy, he waves the Austrian State Treaty which they had just signed. Smiling proudly, he presents proof that ‘Austria is free’ to the gathered crowds, who begin to cheer loudly. The rejoicing is trumped only by the simultaneous ringing of all church bells in the city. A wave of enthusiasm electrifies the masses and the Allied representatives alike. The Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Molotov cannot resist blowing kisses to the happy crowds. People start to waltz.⁵ 7 December 1970, 10:35 am. On a grey December morning, the West German Chancellor Willy Brandt is on his way to sign the treaty of Warsaw with the People’s Republic of Poland. Before the signing ceremony begins, he asks to lay a wreath at the monument dedicated to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which took place during the Nazi era. At the memorial, Brandt suddenly and spontaneously sinks to his knees. With his head bowed low, he freezes in this position for half a minute. The group of officials and journalists who accompanied him remain in the background. Awe-struck, no one dares speak a word. Lost in the thought of millions of murdered people, Brandt stays kneeling in silence.⁶ What these two official acts have in common is that they both took place on a post-World War II international stage. Furthermore, they were both performed by representatives of peoples who were ‘defeated’ rather than ‘liberated’ in 1945. It follows that the two heads of state led two former Nazi-perpetrating countries: Austria and West Germany. Apart from that, these scenes could not be more different. One portrays a group of happy men in front of cheering crowds looking forward to a promising future, while the other shows a man alone, distanced from suspicious bystanders, looking back to a shameful past. One statesman gives a picture of his country’s innocence and liberation from undeserved victimhood, whereas the other statesman portrays himself and his country as a guilty, morally responsible, and remorseful perpetrator. From these two acts, it is clear that how the Nazi legacy was remembered in West Germany and Austria differed fundamentally. Yet, West Germans and Austrians had the same history with Nazism: both countries formed the ⁵ Based on Steininger (2005, 142–4). See also Lukas Zimmer, ‘Als Figl Österreich freisprach’, 14 May 2015, available at: http://orf.at/stories/2278432/2278433/(accessed: 13 April 2020). ⁶ Based on Brandt (1976, 398–9).

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imperial centre of the Third Reich, and their populations served in the German Wehrmacht and held—to an equal extent—high-ranking positions in the Nazi regime. They were not only brothers-in-arms but also the same country since Austria’s voluntary Anschluss (merger) with Germany in 1938. Needless to say, they also had an equal part in the Nazi extermination machinery and the ensuing Holocaust. As a result, after Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945, both were occupied and divided up among the four Allied Powers. Their post-war societies thus consisted of Nazi perpetrators, victims, and many bystanders (Hillberg 1993).⁷ With their shared historic Nazi legacy but diverse collective memories thereof, Germany and Austria form ‘natural counter-cases’ for comparative study. The empirical qualitative analysis of this book thus centres on a comparison between (West) Germany⁸ and Austria in the post-World War II era. The book employs a case-study technique because it is particularly well suited for determining causal mechanisms between collective memory and policies (George and Bennett 2005). Understanding the multiple effects of collective memory on IR required selecting cases with strong but varied collective memories vis-à-vis the same historical event. In the case of (West) Germany and Austria, the legacy in question is National Socialism, World War II, and the Holocaust. While both countries were the imperial centre of the Third Reich before 1945, they, however and crucially for case selection, have formed very different collective memories/narratives since then. The advantage of this case selection is that the countries have the same history and role therein, thus only showing variation in their collective memory. In that, they form ideal counter-cases to demonstrate the impact of different collective memories over a country’s policies in IR. In terms of collective memory’s content, the case studies of this book focus on the Nazi legacy as the cornerstone of German and Austrian memory. The timeframe for the empirical analyses begins with the end of World War II in 1945 and finishes in 2015. To do justice to the alternating impact of collective ⁷ Hillberg (1993) originally made this claim for Germany. However, the historic numbers relative to country size also render it valid for Austria. Around 700,000 Austrians were members of the NSDAP, 90,000 of whom had already been illegal members prior to 1938. Once war began, more than one million Austrians served in the Wehrmacht (1,126,000 Austrians according to Jagschitz 2000, 80) and 60,000 Austrians belonged to the Waffen SS. As a result, around 250,000 Austrians died in combat or became prisoners of war (see Hanisch 1994, 380; Manoschek/Safrian 2000, 125; and Rathkolb 2010, 249). At the same time, Austrians also had leading positions in the Nazi extermination machinery, most prominently Kaltenbrunner, Globocnik, Murer, Stangl, Brunner, Lerch, and Burger. Not least, Adolf Hitler himself was Austrian, born in the city of Braunau am Inn (Hilberg 1985; Reiter 2001, 21–2). ⁸ Between 1949 and 1990, Germany was divided into West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the East German Democratic Republic (GDR), respectively. This book’s empirical case study before 1990 refers only to West Germany.

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memory in different points in time that are either closer or further away from World War II, the empirical scenarios move (West) Germany’s and Austria’s collective memory of Nazism through the decades. First, as strategy during the 1950s; then as identity in the 1960s, as behaviour during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and finally, as values in the new millennium. Within these decades, ‘critical situations’⁹ were selected to highlight the presence of collective memory in these diverse forms. They start with the question of reparation payments to the State of Israel in 1952, then the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961, the outbreak of war in the Middle East in 1967 and 1973, and finally the European refugee crisis in 2015. The advantage of comparing the reactions of (West) Germany and Austria to the same events is that such an analysis reveals the impact of different collective memories in the same situation. Furthermore, this case selection allows for a longer timeframe and thus assesses collective memory’s alternating influence on politics over time. If collective memory is indeed at the basis of the identity, behaviour, and value system of the case countries, then (West) Germany and Austria must not only have formed different collective identities but as a result—and over time—must have also developed diverse state behaviours and values.

Research Methods The book employs a combination of comparative case-study techniques with historical process-tracing in archival research, content, and discursive analysis as well as elite interviewing. Process-tracing is used to examine causal mechanisms at work between variations in collective memory and outcome (George and Bennett 2005; Beach and Pedersen 2012). In applying this method, I triangulate across multiple data pools, including primary archival sources, newspaper and other media reports, public opinion surveys, inperson interviews, and secondary literature. I employ process-tracing to ascertain temporal linkages not merely between but also within the cases as they move through time. Collective memory not only has a different content in the two cases and thus shows a different comparative impact on their policies, but it also changes ⁹ This book’s selection of critical situations follows the research design of the ontological security literature which too focuses on ‘critical situations’ to understand a country’s identity needs. Critical situations for Steele (2008) and Ejdus (2018) are events that disrupt or bear the potential to disrupt selfidentities.

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its form over time, and with it, its influence on political outcomes. As a consequence, collective memory can be directly/actively and indirectly/ passively impacting politics. Where the influence of collective memory is direct/active, memory is likely to be verbally expressed. On the other hand, where its influence is indirect/passive, it remains subconscious and, therefore, unmentioned. This phenomenon has obvious implications for methods, requiring the empirical case studies of this book to each follow their own, adapted methodological approach (Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003). Equally, a switch in methods is required dependent on who the ‘bearers’ and ‘makers’ of memory within a collective are. In the chapters of this book, they range from political elites to the broader public, situated in the international or the domestic environment of countries. Furthermore, Chapters 2 and 3 assess the official and public discourse surrounding collective memory in matters directly related to the Nazi past, that is, reparation payments and the case of Adolf Eichmann. In contrast, Chapters 4 and 5 deal with less obvious connections between the memories of Nazism, with the events in question being the Middle East conflict and the refugee crisis. Due to the chapters exploring varying points in time, each empirical analysis is furthermore built on diverse data sources. While for the historical chapters, official documents were available in the state archives, the last chapter relies more heavily on new media sources. To tackle memory’s active and passive, expressed and subtle, influences on policy outcomes, each empirical chapter thus lays out at the beginning the methodological approach most suitable for tracing the impact of collective memory as strategy, identity, behaviour, or values in diverse contexts and points in time.

Structure of the Book The book has two main goals. The first is to contribute to theory building to link collective memory with IR. The second, interconnected goal is to trace how collective memory influences a country’s international course of action through time. The book’s principal theoretical contribution is to yield the insights from the interdisciplinary collective memory concept and to add its unique temporal dimension to specify the nexus between identity and behaviour posited by IR’s ontological security scholarship. From this, it contributes to our understanding of ontological security as ‘temporal security’. With this new concept, it defines the origins of a country’s identity and describes how memory guides international state behaviour through time.

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10      Chapter 1 establishes a conceptual framework that connects the IR literature with the interdisciplinary collective memory concept. It does so by looking at IR’s burgeoning ontological security scholarship, starting with extrapolating the concept’s core components, particularly its understanding of the ‘self ’ or ‘identity’ of a country and its posited nexus to state behaviour. In a second step, it then explores the nature of collective memory, and establishes its unique, temporal, and social connotations as the grounds of its own definition of state identity. Combining the revised insights of IR’s ontological security scholarship with the interdisciplinary collective memory concept, a novel theoretical framework termed temporal security is developed. It describes countries as temporal security-seekers which out of the urge to ‘be-in-time’ establish continuities with their collective memory, that is, with their ‘narrated self in the past’. The reference point for this unfolding process is always collective memory, which manifests itself twofold: in specific memory content referencing the past but also in the four forms related to memory’s temporal nature: political strategy, public identity, state behaviour, and national values. In each of these forms, collective memory affects countries to either more direct or more indirect degrees. Chapters 2 to 5 pick up on how collective memory manifests in global politics through these four forms. Each chapter starts with theorizing ‘memory as political strategy’ (Chapter 2), ‘memory as public identity’ (Chapter 3), ‘memory as state behaviour’ (Chapter 4), and ‘memory as national values’ (Chapter 5) in IR. In discussing these various forms, the chapters place memory in time, alternate it between countries’ international and domestic spheres, and record the varying degree of their impact on policy outcomes. Following the theoretical considerations, Chapters 2–5 then illustrate their points via the cases of (West) Germany and Austria, highlighting the varying impact their diverse collective memories have had on their policies. To account for time, the chapters trace collective memory in the case countries chronologically from the end of 1945 to the present in selected ‘critical situations’. The immediate post-war period, the late 1940s and 1950s, is when West Germany’s and Austria’s official memories about the Nazi legacy formed. In comparing West German and Austrian post-war policies towards Israel, particularly with regards to the question of reparations to the Jewish state in 1952, Chapter 2 illustrates how the foundations for their collective memories were laid in the international sphere. In more detail, this chapter spells out how post-war international constellations and foreign-policy interests framed the beginnings of two very different narratives of the same Nazi past.

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Once these two contrary collective memories took shape internationally, they began to carry diverse national identities for West Germany and Austria in the domestic sphere. In comparing West German and Austrian reactions to the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961, Chapter 3 demonstrates how a selective narrative of the Nazi past began to underlie these countries’ sense of self. Already a decade after their stories were forged initially for foreign policy purposes, these provided the lenses through which the public and its representatives perceived the Eichmann trial, the Nazi crimes, and their own role in them. With robust national narratives in place only twenty years after the end of World War II, Chapter 4 illustrates how—in the medium term—these began to shape the international behaviour of West Germany and Austria in diverse ways. The empirical scenario analysed in this chapter is the outbreak of war in the Middle East. In comparing how West Germany and Austria came to take sides with either Israel or the Arabs during the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War and international oil crisis of 1973, this chapter explains their diverse courses of action with their different memories. Lastly, our framework also suggests that—over the long run—collective memory forms not only a country’s identity but also its value system. As such, Germany and Austria must keep identifying different versions of how they ought to act in their current policies. This belated influence of collective memory is illustrated in Chapter 5 and draws on the example of the diverse German and Austrian responses to the refugee crisis of 2015. Triggered by the Syrian war, large numbers of refugees started to march along the Balkan route towards the EU. However, the refugees arrived in countries which—if our theory holds—looked back in different ways and, therefore, must have identified diverse versions of how they ought to act vis-à-vis this pressing, normative matter in world politics.

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1 Temporal Security in IR Combining Ontological Security with Collective Memory

The first chapter of this book theoretically conceptualizes collective memory in international relations (IR). The link between the IR discipline and the interdisciplinary collective memory concept is provided through the framework of ontological security. The inquiry begins by extrapolating the nature of ontological security and its most essential component: state identity. It then moves on to theorize collective memory as the underlying carrier of state identity. Collective memory highlights identity’s temporal dimension and manifests it within the collective frameworks of narration. At the end, a new approach, ‘temporal security’, is developed. It combines the ontological security of being with the definition of memory as being-in-time. Securityseeking behaviour for states now implies to be temporally grounded in a consistent narrative that links past, present, and future. The reference point for this as of yet untheorized security need is collective memory. Manifesting itself in the varying forms of political strategy, public identity, state behaviour, and national values, collective memory thus navigates countries through time in IR.

Conceptualizing Ontological Security: The Security of Being To be secure is to survive. In starting from this premise, classical IR theory long assumed that states follow first and foremost one goal: ‘physical security’. To be secure for a country thus means to retain the integrity of its material ‘body’. The emotional driver behind this objective is fear. In an anarchic international sphere that resembles Thomas Hobbes’ lawless ‘state of nature’, diffident states strive for safety in the face of an omnipresent threat to their body. The reaction

Collective Memory in International Relations. Kathrin Bachleitner, Oxford University Press (2021). © Kathrin Bachleitner. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192895363.003.0002

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to an imminent fear of violent destruction is the immediate, reflexive move ‘to survive’.¹ To be secure is to be. Existence, few would deny, is more than mere survival. Except for in situations of extremity, ‘to survive’ is not predominant, but rather the question of how ‘to live’. In the calmer waters of an ordinary, daily environment, countries thus strive primarily for ‘ontological security’. To be secure now requires retaining integrity with the ‘self ’, or in other words, with ‘identity’, instead of with a material body. The emotional driver behind this objective is not fear, but anxiety in the face of potential disconnects with the self. The response to anxiety about identity loss is a self-reflective struggle over ‘being’.

The struggle of states for the ‘security of being’ rather than mere ‘physical survival’ is the focus of a fast-growing ontological security scholarship (see, among others, McSweeney 1999; Steele 2005, 2008; Mitzen 2006, 2018; Zarakol 2010, 2017; Subotic and Zarakol 2012; Rumelili 2015, 2017; Mälksoo 2015; Subotic 2016, 2018; Kinnvall and Mitzen 2017, 2018; Kinnvall, Manners, and Mitzen 2017; Ejdus 2018, 2019). Combining psychological and sociological understandings of identity, the ontological security scholarship provides a convincing constructivist explanation for state behaviour in IR: for their ontological security, states establish an integrity with their identity in their courses of action.² Of course, in such a view, ‘states’ and their ‘security’ are ‘social constructs’. They are constructed and reconstructed in interaction (agency) that takes place in social reality (structure). Furthermore, states are ‘social actors’. This notion assigns them attributes associated with persons: rationality, identity, interests, beliefs, emotions, memories. ‘States as persons’ (Wendt 2004, 290)—even though they are not persons—navigate a social reality suffused with social meaning as if they were persons: they act, deliberate, believe, feel, and remember. Building on these disputed but arguably necessary constructivist assumptions, Jennifer Mitzen (2006) and Brent Steele (2005) first outline the concept ¹ This description serves illustrative purposes and is based on an abridged version of the realist and neorealist assumptions about state behaviour under conditions of international anarchy (Morgenthau 1973; Waltz 1979). ² Together with a large proportion of the ontological security literature in IR, this book focuses on states as ontological security seekers and providers (see, for instance, Mitzen 2006; Steele 2008; Zarakol 2010). However, the strong focus on states within IR’s ontological security scholarship is also legitimately criticized by an emerging body of work (see, for instance, Kinnvall 2006; Chernobrov 2016; Croft and Vaughan-Williams 2017; Ejdus 2019).

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14      of ontological security for IR research agendas. Starting with Anthony Giddens’ (1991, 53–4) sociological definition of ontological security for individuals as ‘the need to experience oneself as a whole, continuous person in time—as being rather than constantly changing—in order to realize a sense of agency’ (Mitzen 2006, 342), they begin to extrapolate the idea for international state behaviour. ‘Ontological security is security not of the body but of the self, the subjective sense of who one is, which enables and motivates action and choice’ (Mitzen 2006, 344). Building on the discipline’s familiar assumptions on physical security-seeking behaviour in states, Mitzen and Steele posit ontological security-seeking behaviour as another form of ‘self-help’ for states to survive in IR. However, this time it is with an adherence to a somewhat intangible self than to a material body composed of territory, people, and sovereign institutions. Ontological security is therefore defined as ‘integrity with the “self ”’ or—often used synonymously—‘integrity with identity’. Ontological security-seeking then is the ontological urge for states to abide by their identity in their behaviour. The ontological security scholarship thus explains identity-abiding behaviour in states and its outcomes for IR. That states are somehow bound to their identity in their behaviour becomes clear from a glance at global news headlines: often we hear references to, for instance, US policy actions as being rejected as ‘un-American’. Notably, under the presidency of Donald Trump, to be ‘un-American’ has become a frequently used insult by political parties and players from inside and outside the United States.³ Equally, individual EU member states are regularly warned that their decisions contradict ‘European values’.⁴ There are also countless instances where British foreign policies have been criticized as going against ‘British values’. The same assertion was applied recently in connection with

³ His opponents have often denounced President Trump’s policies as ‘un-American’. Equally, President Trump has frequently accused Democrats of being ‘un-American’. From the outside, particularly from the EU, the accusation of Trumps’ policies being ‘un-American’ have been heard as well. See, for instance, Beverly Gage (2017), ‘How “un-American” became the political insult of the moment’, The New York Times Magazine, 21 March 2017. Online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/ 03/21/magazine/how-un-american-became-the-political-insult-of-the-moment.html (accessed 3 November 2019); Katie Rogers (2019), ‘As impeachment moves forward, Trump’s language turns darker’, The New York Times, 1 October 2019. Online at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/ politics/trump-treason-impeachment.html (accessed 3 November 2019). Brian Stelter (2018), ‘ACLU says Trump’s move is “un-American” ’, CNN, 13 November 2018. Online at https://edition.cnn.com/ politics/live-news/cnn-sues-trump-acosta-reaction/h_3df01e7853e79d08afed206060be9282 (accessed: 3 November 2019). Esther King (2019), ‘Martin Schulz: Donald Trump is “un-American” ’, Politico, 2 January 2019. Online at https://www.politico.eu/article/martin-schulz-donald-trump-is-un-ameri can/ (accessed 3 November 2019). ⁴ E.g. Owen Jones (2018), ‘Hungary is making a mockery of “EU values”. It’s time to kick it out’, The Guardian, 22 June 2018. Online at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/22/hun gary-eu-values-refugees-viktor-orban (accessed 3 November 2019).

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the Brexit debate and the UK government’s handling of Brexit in ‘un-British’ ways.⁵ Moreover, in the German case, there seems to exist an unspoken, international consensus that German politicians face an almost mandatory obligation to adhere to ‘a culture of constraint and accommodation’ (Malici 2006). Apparently, to not be rejected, states must somehow abide by their identity. However, this begs the question of what identity must a country (and, per extension, its representative officials) adhere to in their policies? Especially in collectives, which lack the subjectivity and personhood of individuals, what is—if we accept in the first place that countries have a self—the essence of their self ? And then, when does this identity—and with it, state behaviour—change and how?

The Nexus between State Identity and State Behaviour To posit a nexus between state identity and state behaviour implies specifying what a country’s self is. This question, however, opens sites of disagreement among ontological security scholars and broadly splits them into two camps. The first follows Mitzen (2006) emphasizing the ‘structural’, ‘sociological’, and ‘exogenous’ end of a state’s identity construction. This part of the scholarship looks ‘outwards’, at how state identity is constituted in interaction with ‘external others’. State behaviour as a result of this becomes described as an effort to balance actions in order to achieve an ‘integrity of the self ’ through establishing routines with others. This view thus focuses—as most IR constructivists do—on the external, social dimension of identity. The second camp of ontological security scholars gives precedence to the internal, personal dimension of identity. As such, their work is located on the ‘agentic’, ‘psychological’, and ‘endogenous’ end of identity construction and was first introduced by Brent Steele (2005, 2008). Scholars herein look ‘inwards’, to how identity is constituted in interaction with the self. State behaviour, with this, becomes an effort to balance actions in order to achieve an ‘integrity of the self ’ through establishing routines with the self. The first approach, therefore, can broadly be described as ‘other-regarding’, the second as ‘self-regarding’. In both, the self of a state seems to refer to an ‘idea’ ⁵ The Guardian, ‘John Major attacks “ultra-Brexiteers” as undemocratic and un-British’, 19 March 2017. Online at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/19/john-major-attacks-ultra-brexiteersundemocratic-un-british-theresa-may-eu-brexit (accessed: 3 November 2019). LBC, ‘Nick Clegg describes Brexit as a “curiously un-British thing to do” ’, 17 October 2018. Online at https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/ presenters/eddie-mair/nick-clegg-brexit-as-a-curiously-un-british/ (accessed 3 November 2019).

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16      conveyed in ‘the biographical self-narrative of a state’ which either references its own history or its history with others. Still, from both of these viewpoints, behaviour that seemed irrational from a physical security-seeking perspective can now be explained. Take, for instance, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Mitzen’s concept (2006) convincingly illustrates how routinized animosities serve Israeli and Palestinian ontological security needs as their mutual ‘external others’ despite the grave concerns an ongoing conflict raises for their physical security. Steele (2005), on the other hand, employs his self-regarding approach to show how liberal aspects of the British identity hindered British interference in the American Civil War once the issue of slavery came onto the table in the summer of 1862. Furthermore, in his book, Steele (2008, 114) convincingly demonstrates how the liberal identity of NATO members impelled a humanitarian intervention in Kosovo in the spring of 1999. In all cases, ‘the anxious urge for ontological security’ overrides ‘the fearful urge of physical security’ and sets in motion a balancing behaviour that speaks to an aspect of identity. However, the origins and development of an identity relevant for behaviour remains untheorized, leaving us with a seemingly fixed and static yet vague identity concept that, in turn, determines action. Altogether this leads us to the second site of disagreement among scholars: how does state identity and, with it, state behaviour change? By departing from the traditional IR terms ‘security’, ‘stability’, and ‘integrity with identity’, the ontological security scholarship in its beginnings introduced the otherwise very dynamic identity concept as a quasi-deterministic element for state behaviour along the simplified logic of the following: because a country has a certain identity, it will behave in a particular way. With this, scholars, however, wrongly collapsed into one another the concepts of self, identity, and ontological security (Browning and Joenniemi 2017, 31). This obliteration closed the essential ‘question of being’ for the sake of explaining stability in state behaviour in instances where traditional IR accounts fall short (for the latest critique on the ontological security scholarship, see Mälksoo 2015; Rossdale 2015; Rumelili 2015; Lebow 2016; Subotic 2016; Browning and Joenniemi 2017; Croft and Vaughan-Williams 2017; Kinnvall 2017; Ejdus 2019). The scholarship’s initial focus on security and ‘identity as biographical continuity’ (based on Giddens 1991, 53) thus locked countries into specific courses of action that speak to a seemingly predetermined and static identity. While helping parsimony in the initial outlines of the concept and its applicability for IR, closing down on identity in this way sacrificed the possibilities of explaining how identity changes with state behaviour and vice versa.

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The concept of ‘security-as-being’, however, requires a high degree of flexibility and adaptability of identity in a continually evolving world. For the ontological security scholarship not to become redundant, scholars therefore now need to forsake simplicity and resort back to the complexity and dynamism that the identity concept entails. To yield the innovative potential of ontological security’s already known components—identity, selfhood, being, anxiety—we only need to go back to them and dissect them into their specifics in order to finely distinguish the process through which security-as-being affects the identity–behaviour nexus in states. At this point, it is not enough anymore to posit particular identity constructions as a motivational force for state behaviour (all constructivists do that). Instead, we need to interrogate more closely the contextual nature of ‘selfhood’ and ‘the self ’s reflexive ability and ways of articulation’ that might shift a country between identities and routines in moving forward (Browning and Joenniemi 2017, 36–7).

Anxiety, Shame, and the Ongoing Self-Reflective Struggle over Being To start, let us take the underlying emotional concepts—fear and anxiety— posited to drive state behaviour at face value rather than, as some works do, collapsing them into one. Security-as-survival and security-as-being are driven by these two seemingly similar, yet very different emotions. From social psychology, we know that they describe two, almost complementary feelings and thus set in motion very different reactions. Fear, on the one hand, is triggered in extraordinary situations that constrain actors to their limits. At its most extreme, it paralyses action. Anxiety, on the other hand, is always present. It oversees the construction of routines to ensure continuity and predictability in the ordinary social lives of agents (Giddens 1991, 47–8). Unlike fear, it does not have a clear beginning or an end, but it instead accompanies life and keeps it moving. Anxiety is—what the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called—‘the alarming possibility of being able’.⁶ It is ‘freedom’s reality as possibility for possibility’ (Steele 2013, 164). Anxiety as such is egoistic. It is geared towards the self and exists in a relationship with perceived capabilities connected to that self. Hence, while ⁶ The most sustained treatment of anxiety by Kierkegaard is The Concept of Anxiety, where he uses the Danish term angst. In his famous work, Fear and Trembling (1843), he uses the term ‘dread’.

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18      fear looks outward, towards surrounding and threatening ‘others’, anxiety looks inward, towards the self or identity. While fear triggers an immediate reaction to overcome an external constraint/threat, the question as to what to do with anxiety remains open. Fear ceases with a—almost reflexive—response that re-establishes security. Anxiety, on the other hand, cannot be overcome with the establishment of security. On the contrary, it needs to be wrestled with always. Thus, the question of being can never be fully settled in the achievement of ontological security because anxiety refers to the inescapable insecurity at the heart of identity (Zehfuss 2003; Mälksoo 2015, 226; Croft and Vaughan-Williams 2017, 18–20; Ejdus 2019, ch. 2). Anxiety thus drives a self-reflexive struggle through time. In this function, it reflects—as Martin Heidegger writes—the state of ‘being-in-the-world’ as such (Heidegger 1927, H. 134).⁷ Unlike fear, anxiety therefore does not limit people and countries to a singular secure outcome; it instead renders them ‘able to’ continue along multiple possible pathways in the process of ensuring ontological continuity. In its existential characteristics, the emotion of anxiety thus helps the ontological security concept to distinguish between ontological security as the process and the outcome. The process described is ontological security-seeking behaviour to ensure security-as-being. The outcome of seeking security-as-being, however, is not ontological security per se, but instead is ‘ontological continuity’. Meanwhile, the state of a ‘self-reflective anxiety’ is accompanied by another emotion: ‘shame’. Shame is an inward-looking emotion. It is triggered by an internal, private sense of transgression (Giddens 1991, 65–7; Steele 2005, 526–7; Fukuyama 2018, 18). As such, it is a negative self-directed affect, like guilt. However, unlike guilt, in the case of shame, no law is transgressed. It instead involves the awareness of oneself as being judged negatively.⁸ Fear, in stark contrast to shame, is other-directed (Giddens 1991, 44–5). While shame grows out of the inward-looking state of anxiety, ‘diffidence’, as Thomas Hobbes characterized it, grows out of the outward-looking emotion of ⁷ In Being and Time Heidegger describes fear and anxiety as ‘moods’ and distinguishes between them. As moods they have a tripartite structure: that in the face of which we have the mood (1), the mood itself (2), and that about which we have the mood (3). Anxiety has this general structure; however, notably with anxiety, (1) and (3) are being-in-the-world as such (H. 134). [In all editions of Heidegger’s Being and Time, there are ‘H.’ numbers in the margins which refer to the original pagination of the German edition, Sein und Zeit (1927)]. In What is Metaphysics? (1949), Heidegger refers to anxiety as essential (cf. 233–4), because as that occurrence in which the nothing is originally manifest to Dasein (‘being’), it is a necessary condition on the possibility of all manifestations of being. Anxiety, with Heidegger, is therefore the ground of the manifestation of all beings. ⁸ For an excellent philosophical discussion of shame, see Williams’ Shame and Necessity (1993) and Velleman’s The Genesis of Shame (2001).

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fear. By diffidence, Hobbes referred to a lack of trust in others (Hobbes and Gaskin 1998).⁹ Shame, however, reflects a lack of trust in oneself. Diffidence therefore is generated out of insecurity vis-à-vis a threat to the body and in IR translates into the classical strive for physical security in states. Shame, on the other hand, represents insecurity regarding issues of self-identity, and as such, in the ontological security literature ‘translates into state anxiety over the ability to reconcile past (or prospective) actions’ (Steele 2008, 13). In being tied to identity, shame thus is a motivator for policies and political action within the ontological security scholarship (Zarakol 2010). This clear distinction between fear and anxiety—and per extension diffidence and shame—serves to illustrate the increased explanatory potential that flows from the already existing components of the ontological security concept if we take its terms seriously. From it, we can then also derive more precise definitions of how an ‘anxiety-induced identity–behaviour nexus’ can be differentiated from a ‘fear-induced physical body–behaviour nexus’. If we indeed integrate anxiety under the definition of ‘driving action’ or ‘being able’ instead of viewing it as another slightly less threatening version of fear, then anxiety, unlike fear, does not have any goal. Moreover, anxiety and its self-regarding outlook links ontological security-seeking behaviour to a selfreflective ability and thus places this reaction at the heart of the process that is identity-abiding behaviour. To posit ontological security as a way for states to seek integrity with the self, scholars, therefore, cannot go around (a) clearly determining the self for states and (b) situating it in a dynamic process that is self-reflective and embedded in the emotional workings of anxiety and shame. Only describing identity-abiding behaviour in this way distinguishes the anxiety-generated urge of ‘being able’ from the fear-generated threat of ‘being unable’ in IR.

Ontological Continuity Instead of Security The distinction between ontological and physical security concepts, therefore, must not be one of different referents (self/identity and body) as Mitzen and Steele had initially suggested, but one of different sorts of emotions and practices that they generate.¹⁰ The emotions central to the concepts are fear ⁹ Thomas Hobbes’ famous work Leviathan was first published in 1651 and is quoted from Oxford World’s Classics edited by J.C.A. Gaskin (1998). ¹⁰ Rumelili (2015) started questioning the distinction according to different referents (body/self), and first suggested looking at the difference in practices: de-securitization/securitization and self/other

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20      versus anxiety, and per extension, diffidence and shame. The practices that flow from them can be described and distinguished as an ‘object-determined outcome’ resulting from a ‘reflexive reaction’ in the case of fear, and, as ‘subject-determined outcomes’ resulting from a ‘self-reflective ability’ in the case of anxiety. These are very different logics that need to be acknowledged in order to yield their utility and explanatory power. The clear distinctions between the physical and ontological security concepts are summarized in Table 1.1. To avoid falling back on the familiar and arguably much simpler logic of security-as-survival when actually wanting to understand security-as-being, it is crucial not to mistake security for the outcome. In the ontological security concept, security can only ever mean the process. This process explains the nexus between state identity and state behaviour as the urge to establish security-as-being. However, the outcome of such a process can never be ontological security. It is instead ontological continuity. Multiple possible pathways navigating ‘insecurity’ thus lead to ontological continuity, but certainly not towards a singular outcome of security. When describing the identity–behaviour nexus in states, attention must therefore be paid to all its detailed components. The precise description is not a process by which identity is secured ‘to survive’ a situation of fear about identity destruction at the hands of a specific object in a particular moment in Table 1.1 Distinction between physical and ontological security concepts Security need

Goal

Security-assurvival

Integrity of Threat to the body the body

Security-asbeing

Trigger

Emotional Response driver

Fear Immediate, reflexive (diffidence) reaction against being unable ‘to survive’ Over time, selfIntegrity of Discomfort/ Anxiety reflective struggle to disconnect (shame) the self/ be able ‘to be’ with the self identity

Outcome Physical security

Ontological security*

Note: * Continuity would be more accurate. Source: Author.

relations. However, she does not follow up with a clear distinction of these practices according to the diverse underlying emotional logics. Rumelili argues that survivalist fears identify an ‘object’, in her case scenario the immigrants, so that ontological security underlines an ‘ongoing concern with stability’. To deal with this ongoing anxiety-generated concern, countries turn to securitization. With this, however, countries follow the logic of physical security: a fear-induced logic leads to securitizing an object of fear to re-establish (physical) security.

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time. As was shown earlier, this description does not match the exact definition of security-as-being. Fear and anxiety are not the same. Anxiety is therefore not triggered like fear is, nor does it respond to identifiable objects of fear (Browning and Joenniemi 2017, 45). For ontological security not to become old wine in new bottles, the description above must thus be reformulated as follows: identity is renegotiated in a permanent struggle with anxiety ‘to be able to be’ = keep life in line (continue) with an intersubjective self that stretches from the past to the present and into the future.

The Self ’s Temporal Dimension From the description of the self as ‘stretching from the past to the present and into the future’, we see that ontological security must necessarily include a temporal dimension. The question of being must always be posited—as existential philosophers had already insisted—in relation to a past self and a ‘potential’ emerging or becoming self. The permanent struggle with the self is thus—for Kierkegaard—a wrestle in historical terms: ‘How was I in the past? What am I now? What can I become in the future?’ (Steele 2013, 165). While Kierkegaard remains focused on the self, i.e. ‘the object of being’, Martin Heidegger was the first philosopher to discuss the actual ‘question of being’ in a definite temporal horizon (Berenskoetter 2014, 268). In his monumental work Being and Time (Sein und Zeit), he suggests that time is the horizon within which any understanding of being is possible. For ‘being’, Heidegger uses the German term Dasein, literally translated as ‘being there’. In German, this word is also used synonymously with ‘existence’. Being there cannot be separated from its ‘historicity’, from time and the world to which it relates. The understanding of being is therefore grounded in temporality. It stretches from birth to death, and more broadly, it is also embedded in a so-called ‘world historicality’ that refers to history and tradition. As such, for Heidegger, being always needs to be interpreted within a worldly, temporal horizon. Being thus can be nothing else but the experience of being, or—as I will henceforth call it in order to show the concept’s distinctive temporality—‘being-in-time’. Note that this concept of being has an evolving character: Being-in-time always remains incomplete, and in a perpetual state of becoming. There is always a part of existence that is not yet. Heidegger therefore discusses the self as consisting in Seinskönnen, or the ‘ability-to-be’, where this ability is a temporal unity of projection towards possibilities inherited from the past (Käufer 2012). With these considerations,

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22      Heidegger helps to populate ontological security’s somewhat ahistorical and vague perception of being with a past, present, and future. Hence, ontological security-seeking behaviour in states must always imply a clear yet dynamic, temporal interpretation of identity through time. To explain state behaviour in any meaningful way with the ontological security concept thus requires looking at a more extended timeframe that includes the past in the present and moves it on to the future. Without it, we sacrifice the concept’s meaning, dynamism, and explanatory power. To integrate such complex temporal dynamics of being-in-time, or in other words, to breathe life into the scholarship’s rather static identity/security concept, this book suggests turning to the interdisciplinary literature on collective memory. Influenced by sociology, psychology, history, and anthropology as well as political science, collective memory presents as a multifaceted concept that helps to leave behind the familiar, but arguably, limiting territory of IR approaches. Thus, the interdisciplinary collective memory concept is consulted in this study in the hope that it offers ‘new’ answers to ‘old’ challenges underlying IR research agendas. More specifically, the dynamic, intersubjective, and temporally conscious collective memory concept is employed to refine the identity–behaviour nexus posited by the ontological security scholarship, and helps to answer, first, where state identity comes from, and second, how it changes.

Theorizing Collective Memory: The Securing of Identity ‘Memory . . . is the awareness of self-sameness through time.’ With this assertion, the Enlightenment philosopher John Locke presaged our contemporary discourse on identity and located the ultimate source of the self in memory (Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Levy 2011b, 9; see also Blustein 2008, 42).¹¹ Memory, in other words, is the carrier of identity.¹² It ensures identity’s continuation and as such, ultimately, also its security. In looking closely at the process by which memory—in its collective form—coins identity, we are

¹¹ In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), John Locke sees memory as a necessary condition of personal identity. He asserts that ‘as far as consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person’ (Locke 1979, II.xxvii.9). ¹² This book acknowledges but leaves aside the philosophical critique of Locke’s view. There are notorious problems with the so-called ‘memory-criterion’ for personal identity, namely that identity is a transitive relation, but memory is not. Furthermore, and in direct response to Locke, for many other philosophers the continuity of an individual cannot be dependent on one factor (see, for instance, Schechtman 1990).

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therefore likely to gain new insights into the nexus between identity and state behaviour as well.

Collective Memory as a Social Process To start, we must rephrase the above-made claim in more precise terms: namely, memory is the carrier of identity as being-in-time. However, memory, in its collective form, i.e. ‘collective memory’, works differently than the rather individual concept of ‘remembering’ would suggest. Even if remembering is a human cognitive capacity and memories are born in peoples’ brains, ‘we are unaware that we are but an echo’, writes Maurice Halbwachs (2011, 140), the founding father of the collective memory scholarship.¹³ In doing so, he asserts that as individuals, we only echo memories. The echo chambers, however, are social frames. For Halbwachs, people can reason, act, live, and per extension, remember and forget only within social frameworks.¹⁴ With this assumption, he lifts ‘individual consciousness’ out of its isolated and sealed self and embeds it in society. Furthermore, and importantly, with this, Halbwachs not only started a tradition of scholarship that views the ‘operation of memory in individuals’ as mediated by social arrangements but, in fact, as structured by them: ‘It is in society that people normally acquire their memories. It is also in society that they recall, recognize, and localize their memories’ (Halbwachs, quoted in Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Levy 2011b, 18). It follows that the forms of individual memories vary according to social organization, that is, the social groups of which individuals are a part.¹⁵ With this assertion, Halbwachs circumvents the necessity of distinguishing between individual and social components of remembering. Even if we remember alone, in the solitary spaces of our minds, memories are always recalled socially. Much more, only the group of which individuals are part of gives

¹³ Halbwachs’ work, The Collective Memory, was published posthumously and included essays he worked on during the 1930s and early 1940s. The first translation into English appeared in 1980 but remains out of print. An excerpt, however, was printed in The Collective Memory Reader (2011a), edited by Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Levy. The original quotes from Halbwachs in this chapter are all taken from this Reader and are therefore cited with the date 2011. ¹⁴ Halbwachs was a student of Émile Durkheim and built on his work, particularly on Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1915). ¹⁵ Note that with this assertion, Halbwachs is more careful than his mentor Émile Durkheim and employs ‘groups’ in place of Durkheim’s ‘Society’ (with a capital S), thus implying that there can be multiple collective memories which are in turn effective markers of social differentiation (Olick 1999, 334).

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24      them the means to reconstruct memories in the first place (Olick and Robbins 1998, 109). Individuals—according to Halbwachs—can only remember as social beings.¹⁶ With this, the collective memory concept ratchets up from individuals to collectives in a very different way than the ontological security concept did. Ontological security scholars have relied on states as social beings to infer on them the capacity for ontological security needs as if they were persons. Collective memory scholars, however, do not view the collective as if it was a person who remembers. They instead infer that individuals are social beings and thus have the capacity for memories only through social construction—as if they were collectives. The collective memory concept thus allows us to disregard the notion of inferring from how individuals remember an idea as to how that process might play out in states, and instead to look straight to the collective and its social frames for locating memory. These are reflected in public symbols, official representations, rituals, speeches, and policies (Olick 1999, 341–3). Altogether, these convey—if we carry the collective memory concept to its extreme—the ‘collective consciousness’ of a country. Notably, as collective consciousness, collective memory forms—to borrow from literary critic Meyer H. Abrams’ (1953) famous book title—‘a mirror and a lamp’. It is a mirror that reflects the social world, but it is also the light that spills out to illuminate that world. Memory is—as the sociologist Barry Schwartz (2011, 242–7) put it—a model of and a model for society. It follows that now we have a collective, which through the process of collective memory, literally takes on its own life as a reflection of society and a guidance for it. With this, the concept puts the collective first and the individual second. Collective memory, therefore, is neither dependent on individual minds nor an aggregated form of collected memories.¹⁷ It can instead be said to describe a social process which transmits group identity through time.

¹⁶ Halbwachs’ definitions of collective memory include two distinctive forms of it: socially framed individual memories and collective commemorative representations. In this, he remains a typical nineteenth-century theorist who sees individual- and collective-level problems as problems of different orders. I will only take his latter definition of collective memory forward while acknowledging that there are overlaps between the two without necessarily having to establish a neat dichotomy between them (Olick 1999, 336). ¹⁷ See Olick’s (1999) useful distinction of collective memory as either collected memory, meaning the aggregation of socially framed individual memories of a group, or collective memory, referring to a collective phenomenon sui generis, e.g. social frames and representations of memory.

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Collective Memory as a Country’s Historical Identity Let us see how this process plays out in more detail in countries, first, with regards to the unique temporal dimension that the concept of collective memory contains. Memory is situated in the present rather than in the past. This feature breathes a temporal—and thus variable—dynamic into a collective’s ‘historical identity’. For Halbwachs, ‘time does not flow, but endures and continues to exist. It must do so, for otherwise how could memory reascend the course of time?’ (Halbwachs 2011, 148). The past and the present in this view become ‘two zones of the same domain’, and that domain is ‘being’, or more precisely ‘being-in-time’. Otherwise, there would be no collective memory: ‘How could any society or group exist and gain self-awareness if it could not survey a set of present and past events, if it did not have the capacity to reascend the course of time and passes continually over traces left behind of itself?’ (Halbwachs 2011, 149). In the course of this process, any group imposes on its members the illusion that in a perpetually changing world, certain images have acquired a relative continuity. These ‘illusions of resemblances’ need to be implicitly collective, i.e. shared (Olick 1999, 335). That means, they are collective representations sui generis which, as Halbwachs put it, ‘reascend the course of time’. In the social sciences, Halbwachs’ idea of ‘shared illusions of resemblances’ has become of particular interest to a burgeoning scholarship on nations and nationalism (Olick 1998). Described by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) as ‘inventions of tradition’, they are placed at the heart of nations and their nationally fabricated, artificial identity. As Anderson (1983) had famously put it, nations are but ‘imagined communities’. With the ‘national imagining process’ stretching from the past to the present and future, memory has come to serve as ‘the handmaiden of nationalist zeal, history its high counsel’ (Olick 1998, 378). Collective memory—even if (and maybe precisely because) it departs from historical fact—thus is necessary in order to form a national identity through time. In creating a ‘shared illusion of a national resemblance’, a nation fosters unity, loyalty, and a sense of obligation that ranges from the willingness to pay taxes to the sacrifice of life in soldierly duty. As Ernest Renan had put it, ‘a nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity [ . . . ] It presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life.’ Its existence is nothing less than ‘a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s

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26      existence is a perpetual affirmation of life’ (Renan 1882).¹⁸ If we translate Renan’s description of what a nation is into the familiar terms of the ontological security scholarship, a nation is the self-reflective collective struggle to be able to live together. Notably, Renan’s definition contains an explicit temporal dimension: the permanent collective struggle moves a nation between past, present, and future. This is also the social process that collective memory describes. Through it, a country’s ‘historical identity’ is coined in the present. Importantly, in all these descriptions, collective memory differs from history in two respects: there can be several collective memories, whereas, of history, there is only one. History, moreover, is a record of changes. Collective memory, on the other hand, is a record of resemblances (Halbwachs 2011, 147). Through the process of remembering, the changes that do occur in the group are transformed into similarities. Memory’s ‘function is to develop the several aspects of one single content—that is, the various fundamental characteristics of the group itself ’ (Halbwachs 2011, 147). Notably, in Halbwachs’ description, memory underwrites collective identity. It is—as Jeffrey Olick (1999, 335) put it—‘the active past’, ‘the central faculty of our being in time; it is the negotiation of past and present through which we define our individual and collective selves’ (Olick 2003, quoted in Bell 2009, 345). With this, collective memory—and not history—is placed at the basis of a country’s dynamic (historical) identity. In fact, through collective memory, ‘the possession of historical identity and the possession of a social identity coincide’ (Olick and Robbins 1998, 122), be it for individuals or for states. In ensuring ‘continuity with a collective self ’, collective memory furthermore strongly links to the notion of ‘a required integrity of the self ’ proposed by the ontological security literature. However, the interdisciplinary collective memory concept establishes its nexus between memory and identity in more dynamic—and explicitly—temporal ways.

Collective Memory as a National Narrative The vehicle by which collective memory carries the past into the present and future is narration. Narratives are concrete forms of remembering and forgetting. They are, as James V. Wertsch (2008) calls them, ‘textual resources’ which organize collective memory. Notably, defined as such, narratives refer ¹⁸ From Ernest Renan’s speech delivered at the Sorbonne on 11 March 1882 and entitled What Is a Nation?

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to the process of narration. The process of narration or, the organization of collective memory through narratives, implies their use by ‘active agents’ (Wertsch 2008, 122). It is this interplay between political agents and their national narratives that links collective memory with the concept of (historical) state identity. Importantly, in this process, narratives are not static stories about the ‘self in history’, but ‘constitutive narratives’ that through remembering, literally re-member¹⁹ (as in, ‘constitute’) a group (Olick 1999, 342). Such a (constitutive) definition of narratives goes strictly against essentializing identities (Somers 1994). Collective identity based on constitutive narration can change and multiply. Besides, in centralizing the ongoing processes of identity construction in narrative form, identities are now strictly viewed as practices (Olick and Robbins 1998, 122). In IR, narratives were introduced as constitutive for states and their identity through Erik Ringmar (1996). In his narrative concept of the state, a country is endowed with an identity ‘necessarily at the mercy of the interpretation given to it through the stories in which it features’ (Ringmar 1996, 452). In the same way, Berenskoetter (2014) understands state identity as its biographical narrative or ‘national biography’. Equally, the ontological security scholarship is to a large part built on the notion of ‘narrative identity’. Departing from Giddens’ (1991) conception of ‘biographical continuity’, Steele’s (2008) selfregarding ontological security approach considers a country’s biographical narrative. In a similar fashion, Subotic (2016) speaks of a state’s autobiographical narrative. Historical identity narratives also range prominently in Zarakol’s (2010) work. Along related lines, Mälksoo (2015, 222) adds the concept of ‘mnemonical security’. Mnemonical security implies an official securitization of a state’s public remembrance (based on its selected biographical narrative) to ensure a country’s integrity and agency. Innes and Steele (2014) furthermore link their conception of a state’s narrative with the discursive articulation of collective memory and traumatic experiences. In either case, such ‘identity narratives’ in the ontological security literature are anxietycontrolling mechanisms, or as Filip Ejdus had put it, they provide a form of ‘ontological self-help’ (Ejdus 2014, quoted in Subotic 2016, 614) to keep the national identity intact. Nevertheless, a large part of IR work still seems to regard national narratives as properties of state identity, not entirely as a practice of collective memory. ¹⁹ This point merely serves to illustrate that remembering ‘re-members’ the group in the sense of ‘constituting’ it. It is, however, based on a spurious etymology: Middle English: from Old French remembrer, from late Latin rememorari ‘call to mind’, from re- (expressing intensive force) + Latin memor ‘mindful’.

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28      When taking a rather instrumental view on narratives and memory as being a necessary condition for national identity and state action, the constitutive element contained in these concepts is sacrificed. Furthermore, if narratives are introduced as stories the state tells as if it was a person, this logic differs fundamentally from what the collective memory concept implies. In Ringmar’s view (1996, 452), for instance, because individuals come into being through the stories told by and about them, likewise a state is assumed to narrate itself into being following the same logic. However, the collective narration process brings a collective dimension and dynamic with it that departs from the logic of an individual narrating her story into her identity. When we view a country’s national narrative as its collective memory, we always reference a narrative process surrounding state identity, not a property of state identity. With this focus, collective memory thus is ideally placed to fill in the blanks in IR’s ontological security concept: The securing of state identity happens through the social process of collective narration.

Towards a Temporal Conceptualization of State Identity Collective memory carries state identity through truly constitutive narratives, and per extension, this process coins a country’s historical identity through time. Centralizing collective memory in this book thus helps to break with a static and simplified definition of ‘state identity’ because it highlights the implicit temporal procedures contained within it. In that, collective memory is useful for specifying the important, but undertheorized, identity–behaviour nexus that lies at the heart of the ontological security scholarship. Collective memory describes the process by which the group returns into itself and becomes self-conscious through remembering. These were Halbwachs’ words. Translated into the terms of the ontological security scholarship, this means that the group is self-reflective. In doing so, it encloses itself in ‘a relatively immobile form’. These were again Halbwachs’ words. Ontological security scholars would call this ‘integrity with the self ’. According to Halbwachs, this process ensures a group’s continuity. That finding is also the essential message of the ontological security scholarship. Altogether, our combination of the collective memory concept with the ontological security literature thus allows for a clear temporal conceptualization of state identity. In this study, state identity is hence understood as a country’s dynamic ‘narrated, historical identity’. In its ‘historical identity’, a country’s past is contained, yet only in its present framing. The contemporary,

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social process of narration is a country’s self-reflective struggle over memory, or in other words, over a ‘record of resemblances’ to be able ‘to be-in-time’ and can lead to multiple possible outcomes in any given time context. Altogether, these elements form a new concept for IR that in this book is termed temporal security.

Building Temporal Security: The Security of Being-in-Time To be secure is to be in time. In moving along a temporal line, countries strive first and foremost for ‘temporal continuity’. To be secure requires looking beyond the present self and into a country’s past and future, thus retaining integrity with collective memory, or in other words, with a ‘national narrative’. The emotional driver behind this objective is still anxiety and shame, however, vis-à-vis potential disconnects with the ‘narrated self in the past’. A country’s response to this permanent state of anxiety is its ongoing interpretation of its historical experience in a self-reflective struggle over being-in-time.

Combining the frameworks of ontological security and collective memory, we gain the new concept of temporal security.²⁰ With its specific assumptions, the underlying collective memory concept enables the temporal security approach to (a) move to the collective and (b) to specify the inward-looking selfreflective element contained in ontological security. Moreover, and most importantly, (c) it helps to integrate a clear temporal dimension that makes it possible to identify multiple possible pathways running from the past to the present and into the future. With respect to (a), collective memory has been defined as a social process. The temporal security concept thus shifts the focus to the social frames that determine being-in-time, for both collectives and individuals. Regarding (b), collective memory describes an ‘inward-looking process’ in which a collective ensures its ‘continuity though time’ by resorting to a ‘narrated record of resemblances’. Society, in Halbwachs’ strictly sociological, Durkheimian conception, ‘must live’ (Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Levy ²⁰ I decided to stay with the term ‘security’ for the definition of the concept in order to place it in the tradition of the existing ontological security concept. However, it is meant strictly in the described sense as referring to the process, and not to the outcome. Similarly, I termed the concept temporal and not mnemonical security, in order to distinguish it from what Mälksoo (2015, 222) already defined as ‘the idea that distinct understandings of the past should be fixed in public remembrance and consciousness in order to buttress an actor’s stable sense of self as the basis of its political agency.’

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30      2011b, 11) and continues to live only by ‘tradition’ (broadly defined as ‘stability’). Through its grounding in this understanding, our temporal security concept specifies the nitty-gritty details of how ontological security works out in states. Narration here implies a ‘self-regarding’ and ‘self-reflective’ process that is changeable yet geared towards ‘continuity’ by way of securing an interpreted integrity with identity. However, and this brings us on to (c), the identity concept now includes a clear temporal dimension which looks towards ‘the self in the past’. In underwriting identity in this way, collective memory is neither a passive storage of past events nor an unchanging vessel for bringing the past into the present and future (Olick and Robbins 1998, 122). It instead helps to explain ‘security-as-being-in-time’ as a process of active engagement that allows for multiple outcomes and pathways by which to achieve temporal continuity. This book’s temporal security concept thus describes ontological security’s security-as-being with the more dynamic, temporally grounded security-asbeing-in-time. As Table 1.2 illustrates, establishing an integrity with the self now implies establishing an ‘integrity with the self in the past’. The self in the past is transported into the present through collective memory. As with the ontological security concept, the whole process is set in motion by a perceived disconnect with the self; however, this self is now specified as the narrated self in the past. Coupled with the exact definition of the emotion of anxiety that drives action ‘in a permanent struggle to be able’, the ‘struggle over being’ is specified to mean for states to be a ‘struggle over memory’ to ‘be-in-time’. The outcome now is not anymore ‘a singular security’, but rather a wide range of variably interpreted and possible pathways towards temporal continuity. Table 1.2 Distinction between ontological and temporal security concepts Security need

Goal

Trigger

Emotional Response driver

Security- Integrity of as-being the self/ identity

Discomfort/ Anxiety disconnect with (shame) the self

Security- Integrity of as-being- the self in the in-time past/collective memory

Anxiety Discomfort/ disconnect with (shame) the narrated self in the past

Note: * Continuity. Source: Author.

Self-reflective struggle over being to be able ‘to be’ Self-reflective struggle over memory to be able to be-in-time

Outcome Ontological security*

Temporal continuity

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With this, the concept of temporal security builds on, but also crucially departs from ontological security. Temporal security assumes that states in IR are temporal security-seekers. To be secure, they need to be grounded ‘in time’. The reference point for this new type of state behaviour is collective memory. In detail, the temporal security concept posits that countries, in IR, seek integrity with their collective memory, that is, with their narrated self in the past. To be secure now requires complying with a selective collective narrative. This process plays out as an anxiety-driven, self-reflective struggle over memory to be-in-time. In it, policymakers adhere to a prevailing collective memory in order to avoid shame at their policies’ disconnect with their country’s narrated self. To achieve a state of temporal continuity, countries thus converse with their collective memory in their international behaviour. However, to model the memory–behaviour nexus in the same way in which ontological security scholars have established a connection between state identity and behaviour means forgoing answering two crucial questions: First, where does collective memory originate? To merely theorize about a nexus between memory and state behaviour does not answer this question, neither does the ontological security scholarship solve where state identity comes from before it begins to influence state behaviour. Therefore, relatedly and second, how does collective memory become a state’s identity? Only when collective memory’s origins have been clarified in the first place, and when memory over the course of time has been shown to have become a country’s identity, can the memory–behaviour nexus play out in states. It is therefore only at a later stage that the temporal security framework overlaps with the ontological security scholarship on which it was built. Beforehand, it crucially departs from it by clarifying the preceding questions of where collective memory comes from and how it becomes a state’s identity. To attain its answers, the temporal security framework herewith must return to the specific characteristics of the interdisciplinary collective memory concept.

Manifesting Collective Memory in International Relations: Memory as a Country’s Strategy, Identity, Behaviour, and Values The temporal security concept was drawn up to explain state behaviour with collective memory. It posits that countries in their agency reference their narrated self in the past. With collective memory at the heart of this new approach, the notion of time must be its lynchpin. Time is crucial to its

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32      centrepiece collective memory as well as to the process of being-in-time that it describes. For our assumptions to take on a practical and empirical meaning, we must therefore also specify collective memory’s nature and its concrete temporal manifestations in world politics. To that regard, we must first define memory’s content. This content, in the case of countries, usually refers to a crucial happening in their history. Through the process of collective memory, the historical event in question, however, importantly, is re-interpreted in the present. As such, memory’s content does not necessarily concern the historical event as it was, but rather, as it is narrated at a present point in time. With this, memory’s content, per definition, includes the notion of time: collective memory is—as Olick (1999, 335) had put it—‘the active past’, manifested in the present and future. Meanwhile, collective memory also transforms with time. This happens, on the one hand, with regards to its content: the interpretation of a specific historical event changes with time. However, on the other hand and crucially, with time, memory also changes with regards to its degree: ‘the very faculty of memory—its place in social relations and the forms it imposes—is variable over time’ (Olick 1998, 381). To exemplify this, in the direct aftermath of an event, memory’s content may concentrate around certain elements and forget others which fifty or a hundred years later may come to the forefront of this memory. But a particular memory of an event (memory content) has also a different present saliency if the event lies ten or fifty or a hundred years in the past (memory degree). In employing collective memory as the explanation for political outcomes, the temporal security concept must therefore, secondly, also account for memory’s degree. Because of memory’s evanescent nature, its impact on policy outcomes can be assumed to transform from an active direct to a more passive indirect degree over time. Memory’s degree therefore alternates significantly, and as such, even if its content does not change, its impact on policies nevertheless varies with time. Translating memory’s diverse degrees into IR’s language, this means that in the beginning, collective memory may be open to strategic political manipulation: policymakers can actively create and shape collective memory as well as use it for political gain. However, the active saliency of memory declines rapidly with time, and in the medium and longer term, collective memory may constitute a passive constraint rather than an active opportunity for policymakers: with time, memory can be observed to unfold its impact over the policy-making process in subconscious, unexamined ways outside of the deliberate control of political actors. Memory thus moves from constituting an

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instrumental, rational tool in the short term to underwriting the policies of a country in more subtle, constructivist ways in the medium and long run. Having, first, identified a selective interpretation of a crucial event from history as memory’s content, and having, secondly, accounted for memory’s alternating degrees with time, it only remains to spell out how collective memory can manifest in countries. To that regard, critique has grown loud in the academic literature that anything is a memory case, because memory is everywhere (Confino 1997, 1387). Granted! Memory arguably is implicit already in IR’s concepts, be they the state, state identity, or state behaviour. However, the detailed preceding explanations on collective memory and the processes surrounding it allow us to render memory’s implicit presence in these concepts explicit. When we put state identity and state behaviour together with the specific definitions of collective memory’s temporal content and degrees through which it may affect political outcomes, collective memory is likely to manifest itself in IR in four concrete forms: first, as a political strategy; then, as a country’s public identity; furthermore, as its state behaviour; and finally, in its national values. As Figure 1.1 illustrates, these manifestations of collective memory unfold in countries in chronological order. Memory as a political strategy comes first. Because of memory’s evanescent nature, its degree with which it may affect political outcomes is direct and active only in the aftermath of a historical event that is to form the content of memory. For the policy-making process, this means that in the short term, collective memory can present an active opportunity for its formation and manipulation as a political strategy. Political actors thus may deliberately create a collective memory. However, the past (memory content) is malleable for political manipulation (memory degree: active/direct) only in the short term. With time, memory’s degree transitions from an active opportunity to a passive, indirect constraint. In the medium term, collective memory manifests as a country’s public identity. It now is anchored in the broader public’s mindset rather than in an elitist political strategy. As such, memory has transformed from being open to deliberate manipulation by policymakers to indirectly manipulating political actors’ reasoning. As public identity, the past (memory content) thus unfolds its impact over political outcomes in unexamined ways (memory degree: passive/indirect). Importantly, this influence of memory manifests only with time. Once collective memory has come to underwrite a country’s public identity, it passively, and beyond the deliberate control of policy actors, begins to influence state behaviour. As such, collective memory binds decision-makers

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PASSIVE / INDIRECT

NATIONAL VALUES STATE BEHAVIOUR PUBLIC IDENTITY

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Figure 1.1 Collective memory’s varying forms and their impact on politics over time Source: Author’s own image produced with the assistance of Steffi Marquet.

to certain courses of action that fit with their country’s national story. As state behaviour, the past (memory content) subconsciously directs courses of action, thus constraining policymakers’ choices (memory degree: passive/ indirect) in the medium to long term. When collective memory has underwritten identity and state behaviour in unexamined and passive ways, the resulting policies are intrinsically normative. As such, collective memory defines what a ‘good’ course of action means for a country. With this, memory is placed at the source of a country’s value system. In the long term, collective memory thus manifests itself in national values. Through them, the past (memory content) unfolds its most subtle influence over policies (memory degree: passive/indirect) for the long run. Figure 1.1 sums up the four discussed forms in which collective memory is assumed to affect countries in world politics: as a political strategy, as the public identity, as state behaviour, and as national values. From the x- and y-axes, we see that any application of the temporal security approach requires taking two dimensions into account. The adoption of a longer timeframe is

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crucial to bringing memory’s alternating impact on political outcomes to fruition: collective memory initially manifests as a political strategy, whereas later it forms public identity, and consecutively, state behaviour, and finally, national values. As these manifestations transport memory chronologically through time, they also move up vertically along the y-axis, reflecting memory’s evanescent nature. With time, memory’s degree alternates, along with its impact on political outcomes. While initially collective memory unfolds its influence over policies in active direct ways, later its influence becomes passive and indirect. Despite this difference, collective memory always retains its ability to affect political outcomes in essential ways: first, as a country’s active political strategy; then as an internalized public identity; later as passively channelling state behaviour; and finally, as subtly underwriting a country’s national values. Notably, in this framework, the four forms not only transport collective memory through time, but also through space. This social space for countries in IR concerns the entire world. Furthermore, collective memory is said to be a mirror and a lamp for countries. Translated into IR, collective memory is a mirror of the world in which countries find themselves in. However, it is also a lamp that guides countries through that world. To do justice to this phenomenon, memory, in this book’s framework, is circulated equally between the international and the domestic spheres in which countries operate. As political strategy, collective memory is initially located in the international environment. It is constructed by political actors who look outwards, to a ‘society of states’. However, thereafter, collective memory enters the domestic environment and begins to underwrite a country’s public identity. It then returns to the international realm: manifesting itself in state behaviour, collective memory channels international courses of action in a selective direction. Finally, as national values, it determines what good action per se means within the domestic confines and how collective memory shapes not only how a country acts but also how it ought to act vis-à-vis normative matters in world politics.

Structure of the Following Chapters To reflect the varying forms in which collective memory manifests itself in IR over time, the chapters of this book are structured around them: Chapter 2, ‘Memory as Political Strategy’, locates the origins of collective memory in an active political strategy formed in the direct aftermath of a memorable event. It demonstrates how specific international incentive

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36      structures give rise to a selective story that is actively employed by political actors to achieve foreign policy gain. Importantly, these processes play out in the short term only. Chapter 3, ‘Memory as Public Identity’, demonstrates how collective memory, with time, becomes the public identity of a country. It illustrates how in the medium term, a previously elitist, official narrative becomes internalized in the domestic memory landscape. As a consequence, collective memory begins to underwrite the mindset of the public and its policymakers in such a way that a selective narrative has now become the only ‘available, thinkable’ story. With collective memory in place as a country’s domestic identity, Chapter 4, ‘Memory as State Behaviour’, then explains how a selective memory channels a country’s international courses of action. It demonstrates how in the medium to long term collective memory exerts its influence over policymakers’ choices in international matters and thus locks state behaviour into a certain direction. Finally, the domestic self-reflective struggle over memory sets in motion a concomitant validation of ideals that flow from this process. Chapter 5, ‘Memory as National Values’, therefore, illustrates how collective memory over time generates different normative horizons with which countries approach international matters. In placing memory as the source of national values, it demonstrates that collective memory also moulds the normative obligation of how a country ought to act in the long run. In all cases, however, collective memory—be it in the form of political strategy, public identity, state behaviour, or national values—always provides the explanation for countries’ interactions in IR.

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2 Memory as Political Strategy This chapter locates the origins of collective memory in international strategy. To that regard it first looks at existing sociological and political works which situate collective memory’s beginnings in the domestic sphere. However, in the immediate aftermath of an often-traumatic event to be remembered, publics remain predominantly silent, leaving policymakers with little to gain from making politics with memory, at least at home. In the international sphere, incentive structures, on the other hand, are different. As such, this chapter moves the emerging struggle over the formation of collective memory from the domestic to the international sphere; and with it, away from its origins in a country’s public and into the hands of its foreign policy officials. The new assumptions on collective memory’s beginnings are then demonstrated in the cases of West Germany and Austria. The empirical study illustrates that the two successor states to the Third Reich started to confront their Nazi legacy first in the international, post-war environment. The question of reparation payments to the State of Israel in 1952 forms the ‘critical situation’ for qualitative analysis and demonstrates how West German and Austrian officials initially constructed collective memory as a political strategy directed at an international audience.

The Origins of a Country’s Memory Where does a country’s memory originate? In the direct aftermath of a seminal event that is going to provide the content for an emerging collective memory, options as to how to collectively tell a story seem to be wide open. At least, at first glance. On closer scrutiny, however, immediately the question arises where and how precisely collective memory forms? Who are the actors who want to remember, which version of the story, thus sparking the process of collective remembering in the first place? Furthermore, is this collective process taking shape within the domestic confines of a country or in its wider, international context?

Collective Memory in International Relations. Kathrin Bachleitner, Oxford University Press (2021). © Kathrin Bachleitner. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192895363.003.0003

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38     

Who Wants to Remember? Society and its individuals want to remember. Together, they give rise to competing versions of the past in the domestic sphere of countries. This is the general answer given by the existing sociological scholarship on collective memory (e.g. Olick and Robbins 1998; Olick 1999; Olick et al. 2011). Societal agents who promote a particular version of memory are journalists, politicians, public figures, intellectuals, and artists, as well as eyewitnesses and survivors who put forward autobiographical stories. Together, their memories cumulate into a broader consensus on one dominant story, or they retain the character of competing and coexisting memories in the public space. The forms of collective memory that emerge from this societal process have received different labels from diverse authors. Jan and Aleida Assmann call it ‘cultural memory’ (Assmann, A. 1999, 2011, based on Warburg 1999; Assmann, J. 2007). John Bodnar (1992) speaks of vernacular memory that within the public sphere represents an array of specialized group interests. Michel Foucault (2011, 252–3) emphasizes the emergence of ‘popular memory’ and ‘counter-memories’ that persist within any given society. Despite these various labels, they, however, always point to a form of collective memory anchored in a country’s domestic public. Thus sociological scholarship locates the origins of collective memory in the collective mindset of a country’s population and so focuses predominantly on the complex social processes that give rise to national memory, or memories. However, while the domestic public discourse is undoubtedly an essential source, this process seems to unfold over a longer timeframe. In the direct aftermath of a war, the parameters for public discourse are still undefined. Any counter-memory needs to counter something that has only vaguely begun to emerge in the society. As such, while the sociological literature is useful for defining what memory is and does in the long run, it does not contribute a lot to the question of who sparks the process of collective memory in the immediate aftermath of a war. Political science literature on the ‘politics of memory’, on the other hand, places collective memory’s origins in the much quicker, political process of instrumentalization, whereby political actors want to remember for domestic policy gain. Anyone coming to power in the aftermath of a war must position the promoted political agenda. Politicians thus put forward a narrative that advances their present interests. The politics-of-memory literature therefore locates memory’s origins in the domestic incentive structure that politicians face. This mechanism plays out through the crucial functions that collective

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memory serves to power, particularly by way of its close links to identity and political legitimacy. In this view, political actors forge a story that offers integration for a targeted ingroup. It will unite the collective behind a common myth of origin and provide the people with a positive self-image that fosters domestic peace and stability (Anderson 1983; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Gillis 1994). Collective memory thus is state-produced memory over which different political actors fight for domestic gains (Bodnar 1992; Schudson 1993). Political actors—to pick up again on our question posed above—are those who want to remember because they understand that whoever wins the contest over the past stands a good chance of winning the political struggle over the present and future. In their quest for domestic political gain, however, political actors are not entirely free to exploit the past and forge a story at their pleasing. Michael Schudson (2011, 289) puts forward three factors which limit policymakers’ ability to manipulate collective memory: the structure of available pasts, the structure of individual choices, and the conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware individuals. Schudson’s restrictions on the instrumentalization of memory by political actors sound plausible. However, in introducing them, we are back at the sociological assumptions on the roots of collective memory. While memory in political science literature is said to originate in political actors and their deliberate forgery of it; their attempts remain directed towards interests derived from pre-existing domestic structures that allow some stories to resonate better than others. With this, we return to the long-term sociological processes that give rise to collective memory in the first place. If political elites base their choice of memory on ‘the conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware individuals’, there must already exist a domestic public version of memory or memories. However, in the years immediately following a traumatic event, it is highly doubtful that such a complex societal discussion about memory already exists in the domestic public sphere. Empirically, if we look at domestic publics after a war, we find a general tendency towards silence. Notably, this public silence stands out in stark contrast to the loud and busy domestic process of competitive storytelling that most sociologists and political scientists infer. In the first decade following war or conflict, affected people are much more likely to turn their attention to the present and future in a desire to rebuild their existence and move on. In other words, the public does not want to remember directly after a tragic event. The emerging literature on social trauma (Edkins 2002, 2003; Bell 2010; Alexander 2012; Hutchison 2016) best attests to this phenomenon.

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40      When a society’s ‘everyday normality’ is suddenly ruptured by catastrophic events such as war and conflict, ‘the world as we knew it’ (Edkins 2002, 245) is shattered. Based on psychological research on individuals suffering trauma, trauma is an emotional or psychic injury that is usually repressed at least in the short term (Stein, Friedman, and Blanco 2011; Nemeroff and Marmar 2018). When events ‘traumatize’ in the way of ‘shocking’, they ‘mute’ their victims. Such events take place outside the frameworks of ordinary social reality. What distinguishes trauma, therefore, is the impossibility of processing the event in familiar terms. Post-traumatic stress disorder as a pathological condition occurs because the victims are incapable of forming a coherent story of what happened. The traumatized ‘carry an impossible history within them’, emphasizes Caruth (1995, 5). Equally, Maurice Blanchot calls trauma ‘the disaster, unexperienced. It is what escapes the very possibility of experience—it is the limit of writing’ (1995, quoted in Edkins 2002, 245). Trauma thus means the inexpressible, the unspeakable. The described trauma effects on individuals can roughly be translated onto societies as a whole. What in the literature has become known as ‘social trauma’ shatters the social reality and bonds of a group to the extent that it leaves a void in social meanings. As a result, social trauma ‘mutes’ and encourages amnesia by way of ‘psychological numbing’ (Müller 2002, 4). Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that in post-war societies, as the historian Jeffrey Herf finds it, ‘silence, avoidance, repression of memory of past crimes is the norm rather than the exception’ (2002, 184). As such, the individual psychological reaction to trauma goes a long way in explaining the widespread public silence and retreat into the practical effort of rebuilding life in the direct aftermath of wars. People seem to aim at ‘functionality’ in the present rather than at a ‘confrontation’ with the past. In the first decade following a conflict, broad segments of post-war society are therefore unlikely to show any will to remember but instead a need to forget. In a domestic landscape injured and silenced by a recent traumatic event, the assumption that political actors could make policy gain by pressing remembrance thus seems highly implausible. Furthermore, and particularly in democratic countries, putting forward a selective version of the happenings is prone to hamper the democratic process. Any narrative must in one way or another assign responsibility and, as such, blame and victimhood to some and not others (Alexander 2012, 16–19). As a result, forging a clear vision of the happenings can hardly be a winning political strategy, especially not for those who aim for electoral victory. Considering the domestic incentive structures only, hence, does not suggest memory is born out of political strategy.

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However, if we turn our attention beyond the domestic sphere and towards the international stage, we are presented with a very different picture.

Memory as an International Strategy In the direct aftermath of a war, political elites were said to be met at home with a predominantly silent public memory landscape that contains the wish to forget, rather than to remember. Internationally, however, the situation looks far different. On the diplomatic stage, politicians are most likely to face a questioning audience. To position the country among a community of states, its foreign policy representatives must, one way or another, answer their fellow states. To place the origins of collective memory beyond the borders of a country constitutes a novel move even within the IR literature (Bachleitner 2019, 493–94). Until now, the IR discipline imported from the domestically oriented politics-of-memory literature the somewhat misguiding assumption that dominant versions of memory emerge only from a country’s public and its internal political processes. As such, policymakers employ—deliberately or subconsciously—a supposedly pre-existing domestic version of the past for their foreign policy decision-making (e.g. May 1975; Khong 1992). Other scholars jump a step further and take collective memory as constitutive of a country’s historical identity that then brings about a specific international behaviour, such as an anti-militaristic stance on international matters (Banchoff 1996, 1999; Berger 1998, 2002). Again others focus on the bilateral dynamics caused by a shared yet differently interpreted legacy (Lind 2008; He 2009). In other words, the effects of collective memory on international state behaviour are assumed to result from collective memory already being an integral part of a country’s identity or decision-makers’ mindset. While this assumption makes sense in the long run, it does not work in the immediate aftermath of a war. In such instances, collective memory has not yet formed in the domestic sphere and therefore cannot also shape or influence international state behaviour. Meanwhile, the major part of the politics-of-memory literature pursues an instrumentalist view on collective memory: political actors are assumed to have a political interest to forge and use memory for political gains. However, as explicated above, only in the international sphere do political actors face— in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event—strong incentives to begin shaping a collective memory for their country. In keeping an instrumentalist

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42      outlook on memory, we therefore must turn to the international environment to locate memory’s origins. Assuming that policymakers begin strategizing with memory in the international sphere, they furthermore must respond to international incentive structures (Bachleitner 2019, 495–96). However, foreign policymakers are not fully free but also constrained by certain factors. For Schudson (2011, 289), domestically, these factors are the structure of available pasts, the structure of individual choices, and the conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware individuals. Schudson’s factors also nicely transfer onto the international political process, where foreign policy actors are constrained by the structure of internationally available pasts, the structure of individual choices made by foreign policy elites, and the conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware diplomatic actors. The structure of internationally available pasts refers to memory’s content, i.e. the specifics of the event open to interpretation, in addition to the kind of story plots available within a particular period, or zeitgeist. The structure of individual choices made by foreign policy elites refers to foreign policymakers’ position, biography, mindset, and interests. The conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware diplomatic actors refers to the international context and its power constellations. All three factors have a role to play when foreign policymakers are confronted with the past in the international environment and consequentially set out to forge memory into a diplomatic strategy. With this framework, this chapter reverts the theoretical focus to memory’s international origins and assumes that a selective version of the past initially forms as a foreign policy strategy. Only in a second step can the employed version then be transported back into a domestic context, not vice versa.

The Case Study: Former Nazi States on the Post-World War II International Stage To empirically show that collective memory first emerges in the international sphere, this chapter studies the cases of two states which came out of the Third Reich at the end of World War II: West Germany and Austria. The empirical analysis concentrates on the decade directly following 1945 and investigates how a specific version of their Nazi legacy was forged with an eye to the international incentive structures of the time. The ‘critical situation’ to illustrate this process is the question over reparation payments to Israel, the Jewish

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state which formed to a large part as a result of the Holocaust. Through the issue of reparations, West Germany and Austria in the year 1952 were confronted internationally with their Nazi past. Following our theoretical outline of memory’s origins in the international realm and the three constraints that foreign policymakers face in this sphere, the empirical study starts by exploring the international political context of the early 1950s. During that first post-World War II decade, the United States and its Allies carried defining weight when it came to settling conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware diplomatic actors. In the same section, the structure of the internationally available pasts, that is the international memory context, is taken into account: what ‘ways of remembering’ or ‘story plots’ were available to choose from in the post-war context? After providing the contours of the post-war international constellations as well as the general memory context, the empirical section examines the cases of West Germany and Austria. In contrasting these countries’ reactions to the question of reparations to Israel in 1952, the inquiry demonstrates that their different collective memories of their Nazi legacy were initially formed on the diplomatic stage and with an eye to international incentive structures and audiences. Methodologically, the case study compares West German and Austrian diplomatic efforts during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and is based on original, historical documents retrieved from the state archives. From these, we replicate the structure of the individual choices made by foreign policy elites, who, for the analysis, become the makers of ‘official memory’ or of a ‘national narrative’. From their texts, speeches, and diplomatic correspondence, we are able to process-trace that they address first an international audience with their narration of their country’s Nazi legacy. Only in a second step is this story then transported to their domestic public. Empirically, the way the official memory was received at home is grounded in opinion polls and media reports published at the time. Altogether, the comparison between the two cases underlines that the collective memory of Nazism for these two states formed not within their borders but out in the wider international realm.

The International Memory Context in the Post-World War II Decade The four Allied victors of World War II, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France, divided the Third Reich up into four occupation

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44      zones: American, Soviet, British, and French, respectively. The future of these territories thus rested upon the decisions of, and importantly the consensus among, these four powers. In the immediate post-war years, the Allies produced a series of meetings in Paris, Moscow, and London. However, they never managed to reach consensus on a final peace treaty (Judt 2002, 167–9). Moreover, the last meeting in London in 1948 saw an abrupt end of wartime collaboration and the onset of the Cold War. The main issue of disagreement was over the division of Germany. Emerging ideological cleavages between Western occupation powers and the Soviet Union no longer made it possible to find common ground and by 1949, two separate German states were created: the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Hand in hand with this division went the end of the war-time alliance. ‘An iron curtain’, as Britain’s Winston Churchill had famously foreseen in 1946, had now indeed ‘descended across the continent’.¹ As a result, only four years after its end, World War II had lost its meaning as a struggle between the Allied Powers and Germany and instead had given way to a new confrontation between the East and the West, spearheaded by the superpowers emerging in these blocs: the Soviet Union and the United States. In each of their spheres of influence, the two powers began to set up political and economic systems in their image. While the Red Army took over Eastern Europe, including the GDR, and began to build socialist societies, reconstruction in the West happened under the auspices of the United States. With the crucial help of America’s Marshall Plan, Western Europe soon entered a period perceived widely as an ‘economic miracle’. The post-war decades brought about a previously unheard-of obsession with productivity, modernity, and, importantly, economic unification. In this context, the idea of a united Europe gained new momentum. Attached to it came the ideals of peace, stability, and prosperity. As a result, the emerging thought of a European community replaced the nationalisms of the past and helped to shape new self-images for Western European countries. Notably, in the course of this process, the evil ‘other’ of the Western identity was to be found on the other side of the Iron Curtain (Judt 2002, 167–9). Already within a decade following the war, the logic of communism and anti-communism began to shape a bipolar global order that would confine international relations to an ideological straightjacket.

¹ See text of an address delivered by Winston Churchill, at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 5 March 1946 (National Archives, catalogue ref. FO 371/51624).

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The new opposing liberal and socialist orders also framed the mindset that would come to form different national versions of the memory of World War II (Müller 2002, 5; Berger 2012). Crucially, in this climate, two categories emerged which, in the post-war decades, circumvented the structure of available pasts, and followed the logic of one ‘perpetrator’ (Germany) and many ‘victims’ (everyone else). As Judt put it, by 1948, it was ‘universally acknowledged . . . that responsibility for the war, its sufferings and its crimes lay with the Germans. “They” did it’ (Judt 2002, 160). In the light of Nazi Germany’s crimes, there is a certain intuitive logic to this reaction. The attribution of guilt and blame to others is also not a new state practice. However, anchoring a country’s self-images in the criminal category of either perpetrator or victim signified a novel practice of remembrance that arose out of the specific tragedies of World War II. The war and its accompanying Holocaust, like no other historical event beforehand, brought about the shameful and non-heroic aspects of war. Thus, meaning that was to be extracted from this event had to be defined in new categories. Earlier norms of remembrance simply did not map onto this horrific experience. In the postWorld War II international context, the structure of internationally available pasts thus changed significantly. Previously, and particularly under the dictates of the nineteenth-century nation-state, the traditional construction of national narratives mainly followed the notions of the victor and the defeated. Naturally, heroic victories bore the most definite potential for a positive national narrative. Equally, ‘shared suffering’, as Ernest Renan had famously pointed out in his speech at the Sorbonne in 1882, helped forge national unity. However, with two total wars in the first half of the twentieth century, these stories of national heroism became unrelatable. In such a ‘non-heroic’ context, the categories of victor and defeated required amending to include the new concepts originally stemming from the field of criminology: perpetrators and victims (Bachleitner 2019, 496–97). The crucial difference between the old and new pairings lies in the question of reciprocity: the emerging notion of perpetrator implies an unrighteous aggressiveness towards a weak and defenceless ‘other’ and as such hinges on its guilt. The result is that the actions of the perpetrator, unlike those of the victor, do not amount to strength, glory, triumph, and pride, but rather to guilt and shame. The newly emerging notion of victimhood, on the other hand, hinges on the victim’s passivity and defencelessness, and the emphasis is placed on innocent suffering amid radically asymmetrical violence. As such,

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46      victimhood is directly opposed to the active sacrifice and heroism of the defeated (Assmann 2016). Furthermore, victimhood, like guilt, can be both a state of being and emotion. Perpetrators can, therefore, be guilty of a misdeed without feeling guilty and vice versa. Similarly, victims can feel victimized without necessarily being so. The categories of perpetrator and victim in the post-World War II environment thus constituted two perceived states of being for nations, one of guilt and the other of victimized innocence.² Meanwhile, in the post-World War II context, the status of victimized innocence was not only sought by the real victims of the war, but it was also deliberately adopted by countries attempting to evade responsibility for the past. These countries fabricated their innocence and victimization according to the logic of passive victimhood, putting the full blame for the tragedies of the past on others while at the same time highlighting their own suffering, and, in most cases, whitewashing their misdeeds. The overall tenor was that all blame lies with Germany alone. The rest—in their patriotic post-war portrayals—came out as ‘raped nations’, that is, as victims (Judt 1992). In any case, coming to terms with the past in the aftermath of World War II required—for victims and perpetrators—radically new narrative constructions derived from the ‘non-heroic images’ of suffering and shame. The largest part of the interdisciplinary scholarship on collective memory is dedicated to highlighting the difficulties of reconciling the horrors of total war and specifically of the Holocaust³ with the creation of positive national self-images for both perpetrators and victims.⁴ However, again, authors, with this, only look at the domestic, national sphere. This chapter, on the other hand, suggests taking a fresh perspective beyond the national struggles with memory and argues that the international situation looked far different. It demonstrates how employing the memory of guilt and victimhood on the international stage, in fact, opened up new diplomatic routes, particularly for former Nazi perpetrator states to gain strategic advantage from their pasts. In doing so, they, however, were constrained by the contextual parameters of mutually aware diplomatic ² Note that ‘guilt’ and ‘innocence’ are subject to cultural nuances in diverse regions and contexts. E.g. Friedrichs (2016). ³ That the Holocaust is crucially intertwined with the concept of collective memory and its study was famously acclaimed by Pierre Nora with the much-quoted line ‘whoever says memory, says Shoah’ in Les Lieux de mémoire (Sites of Memory) (1984), as well as by Paul Connerton in his seminal work on How Societies Remember (1989). ⁴ For works with a focus on Germany, see e.g. Maier (1988); Herf (1997); Art (2006); Zehfuss (2007); Olick (2017). For work with a focus on Israel, see e.g. Segev (1995); Yablonka (2004); Cesarani (2005). There are also works which research the emergence of a supranational, European, and global memory: Judt (1992); Levy and Sznaider (2006); and A. Assmann (2011).

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actors within an altered post-war international stage as well as by the structure of individual choices of their foreign policy elites.

The Origins of the West German Memory of Guilt Germany was the pariah on the post-war diplomatic stage. Particularly Israel, the Jewish state that came into being in 1948, actively worked against Germany’s restoration in the international community. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Israelis fiercely opposed West German membership in international organizations and perceived any German presence at international meetings as constituting ‘an insult to every honest and decent human being’ (Ben Zvi (1950), quoted in: Vogel 1967, 19). Moreover, Israel banned all German products, including cultural items, and forbade the use of the German language as well as any travel between the two countries. Even when the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was proclaimed in 1949, all contacts remained conducted via the occupying powers (Segev 1995, 257–60; Hotam 2005, 155). With this, the Israelis made it clear to the world that they wanted nothing to do with Germany. At the same time, the Allied Powers had made it plain that the FRG’s new image as the successor state to the Third Reich would significantly depend on its relationship with Israel: ‘The way the Germans will behave towards the Jews will constitute the crucial test for German democracy,’ stated the American high commissioner for Germany, John McCloy, in 1949.⁵ With this, the US had openly expressed that a place for the FRG among the Western world depended on its democratic character which, however, was contingent on its behaviour towards the Jews, and by extension, also Israel. When the first freely elected Chancellor of the FRG, Konrad Adenauer, took office on 15 September 1949, he faced a predicament. He had won the election by promoting democracy and westernization, yet the US protégé Israel viewed the country as a pariah. How could he fulfil the wish of this great Western power if the new Jewish state understandably did not want to have anything to do with Germans? Furthermore, how could he even begin to confront the enormous Nazi legacy in a domestic environment of silence? The West German public wanted to make a ‘clean sweep’ of the past and start afresh

⁵ John McCloy, quoted in Deutschkron (1983, 27). In the German original: ‘Die Art, wie die Deutschen sich den Juden gegenüber verhalten [ . . . ] als die Feuerprobe der deutschen Demokratie.’

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48      from 1945, their ‘zero hour’ (Stunde Null). In speaking to this public sentiment, Adenauer’s electoral success had depended on him promoting a democratic model that pushed for ‘justice delayed’, which integrated many former Nazis into the new democratic system. At the beginning of the 1950s, the West German public was not ready to confront the Nazi legacy, neither its perpetrators nor its victims. On the other hand, Chancellor Adenauer sensed the necessity to shape a German stance on the Nazi legacy for an international audience. And with the Cold War beginning, his larger plan was to rehabilitate his country in the Western world community. In light of US dominance of the emerging Western world order, all signs pointed towards the importance of achieving some reconciliation with the Jewish state. Thus, it made good sense for Adenauer to speak about his imminent intention to reach out to Israel in his first interview on 11 November 1949: In so far as it is possible in the aftermath of the annihilation of millions of people beyond retrieval, the German people are willing to make good the injustice committed against the Jews in the German name by a criminal regime. We consider restitution [Wiedergutmachung] as our duty. The Federal government is committed to initiating appropriate action.⁶

His statement was remarkable in that it formed a clear-cut break with the official silence that so far surrounded this issue. Soon thereafter, the FRG began to reach out directly to Israel. In 1951, West German officials tested the ground with a concrete offer of 10 million DM in the hope that Israel would respond at all. Notably, with this step, the FRG signalled to an international audience (a) that it was willing to accept moral responsibility for the Nazi crimes and (b) that it aimed to compensate the Jewish state rather than only individuals. Under international law, there was no such obligation for the FRG. Both countries, Israel and the FRG, had legally not existed in the time when the crimes were committed. As a result, none of the Allied Powers had seen a way to force the FRG to pay

⁶ Interview with Adenauer on 11 November 1949, by Karl Marx, editor of Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland, quoted in Vogel (1967, 18). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Das deutsche Volk ist gewillt, das Unrecht, das in seinem Namen durch ein verbrecherisches Regime an den Juden verübt wurde, soweit wiedergutzumachen, wie dies nur möglich ist, nachdem Millionen Menschen unwiederbringlich vernichtet sind. Diese Wiedergutmachung betrachten wir als unsere Pflicht. Die Bundesregierung ist entschlossen, die entsprechenden Maßnahmen zu treffen.’

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reparations legally.⁷ The FRG’s offer was voluntary and driven by the desire to atone for the past—at least internationally. Yet this wish only formed within a specific international environment that could potentially facilitate the FRG’s goal of reintegration into the Western world community. Israeli officials initially reacted reluctantly to the German offer. Their public was outraged, the majority of whom was opposed to taking what they considered to be ‘blood money’ from the Germans. However, the dire financial situation of the new Israeli state in a hostile neighbourhood did not allow Israeli politicians to let such an opportunity pass. On 19 April 1951, Adenauer thus met for the first time with Israeli officials David Horowitz and Maurice Fischer in Paris. The meeting happened in full secrecy away from the public eye. Nevertheless, the Israelis made clear from the start: without Adenauer’s public condemnation of the Nazi crimes, Israel would not enter any negotiations with the FRG. ‘It will happen’, answered the West German chancellor promptly (Adenauer (1951), quoted in Segev 1995, 271). Adenauer was serious about his foreign policy strategy. Yet, with this move, the Israelis forced him to take the issue back into a hostile domestic environment. A tightrope walk began: on the one hand, the chancellor wanted to please an international audience (first and foremost the United States and Israel) with a public statement on the Nazi legacy. On the other hand, he faced a West German public which desired to leave the past in the past. Against the backdrop of conflicting domestic and international ‘memory audiences’, Adenauer, on 27 September 1951, addressed the German Bundestag with the issue of reparations. In this speech, he, for the first time, publicly acknowledged ‘the overwhelming suffering that the time of National Socialism has inflicted upon the Jews in Germany and the occupied countries’.⁸ This acknowledgement was precisely the sentiment that Israelis and, with them, the Allied Powers desired. However, domestic ears were also listening to his speech. To render his view acceptable to the broader German public, Adenauer stuck to a passive voice when referring to the sufferings of the Jewish people so as not to accidentally identify the perpetrators. He furthermore cautiously underlined that even if a significant part of the German population did not personally participate in the crimes against the Jews, unspeakable atrocities were nevertheless committed in the German name. That alone, he continued, obligated them to moral and material compensation.

⁷ Legation of Israel (1951): ‘The Israel claim for reparations from Germany. Identical note to the Occupying Powers.’ ⁸ Speech of Konrad Adenauer before the German Bundestag, 27 September 1951.

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50      German commitment to this policy, he emphasized, must be viewed in ‘the spirit of true humanity’. Against the backdrop of the emerging East–West division, ‘the spirit of true humanity’ meant ‘the spirit of the Western world’. All taken together, Adenauer’s 1951 speech was a double-edged sword. To the outside, it was a remarkable, early statement about what would become the essence of West Germany’s narrative of the Nazi legacy: he acknowledged the wrongdoings in the German name, expressed guilt, remorse, and shame as well as the will for Wiedergutmachung based on a voluntary acceptance of moral (and legal) responsibility. However, this story was forged with an eye to strategic international interests within a beginning Cold War context: westernization, democratization, rehabilitation for the FRG. As such, the narrative of guilt was fabricated for first and foremost an external audience and goal. Inside the FRG, the West German public did not want to confront the past, neither internationally nor in a version of collective guilt. To press through his international aims, Adenauer thus packaged the story differently in the Bundestag and exculpated the majority of Germans from the Nazi crimes. With these troubling circumlocutions, he managed to get West Germany’s ‘diplomacy of guilt’ on its pathway (see Hall 2015, 117–21 and 126–8). The endpoint of this selected road lay in the international realm: the country’s reintegration into the Western world community was now one step closer. For Adenauer’s choice, not only did the structure of internationally available pasts, in the FRG’s case that of a morally responsible perpetrator, matter; his decision was also driven by the concerns of mutually aware international actors. However, to say that international strategic interests alone were the determinants of Adenauer’s choice does not do justice to his personal qualities. Agency matters too, and Adenauer is undoubtedly one of the many significant historical personalities where historians rightly claim that history would have looked different without them in their post. For Adenauer, the practising Catholic who was in fierce opposition to the Nazi regime, conscience and his moral, religious values aligned with the interests of his country in the issue of reparations (Segev 1995, 272–7). As such, he most likely went further with reparation payments than any other German leader would have. Historians later explained his determination in part by way of his biography (Bark and Gress 1993, 314). On the way to Luxembourg to sign the reparation agreement, as his memoirs later revealed, he remembered the day in 1933 when the Nazis had dismissed him from his post as mayor of Cologne. At a time when he was destitute, only two people came to his help, and both were Jews. Viewed through these biographical lenses, Adenauer’s acceptance of guilt on behalf of

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Germany, for him, must have also signified a way of repaying a personal debt of honour: In the depths of the great man’s heart, on a level deeper than all his foxy tricks and Odysseus-like notions for the political struggle of the day, there was, very surprisingly, an almost childlike simplicity and grace—grace in the original sense of gratia—meaning mercy, thankfulness, and dignity.⁹

Adenauer’s sense of gratia and his personal investment in the matter of reparations are also evident throughout his dialogue with the Israelis: ‘I can hear the wing beat of history’, he once revealed excitedly to his counterpart Goldman (Adenauer (1951), quoted in Segev 1995, 276). Furthermore, to get reparation payments underway domestically, Adenauer made sure to surround himself with people who—as he noted in his memoirs—held views similar to his own (Deutschkron 1983, 48). As such, he employed Franz Böhm as his chief negotiator with the Israelis. Böhm, at the time, was one of the few members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who firmly believed that the country had inherited a historical debt: ‘Any person who was appalled by the cruelties and abominations of the Hitler period when they were perpetrated, who empathized with the victims and helped when he was able, is passionately committed to Wiedergutmachung’, recalled Böhm about his stance later on. Promoting Wiedergutmachung was an appeal to conscience, he added with an eye to its many opponents: But those who identified with Hitler back then, who considered everyone the Gestapo arrested to be an enemy, a criminal, or someone socially undesirable, or who, if confronted with the sight of all the cruelty and brutality, consoled himself with the old saw: ‘you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’—that person will view Wiedergutmachung today basically as some kind of nuisance.¹⁰

With this statement, Böhm put in words what Adenauer always cautiously circumvented: domestically, Wiedergutmachung was nothing but a nuisance. However, internationally, it was certainly not. With Böhm, Adenauer thus sent a German representative to the world stage who held an attitude compatible with international, not German expectations. ⁹ Gillessen, quoted in Bark and Gress (1993, 314). ¹⁰ Böhm (1954), quoted in Hockerts (2007, 324).

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52      Nevertheless, the negotiations that ensued with the Israelis over the next months were cluttered with obstacles. As the sums increased, domestic opposition to reparations mounted. Notably, the FRG’s Finance Minister Fritz Schäffer kept insisting on the country’s incapacity to bear such financial burdens. Adenauer, however, remained firm: ‘Arguing over pennies’ in such a delicate matter would not help the FRG’s image internationally. In a letter to Schäffer, he once again laid out his stance: I would like to express the wish that negotiations will be conducted putting aside concerns that in any other case would apply, and instead will be viewed in the moral and political weight that these unique obligations carry for us.¹¹

Yet time soon ran out and domestic opposition remained to the extent that Adenauer began to fear a ‘foreign policy catastrophe of the first order’ (Adenauer (1952), quoted in Herf 1997, 286). In convincing his cabinet not to turn against reparations, he was clear about the FRG’s strategic interests in this matter. Reparations, according to Adenauer, were nothing less than the price to pay for re-entry into the Western alliance. They would open ways towards receiving foreign credits. Moreover, the matter had paramount significance for all relations with Western countries, especially the United States. Reaching out to Israel, and thereby also satisfying its Allied supporters, was thus integral to the FRG’s interests. With this, reparations touched directly on the Federal Republic’s entire raison d’état which became inextricably linked to the goal of multilateralism within the Western alliance (Westbindung).¹² In other words, reparations were not a moral but a strategic political necessity for West Germany in the post-war international context. Only against these international, strategic incentive structures, projecting guilt became a likely option for the FRG. The admission of responsibility rather than a denial was the surest way towards winning the trust of Western Allies, while at the same time distancing the FRG from the communist East. In taking this specific international environment into account, a story of guilt and moral responsibility was thus identified as the way forward.

¹¹ Letter from Adenauer to Fritz Schäffer, Bonn, 29 February 1952, quoted in Vogel (1967, 41). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Ich gebe dem Wunsche Ausdruck, dass die Verhandlungen unter weitgehender Hintanstellung aller Bedenken, die in einem anderen Falle sehr verständlich wären, in einem Geiste vorbereitet und durchgeführt werden, der dem moralischen und politischen Gewicht und der Einmaligkeit unserer Verpflichtungen entspricht.’ ¹² This view is shared by historians of West German history, such as: Bark and Gress (1993, 257); Markovits and Reich (1997, 106); Banchoff (1999, 23–59); Weingardt (2002, 82–9); Herf (1997, 284–6).

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Reparations for Israel On 10 September 1952, the Luxembourg Treaty was signed between the FRG and Israel. As a result, 3.45 billion DM worth of goods and services were paid from the FRG to Israel between 1953 and 1965 (Herf 1997, 288).¹³ These payments were, of course, ‘guilt payments’. With them, the FRG painted itself before the eyes of the world as a guilty, yet repentant perpetrator for its Nazi legacy. However, domestically, it was difficult for Chancellor Adenauer to find acceptance for his move. In fact, Israeli politicians desired a strong condemnatory language in the treaty text, not least to also appease their own public which remained fiercely opposed to reparations. However, only Adenauer was ‘ready to hear that’ internationally. His public at home, as he replied to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett’s draft treaty, ‘was not’ (Adenauer (1952), quoted in Segev 1995, 315). To counter the expected backlash from a reparation agreement, the West German chancellor again went before the German Bundestag to defend his international move in troubling circumlocutions aimed at not extending any guilt onto his people: Not all Germans were Nazis [ . . . ] Nevertheless, this act of compensation [Wiedergutmachung] by the German people is necessary, because it was through the misuse of the German name that these crimes were committed [ . . . ] As far as it is at all possible that something in our power can be done to overcome what happened [ . . . ] the German people have the solemn and sacred duty to help, even when those of who do not personally feel guilty are called upon to sacrifice, maybe sacrifice greatly.¹⁴

From this statement, it becomes plain: Adenauer had forged a guilt narrative for an international audience that in 1952 did not resonate with the collective memory of his public. By the beginning of the 1950s, silence still predominated over the broader segments of the German public (Herf 2002, 184–7). The embryonic memories that had begun to emerge did not include the Jewish Holocaust nor some society-based notion of collective guilt but instead the heroic image of the fallen soldier, the suffering induced by Allied bombings, the expulsion of 13 million Germans from the East, and large looming repressions in the Soviet Zone. If anything, the part of the past not forgotten ¹³ Based on German reports. ¹⁴ Adenauer before the German Bundestag on 4 March 1953, quoted in Hall (2015, 133).

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54      was one based on victimization (Herf 1997, 276). As a result of this domestic memory landscape, it is no surprise that the West German public was primarily opposed to reparations. An opinion poll conducted in September 1952 revealed that 44 per cent considered reparation payments to Israel ‘superfluous’, 24 per cent as ‘too high’, and 21 per cent were undecided. Merely 11 per cent supported an agreement with the Israelis (Fink 2006, 277). Without a doubt and with only seven years passed since the end of World War II, Adenauer was speaking to two very different ‘memory audiences’ in the domestic and in the international realm. However, although his domestic public remained opposed, at least concerning the policy’s main target, the international audience, Adenauer’s strategy immediately began to bear fruits. It was no coincidence that on the date of the signing ceremony in Luxembourg, 10 September, the newly founded European Coal and Steel Community also met for the first time. With the reparation treaty in hand, Adenauer thus helped his country to enter the European Community with proof of the FRG’s desire for reconciliation with the Jewish people, and his diplomatic strategy with guilt had yielded its first immediate and concrete success on the international stage—and this success continued. Looking ahead from 1952 to 5 May 1955, the Bonn–Paris conventions (Pariser Verträge) came into force. The ratification of the conventions put an end to the Allied occupation of West Germany, endowing the Federal Republic with full sovereignty. West Germany’s right to self-determination was closely tied to the FRG’s integration into Western international organizations. With the Bonn–Paris agreement, West Germany joined NATO as well as the Western European Union (WEU). In 1957, West Germany was even among the six founding members of the European Economic Community (EEC).¹⁵ To conclude with Adenauer’s own words, which sum up his and the official FRG’s intentions in 1952 very well: As I sat across from Minster Sharett in Luxembourg, I was deeply moved, but also happy that I at least could do something to offset the harm. Naturally, it was clear to me that this agreement only signified a symbol of reconciliation [Wiedergutmachung], that it only represented an attempt to rehabilitate Germany on this issue.¹⁶

¹⁵ This view is also reflected in Vogel (1967, 61), Weingardt (2002, 106), Haftendorn (2006, 49–53). ¹⁶ Adenauer (1967), quoted in Hall (2015, 133).

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The 1952 reparation agreement between the FRG and Israel was, as Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett declared at the signing ceremony in Luxembourg, ‘a unique step in the history of international relations’.¹⁷ Unique, however, only from the point of view that no country beforehand had taken on moral responsibility voluntarily. On the other hand, it was not unique from the viewpoint of how national narratives form, which are written in the international sphere with an eye to the incentive structures that exist in a specific time-context. Taking the beginning Cold War into account, the options for the FRG were limited in 1952. With its desire for Western reintegration and westernization, no way lead around Israel. Furthermore, the emerging dominant international forms of remembrance in the aftermath of World War II gravitated towards either victims or perpetrators. The FRG chose perpetrator, at least before an international audience. This choice, however, did not depend on its horrific legacy of the Holocaust, but predominantly because this route led towards the desired goal of Western integration. The victim option, while upheld domestically, would not have furthered the FRG’s strategic goals. In foregrounding its international interests, the West German collective memory of moral responsibility and guilt visà-vis the Nazi legacy was thus born in the international, and not the domestic realm. The same happened in Austria, another former Nazi perpetrator state, yet it led to a very different outcome.

The Origins of the Austrian Memory of Victimhood In October 1943, the foreign ministers of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States met in Moscow to discuss the Allied war tactics towards the Nazi regime. One item on the agenda concerned Austria. In what became known as the Moscow Declaration of 1943, the Allied powers named Austria as the first free country which had fallen prey to Hitler’s aggression, and which, as a consequence, needed to be liberated from German rule. When Austrian post-war politicians declared the country independent on 27 April 1945, they picked up on precisely this formulation. In their declaration, the Anschluss of Austria with the German Reich in 1938 was considered ‘null and void’. The new Republic of Austria was instead re-established based on the constitution of 1920. In the preamble, Austria’s government was ¹⁷ Die Presse, ‘Sharett: “Einzigartig in der Geschichte”. Der israelische Außenminister zum Abkommen mit Bonn’, 12 September 1952.

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56      portrayed as defenceless vis-à-vis the Anschluss and the Austrian population as ‘robbed of both power and will at the hands of the military aggressor Nazi Germany’. In the exact wording of the 1945 independence declaration, ‘Germany had dragged Austria into a war that no Austrian ever wanted’.¹⁸ This wording also contains all the elements of Austria’s emerging national narrative of victimhood. In Austria’s version of the story, foreign troops occupied the country between 1938 and 1945 and, by logical implication, Austrians bore no responsibility for anything that happened during those seven years of occupation. The responsibility for the Nazi regime belonged to Germany alone. Notably, in the immediate post-war period, this official version of the Nazi legacy resonated only with a small number of Austrians: former concentrationcamp inmates, resistance fighters, and the few anti-Nazi elites who were part of the founding parties of the Second Republic. The three leaders of the Social Democratic Party SPÖ (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs), the Christian Democratic Party ÖVP (Österreichische Volkspartei), and the Communist Party KPÖ (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs) who had signed the independence declaration had all been in opposition to the Nazi regime. However, the population they represented was not. As such, the many Austrians who were followers, bystanders, Wehrmacht soldiers, NS supporters, and even SS perpetrators had little understanding of this rationale. It was entirely illogical to them to claim victimhood at the hands of one’s very own brothers-in-arms. Nevertheless, the sentiment of victimhood quickly gained strong public support from broad segments of Austria’s society (Uhl 1992, 84; Hanisch 1994, 405 and 420 and 1996, 33–50; Knight 2000a, 7). Everyone somehow felt victimized in the World War II context: by the losses experienced through war, by the Nazi regime, by the Allied bombings, by the expulsions from the East, by the occupation and Soviet repression. Moreover, Austrians generally were in destitute economic conditions and suffered from poverty, hunger, displacement, and flight. One way or another, a national story of victimhood began to resonate and bore the potential of absorbing diverse social groups and their different war experiences. Furthermore, it helped to shift the focus from the past and onto the needs of the present and future. As in Germany, the Austrian population was preoccupied with itself in the war’s aftermath, with

¹⁸ See Austrian Declaration of Independence (1945), in: Staatsgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich, 01.05.1945. Online at https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblPdf/1945_1_0/1945_1_0.pdf (accessed 10 April 2020).

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its own suffering, and wanted to move on (Pelinka 1996, 23–31; Wodak et al. 2009, 52–5).¹⁹ Internationally, however, Austrian politicians were forced to remember. Moreover, from the beginning, Austrian diplomats had grasped that how they portrayed their country’s involvement with Nazism to the occupying powers would determine its future. Although the Moscow Declaration came in handy with this, the declaration also included a passage on Austrian coresponsibility for the war that was not forgotten, at least internationally: However, Austria is made aware that it bears responsibility for participation in the war on the part of Hitler Germany, which it cannot escape, and that its own contribution to its liberation will inevitably be taken into account in the final settlement.²⁰

The end of the occupation and, with it, Austria’s independence would therefore depend on the degree of co-responsibility assigned to Austria. This judgement would be made in the international sphere, and there the occupying powers were crucial, and, per extension, also the opinion of Israel. As soon as the Jewish state was proclaimed in 1948, Austria was keen to reach out. Despite Austrian foreign policy’s limited sovereignty and independence under the occupation, the Austrian foreign minister was among the first to welcome the creation of the State of Israel (Zweig 2010, 51). ‘I am pleased to inform Your Excellency that the Austrian government has de facto recognized the State of Israel. At this opportunity, I would like to express the hope that diplomatic relations between our countries will soon become possible,’ wrote Foreign Minister Karl Gruber to his Israeli counterpart Moshe Sharett on 11 April 1949.²¹ The timing was not accidental and reflected the leverage that world opinion had on Austria’s decision. It came shortly after the UN’s move ¹⁹ For German and Austrian memories, see Herf (1997, 6 and 276) and Berger (2012, 87). For a more nuanced approach to German public memory in World War II’s aftermath, see Olick (2005) and Longerich (2006). For a comparison of the reception of the Holocaust in both Austria and Germany, see Thünemann (2005). ²⁰ See Austrian Declaration of Independence (1945), in: Staatsgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich, 01.05.1945. Online at: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblPdf/1945_1_0/1945_1_0.pdf (accessed 10 April 2020). The original German text says: ‘Jedoch wird Österreich darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass es für die Beteiligung am Kriege auf Seiten Hitlerdeutschlands Verantwortung trägt, der es nicht entgehen kann, und dass bei der endgültigen Regelung unvermeidlich sein eigener Beitrag zu seiner Befreiung berücksichtigt werden wird.’ ²¹ Telegram from the Austrian Foreign Minister Karl Gruber to Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, 11 April 1949, quoted in Steininger (2012, 32). In German original: ‘Ich freue mich, Eurer Exzellenz mitteilen zu können, dass die österreichische Bundesregierung den Staat Israel de facto anerkannt hat. Bei diesem Anlass möchte ich auch der Hoffnung Ausdruck geben, dass eine baldige Aufnahme der Beziehungen zwischen unseren Ländern möglich sein wird.’

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58      to grant membership to Israel, and, of course, after Soviet and American recognition had been given. With both occupying powers embracing Israel, Austria was in an excellent position to proceed without seeking approval from the Allied Council first. To the world, this recognition would send the ‘right’ signal, i.e. one of Austrian innocence and victimhood: if Israel and Austria established contacts with one another while Germany and Israel did not, it must become plain to the world that Austria was different from Germany. In pursuing this logic, Israel’s opinion of Austria was from the beginning of utmost importance to the newly founded Second Republic and its strategic interests on the international stage. It was clear to the country’s foreign policy elites that Israel would be essential in differentiating Austria from Germany and thus securing independence from the occupying powers.²² The issue of how to deal with Austria reached the Israeli Knesset as early as 1949. When laying out the basic principles for the future Israeli state, a heated discussion broke out as to what to do with Austria. While the FRG was labelled an ‘enemy state’ to Israel, Austria’s label remained ambivalent. As a result, the country was classified somewhere between the enemy state, Germany, and the rest of the world with which relations were considered as ‘normal’. This Israeli decision was not taken light-heartedly, and many Knesset members, as well as a critical Israeli public, were outspoken about Austria’s leading involvement in the Nazi regime.²³ On the other hand, Austrian Jews now living in Israel in particular came to Austria’s defence. A former Viennese Jew, journalist Immanuel Unger, for instance, lauded the decision to differentiate between Germany and Austria in the German-speaking newspaper Yedioth Hayom. Under the telling title ‘Reconciliation and retaliation’ (‘Versöhnung und Vergeltung’), his article reinforced the Austrian victim myth by highlighting Austrian opposition to Nazi Germany despite its small size and powerlessness. Unger went on to underline Austrian innocence by pointing to its cultural mentality. The so-called Wiener Gemütlichkeit, or Viennese charm, formed a stark contrast to German/Prussian militarism. He even went so far as to excuse the ‘occasional occurrence of Austrian antisemitism’: ‘Dependent on the amount of wine consumed, the general Austrian was either antisemitic or anti-Nazi or anti-socialist’—in other words, very different from the general German.²⁴ ²² Chancellor Leopold Figl, 15 March 1949, quoted in Steininger (2012, 31). ²³ See Knesset protocols of the speeches of Sarach Wahrhaftig and Zwi Pinkas, 26 July 1950. ÖStA/ AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 49, Gz. 126 722_pol 1950. ²⁴ Yedioth Hayom, ‘Versöhnung und Vergeltung’, by Immanuel Unger, 4 August 1950. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 6, Gz. 121475_pol 1950.

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Unger’s view reflected precisely the image that Austrian diplomats actively promoted behind the scenes in Israel.²⁵ The first Austrian consul to Israel, Karl Hartl, later explained this strategy: Austria feared Israel only in one respect, namely that the Israelis would start shouting that the Austrians were Nazis (Hartl (1952), quoted in Embacher and Reiter 1998, 44). The ears that were not supposed to hear that were, of course, the occupying powers, i.e. the international world community. Luckily for Austria, and probably in no small part because of the Allied differentiation between Austria and Germany in the Moscow Declaration, the Knesset, in the end, decided not to label Austria as an enemy. However, it was also not regarded as a ‘truly liberated country’ like Poland or Czechoslovakia (Hotam 2005, 154–5). Even if slightly ambivalent, this labelling gave post-war Austrian politicians enough room to manoeuvre on the international stage as ‘different from Germany’. In practice, the Israeli differentiation between Germany and Austria had essential implications for Austria’s post-war international status. While Germany was treated as a pariah, Austria was not. Israel’s German import ban did not concern Austrian produce, so despite all of Germany’s cultural goods being forbidden, Austrian films, magazines, and books were left untouched (Hotam 2005, 155). Moreover, while Germany and Israel had no direct contact with one another, bilateral relations between Austria and Israel began as early as 1950. When the two countries exchanged consuls, the Austrian Foreign Ministry selected its first representative in Israel with an eye to promoting Austria’s victim image. Karl Hartl was described in an internal document as a ‘glowing Austrian patriot of a specific Viennese colouring’.²⁶ ‘Viennese colouring’, again, was believed to oppose any internationally perceived ‘German’ traits. Importantly, Hartl had fled with his Jewish wife to France after the Anschluss and had fought in the French Resistance (Steininger 2012, 45–6). As such, Hartl—like most of Austria’s post-war elites—testified with his personal story to the emerging, fabricated story of national victimhood.²⁷ Together, this political team of anti-Nazi elites navigated their way towards what—looking back—can easily be called the most significant diplomatic coup with a blatant historical lie.

²⁵ Hartl reports to Foreign Minister Gruber on the ‘Law on expropriation of German property in Israel’, Tel Aviv, 19 August 1950. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 49, Gz. 126 722_pol 1950. ²⁶ Ambassador Bischoff (1946), quoted in Steininger (2012, 46). Translated by the author from German: ‘Seine hervorstehendsten Eigenschaften sind [ . . . ] ein glühender österreichischer Patriotismus von spezifischer Wiener Färbung.’ ²⁷ See Hartl’s reports, for instance: Hartl reports to the Austrian Foreign Ministry on the ‘Israeli Press on Austria’, Tel Aviv, 26 August 1950. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 6, Gz. 121475_pol 1950.

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Credit Agreement Instead of Reparations for Israel In 1952, while Israel negotiated reparations with West Germany, Austria issued a loan of 100,000 million Austrian Schillings to Israel. At the time, this was a significant amount of money for a small country whose economy was entirely dependent on the Marshall Plan.²⁸ Looking at the internal reasoning as to why this credit came about, it seems less puzzling. Austrian officials regarded it as the price to pay to Israel for its international renouncement of reparation requests from Austria.²⁹ This Israeli step would, of course, be crucial in confirming—before the eyes of the world—Austria’s differentiation from Germany. A credit meant a business transaction between two friendly countries. Reparations, on the other hand, signified a guilt transaction between former enemies. With this in mind, the credit agreement between Austria and Israel was no business as usual. While the Austrians wanted to retain the spirit of ‘normalcy’, the Israelis—as was the case with the FRG—refused to accept credit from Austria without a ‘declaration of friendship’. Such a declaration must include a clear acknowledgement of Austria’s break with Hitler’s Germany, and notably, the Austrian Nazis. Austria was furthermore requested to strictly condemn the atrocities committed by National Socialists against Austrian Jews.³⁰ Even though the Israelis did not ask for a direct acceptance of moral responsibility from the Austrians, in the Foreign Ministry in Vienna, alarm bells began to ring. Consul Hartl instantly warned that the Israeli move was nothing less than an attempt to present Austria with ‘the bill of the Nazi past through the backdoor of the credit agreement’.³¹ In order to avert what was perceived as an Israeli attack on Austria’s victim status, the Ministry in its response painted the credit agreement as a generous gift on Austria’s part. With this, they signalled to have no understanding of what—in their view— was an entirely misplaced Israeli request:

²⁸ 100,000 million Austrian Schillings were about US$2.5 million in 1952. Taking the retail price index (that changed around 641.8 per cent between May 1952 and December 2016) into account, this sum is equivalent to 53.9 million euros in December 2016 (Statistik Austria, Indexrechner, online at: http://www.statistik.at/Indexrechner/). ²⁹ See, for instance, Hartl reports to Foreign Minister Gruber on ‘The establishment of diplomatic relations’, Tel Aviv, 3 November 1951. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 2, Gz. 146 350_pol 1951. ³⁰ Hartl’s letter to Foreign Minister Gruber, Tel Aviv, 2 February 1952. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 2, Gz. 146 350_pol 1952. Hartl to Foreign Minister Gruber on ‘Israel—The establishment of diplomatic relations’, Tel Aviv, 2 January 1952. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 2, Gz. 146 350_pol 1952. ³¹ Hartl reports to the Austrian Foreign Ministry on ‘The establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel’, Tel Aviv, 26 May 1952. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/AA, Israel 2, Gz. 146 350_pol 1952.

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The Republic of Austria, which Nazi Germany had violently occupied itself, has nothing to do with these things and therefore Austria sees no reason to state the obvious in a friendship declaration.

Consequentially, the Ministry suggested a neutral formulation of the treaty text that focused on the present and future rather than on the past: The Republic of Austria and Israel, aiming at strengthening the existing bond of peace between them via contracts that foster the amicable exchange between their territories reflecting the intellectual, cultural, economic, and business aims of their peoples, have decided to [ . . . ]³²

Such a formulation signalled to the outside world that the credit was a mutually beneficial economic transaction. It further distanced Austria from any connection to or potential compensation attempts stemming from the Nazi legacy and formed a way around reparations in a time when negotiations between the FRG and Israel were ongoing. Furthermore, such a formulated credit agreement would normalize relations with Israel whereas West Germany did not have any diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, thus signalling once and for all to the world that Austria was different from Germany. In the end, Austria indeed asked for nothing less in return for the 100 million Schilling credit than an official Israeli renunciation from any future reparation requests. What consul-general Hartl later referred to as ‘the word that should cost us 100 million Schillings’³³ was finally voiced in 1952 by Israel’s Foreign Minister Sharett: ‘Israel will not demand reparations from Austria [ . . . ] Israel accepts the supposition that Germany is responsible for acts committed against Austrian Jews since they took place only after the Anschluss’ (Sharett (1952), quoted in Steininger 2012, 62). That Sharett made this statement in Paris en route to a signing ceremony for the reparations agreement with West Germany was also no coincidence and made clear once more that Israel had accepted that the Austrian and German cases were different.³⁴ In the diplomatic backchannels, almost wholly outside the eye of ³² Response from the Austrian Foreign Ministry to Hartl, Vienna, 17 June 1952. ÖStA/AdR, BKA/ AA, Israel 2, Gz. 146 350_pol 1952. ³³ Karl Hartl’s letter to Adolf Schärf, Tel Aviv, 7 December 1953. Original letter reprinted in Steininger (2012, 84). ³⁴ Historians up until this day debate and try to understand Sharett’s decisiveness on the issue of reparations from Austria. The main explanation points to the legal status of Austria as a liberated country which would have rendered reparation claims almost impossible to achieve under

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62      the public, the Austrian diplomacy with its victim myth had yielded its first major international success. Within the constraints of the internationally available pasts of the postwar context, in the Austrian case—that of innocent victimhood—combined with the individual choices of anti-Nazi foreign policy elites and the conducive Cold War environment, Austria thus first forged its victim narrative on the international stage. While West Germany’s selected diplomatic strategy was to gain absolution from the past by immersing itself politically, culturally, and economically into the West, Austria’s absolution came from its active distancing from Germany. With this, Austrian officials aimed at nothing less than swift independence and a departure of the occupying powers without having to fulfil the pending reparation demands from the victims of the Third Reich. In the Austrian case, countries with potential demands to be avoided were not only Israel but first and foremost the Soviet Union. At the time, the Soviets still occupied eastern Austria, including the capital, Vienna. As long as Soviet claims on ‘German property’ in Austria remained unsettled, the threat of Soviet occupation or territorial division similar to Germany loomed large. However, in the Austrian case particularly, the beginning competition between the Soviet Union and the Western occupying powers played into the hands of Austria’s strategic interests at the time. To secure Austria from Soviet claims, the United States was willing to play along with its victim status, at least in the international public sphere. Behind the scenes, however, the United States knew very well that Austria’s victimhood was nothing but a fabrication. Hence, in the run-up to the Austrian State Treaty, the US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles pressured Austrians into a settlement of heirless property with the Jewish Claims Committee (Knight 2000b, 14–18; Zweig 2010, 58). With the end of the occupation in sight, officials, within only six weeks, issued a payment of US$22 million to former Austrian citizens living abroad, thus freeing up the country’s way towards independence. Only nine days after the conclusion of negotiations with the Jewish Claims Committee, the Austrian State Treaty officially came into force on 27 July 1955. Shortly before, however, the Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold Figl had skilfully deployed his own story as a former concentration-camp inmate and

international law. While that situation absolved Austria as a state from legal liability vis-a-vis reparation requests from Israel, Austria still had to directly deal with the claims of Jewish organizations regarding the (individual) restitution of heirless property (Zweig 2010, 56).

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had managed to convince the Allied powers to delete the Moscow Declaration’s passage on Austrian co-responsibility from the final version of the treaty (Bischof 1993, 345–66; Rathkolb 2005, 168). On the balcony of Vienna’s Belvedere, on 15 May 1955, Figl, together with the Allied foreign ministers, ceremoniously presented the results of his diplomatic efforts to the cheering crowds: Austria was finally free. With the State Treaty as proof, Austria’s narrative of victimhood was an utter diplomatic success that smoothed the way for it to become a neutral, prosperous, and importantly ‘spotless’ welfare state located between the emerging fault lines of East and West.

Conclusion: Memory Originates as an International Strategy This chapter located the origins of collective memory in the international environment. It showed how German and Austrian political elites came up with selected versions of their country’s Nazi legacy, initially with an eye to an international audience. In so doing, however, they were limited by three factors: first, the structure of internationally available pasts which in the post-World War II context followed the criminal categories of perpetrators and victims; second, the structure of individual choices of foreign policymakers, in particular the autobiographical experiences of the post-war elites, all of whom were during the war in resistance to Nazism. The domestic environment and its opposition, on the other hand, were secondary. Finally, there were the conflicts about the past among a multitude of mutually aware diplomatic actors in the international sphere, which included the occupying powers, characterized by the emerging East–West competition of the beginning Cold War. Equally, Israel, as well as the United States as the leading Western power, played a vital role in enabling or restricting the freedom of how Austrian and West German foreign policymakers could shape their narrative of the Nazi past into a political strategy. This chapter’s account on the origins of collective memory in time- and context-specific international constellations is in line with Halbwachs’ seminal finding: collective memory forms in social processes which can be analysed in order to understand the options that determine memory’s content. ‘Social’ in IR meaning ‘international’, the cases studied confirmed that the stories forged indeed originated in international interactions. More so, the selective foreign policy strategies with memory did not receive much domestic attention, and if they did, they resonated little or triggered outright public rejection. The

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64      theoretical and empirical question to answer in the following chapter therefore is whether these fabricated international strategies also came to form public memory. How did an official version of the Nazi past with initially little popular resonance come to carry the wider public identity of West Germans and Austrians?

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3 Memory as Public Identity This chapter places collective memory at the basis of a country’s identity and posits that memory returns from the international sphere to the domestic environment. In the course of this process, memory moves from being an official strategy to becoming part of the wider public identity. Memory’s impact thus transforms from a direct, active opportunity to an indirect, passive constraint for policymakers. Notably, as identity, collective memory is unexamined, and assumed to underwrite the mindset of a country’s public and its representatives. To illustrate this transformation, this chapter looks to the cases of West Germany and Austria in the second post-war decade. The ‘critical situation’ for analysis arrived in 1961 in the form of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. The West German and Austrian reactions to the trial demonstrate that by the early 1960s these countries had come to view their role in World War II through the lens of a pre-existing national narrative in almost entirely unexamined ways.

Memory Becomes a Country’s Identity Collective memory, in this book, has been posited as the carrier of state identity. However, for collective memory to begin to carry identity, a certain story must slowly transform from an elitist political strategy into the broader public’s understanding of itself. In the account from Chapter 2, collective memory initially forms in social relations with external others, that is, in the international realm. For us to claim that this collective memory then becomes a country’s identity, we must return to the domestic environment and particularly to the wider public memory landscape. For a collective memory to underwrite identity, the officially forged narrative must, with time, become the story of the broader society and its people. How does this happen? First of all, this process takes time. Collective memory can never be immediately congruent with a collective’s identity. At least a decade must pass. Originating in the official, international sphere, the selective version of memory initially has little resonance with a domestic Collective Memory in International Relations. Kathrin Bachleitner, Oxford University Press (2021). © Kathrin Bachleitner. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192895363.003.0004

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66      public. It is forged top-down following IR’s realist, instrumentalist view on memory. Albeit, this strategic manipulation of memory through policymakers works only in the short term, because the strategic-political saliency of memory declines rapidly within the international sphere. However, where memory is successfully employed internationally, it is likely to reflect back to the country as well. Only then, when collective memory enters the domestic public realm, can we claim that collective memory has begun to underwrite collective identity. It is also only with time that our explanation of collective memory catches up with the definition of identity put forward by social constructivists, whereby a country’s identity is constituted and reconstituted through interactions either with external others or domestically (e.g. Katzenstein 1996; Reus-Smit 1999; Wendt 1999; Lebow 2008). The exact beginning of identity in these inter-relational processes, however, remains unspecified. As such, it is hard to pinpoint identity to its substance. We, however, have located the origins of identity in collective memory and in its strategic fabrication for international purposes. This allows us to trace identity back to a defined and previously forged version of collective memory. Constructivist scholarship is nevertheless helpful in laying out the difference between ‘memory as strategy’ and ‘memory as identity’, and with it, memory’s transformation from active opportunity to passive constraint. In general, constructivists’ definition of state identity contains two crucial elements. First, identity is stable. Identity, as Alexander Wendt (1992, 397) put it, describes ‘relatively stable, role-specific understandings and expectations about the self ’. For a particular memory to become identity, it therefore must take on a certain degree of stability. That means an initially formulated version of memory must continue over time in order to become identity. Second, identity is unexamined. IR constructivists teach us that identity unfolds its impact over political actors in unintentional ways. Identity, in their view, is not a tool to be used and forged by political actors. Identity, instead, shapes actors, their preferences, and thus their action. That means that identity, with individuals and collectives, is not consciously referred to; it instead guides action in passive/indirect ways (Hopf 2002, 11–12). For a particular version of memory to become identity, it must manifest itself as the ‘slate that decision makers are bringing with them into their interaction with external Others’ (Hopf 2002, 290). In other words, memory’s version of the past must become ingrained in the mindset of agents to the extent that it, at a later stage, circumvents ‘the available, imaginable, thinkable’ (Hopf 2009, 296).

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If we want to show that a deliberately forged narrative (‘memory as strategy’) became the identity of a country (‘memory as identity’), we therefore must demonstrate that this specific version of the past has become the unexamined version anchored in the broader public’s mindset. While previously we assumed collective memory to be officially formulated by a country’s representatives, now we turn to collective memory as it is held in the broader public’s ‘collective consciousness’. With this, we can determine that collective memory went from strategy to identity by (a) its return from the international to the domestic sphere, and moreover, (b) its movement from the top down, no longer being located in the strategic efforts of elites, but in the broader mindset of the people. How can the transition from memory to identity be demonstrated? First, we must select two different points in time. Point A must lie in the direct aftermath of a memorable event. Point B must take place at least a decade later. From there, we go on to show that the option for memory deliberately selected in point A became by point B the only ‘available, thinkable’ option. Moreover, how do we know that a previously selected memory has become the only option? First, the version of the past must have become part of the belief system of a country’s wider public. Secondly, this version must have become ingrained in the mindset of the country’s representatives as well. For them, a selected memory now can no longer be one of many strategic options, but the only ‘thinkable’ option. In other words, for both a country’s public and its official representatives, a previously chosen version of memory must, at a later point in time, confine their ‘mental horizon’. If an official narrative has become collective identity, its essence now circumvents the lens with which to perceive the world.

The Case Study: Former Nazi States React to the Trial of Adolf Eichmann To empirically show how memory transformed from strategy to identity, we return to our case countries, West Germany and Austria. We take their narratives formulated in point A, in the aftermath of World War II, which Chapter 2 described. In the West German case, the narrative was one of moral responsibility for the Nazi past. In the Austrian case, it was one of innocent victimhood under Nazi Germany. For these memories to have transformed from official strategy to a country’s identity, we must allow for time, i.e. at least a decade, to pass. In our case scenario, this brings us up to the 1960s. While in

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68      the 1950s (point A), their narrative of moral responsibility or victimhood was optional and strategic; a decade later (point B), they must have become the only available, thinkable option. To render the transition from memory as strategy to memory as identity manifest, we must find that a previously formulated official version of collective memory, over the medium term, began to resonate with the wider domestic public. We saw in Chapter 2 that, in the post-war years (point A), this was not the case. Chancellor Adenauer embraced the narrative of the FRG as a morally responsible perpetrator, but his population did not. Equally, in Austria, the victim narrative resonated with the country’s elites and their strategic interests, but not yet with the wider Austrian public. However, a decade later (point B), the situation already looked far different. To argue that memory had become identity by the 1960s, the lenses of ‘responsible perpetrator’ and ‘innocent victim’ must be demonstrated to have become an integral part of the public’s and their representatives’ mindset. Empirically, the public’s mindset is assumed to manifest itself in media and newspaper reporting of the time. The mindset of political representatives is conveyed in their official and private correspondences, speeches, and statements, all retrieved from the state archives. Because we are inquiring into the mindset, that is, into the logic and meaning behind public and official rhetoric, the method used is discourse analysis.¹ Moreover, for an underlying mindset to manifest itself, we must find a critical situation that triggers its verbal utterance, be it by journalists or politicians. For our case countries, such a situation arose in 1961 when the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was put on trial in Israel. How Eichmann’s trial was portrayed in the West German and Austrian media offers a unique insight into the state of public memory at the time. The discourse analysis in collected, printed articles reporting on the trial in Jerusalem, coupled with readers’ comments and letters to the editor, serves to test whether the broader public by 1961 had internalized the official story told to the world a decade earlier. The findings need to show that public reasoning about the trial was filtered through the lenses of the previously formulated West German and Austrian narratives. In a second step, the empirical inquiry moves from the analysis of the public’s mindset to that of its representatives. As per our framework, for a particular narrative to have carried identity, it must be shown to have become ingrained in the mindset of a country’s officials as well. For that purpose, the ¹ For the utility of discourse analysis to measure identity, see Abdelal et al. (2006, 2009).

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analysis first focuses on the speeches of decision-makers in the light of the trial, and secondly, it looks to the mindset of lower-ranking officials who took part in the West German and Austrian delegations dispatched to Jerusalem. In their ‘discursive formations’ (Bentley 2016, 5–6), we trace cues which highlight that ruling politicians and involved officials perceived the trial through the lens of their country’s narratives.

Adolf Eichmann on Trial in Jerusalem In May 1960, news made headlines that Israeli agents had captured the fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. Eichmann had been the Head of Department IV D4 of the Gestapo which was responsible for Jewish affairs. Under his direct responsibility, therefore, fell the deportation of Jews from all over Europe into concentration camps.² Furthermore, Eichmann was not only one of the highest-ranking Nazi criminals, but he was also to be trialled publicly in Jerusalem: During the Second World War this man Eichmann was the person directly responsible for the execution of Hitler’s orders for the ‘final solution’ [ . . . ] Hundreds of thousands of the survivors are living in our midst, and hundreds of people in Israel and abroad would not rest since the end of the war until they had found the man who had been in charge of this appalling campaign of extermination. They regarded it as their mission in life to bring the man responsible for this crime, without precedent in history, to stand trial before the Jewish people. Such a trial can take place only in Israel.³

This announcement by Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion sparked unprecedented global interest, and, with it, the eyes of the world overnight shifted back to the time of National Socialism. When the Nazi legacy resurfaced on the international stage, West Germans and Austrians had been enjoying a period of relative ‘domestic bliss’ under the protection of their ‘clean start mentality’. The case of Eichmann, however, reached everyone instantaneously, mainly because it was a global media event. It was the first trial to be televised in history. Through the recent invention of ² For more information on the case of Eichmann and his trial, see Safrian (1993); Overy (2002); Lord Russell (2002); Cesarani (2004). ³ Ben-Gurion in a letter to Argentinian President Arturo Frondizi, 3 June 1960, quoted in Lord Russell (2002, xxviii).

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70      TV sets, Eichmann’s statements arrived directly in the living rooms of ordinary people.⁴ Moreover, the presence of four hundred journalists from all over the world in the courtroom, made it the most widely covered media event in post-war history (Cesarani 2004, 325). When the trial began in Jerusalem on 11 April 1961, therefore, West Germans and Austrians also closely followed the testimony of Adolf Eichmann.

Shame and Confrontation: The West German Public Watches the Eichmann Trial In West Germany, the Eichmann trial received unprecedented media attention: more West German reporters were sent directly to Jerusalem than from any other country. From there, they covered every one of the 114 court sessions in detail. Public attention had never been higher for any previous media event: about half of the FRG’s population read all or at least one-third of the 114 newspaper reports on the court sessions. Besides, Eine Epoche vor Gericht (An Era under Trial) was aired during prime time following the evening news at 20:00. To be sure, in West Germany, the public was closely watching and listening to the testimony of Adolf Eichmann (Deutschkron 1983, 130–4). The level of public attention paid to the trial is astonishing, particularly considering the widespread wish since 1945 for a ‘clean start’ and the concomitant general silence about anything that had happened beforehand. Journalists, now for the first time, actively worked against the public tendency to sweep the Nazi past under the carpet and reported on the Nazi crimes in minute detail. From their reports, it becomes clear that West German journalists felt morally required to face up to the Nazi legacy’s horrid and shameful aspects. Moreover, they broadly viewed this route as the only way forward to a democratic reconstruction of German society. However, while no historical facts were obscured, the main message conveyed in West German media was that today’s Germany was different from that of the past. Implicated in this sentiment was that neither Eichmann nor Hitler represented all Germans. West German journalists thus approached the case of Eichmann as shedding ⁴ There was no television service in Israel at the time of the Eichmann trial. However, TV had already been introduced to West Germany and Austria. The trial in Jerusalem was nevertheless carried live via closed-circuit television to a large nearby auditorium. This video material was then made available to any interested broadcasting service to be aired around the world, which included Austrian and West German TV (Cohen et al. 2002, 42).

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light on the past, yet interlinked it with the present in the ‘specifically West German way’ that Adenauer had coined: only in underlining discontinuity and differences between past and present could Germans move on.⁵ The thinking of journalists in 1961, therefore followed precisely the logic which Adenauer had previously laid out for his country. Notably, however, back in 1952, his version of memory was formulated for an international audience and had been met with protest in the wider West German public. Now, in contrast, there was no such resistance. On the contrary, as this reader’s comment exemplifies, there was widespread support for the admission of shame and as a consequence also moral responsibility for the Nazi past: I have to say the following out loud, I cannot restrain myself anymore! I have to finally state what I felt and still feel when I am reading your news about the Eichmann trial. Shame, shame, shame, nothing less than wild, desperate shame! Shame, that I am German and that I was forced to wear this uniform.⁶

From this, and many similar readers’ comments, it becomes clear that members of the public were by the beginning 1960s more willing to engage with their Nazi past. Importantly, the direction of this engagement was along the lines of Adenauer’s official story: it was essential to confront the past, rather than sweep it under the carpet. Furthermore, it was necessary to atone for it, even if collective guilt did not exist for all Germans. A West German opinion survey on the Eichmann trial equally underlines this finding. Among the population, the idea of collective responsibility but not guilt predominated: 88 per cent of West Germans did not feel guilty with regards to the extermination of the Jews. Eichmann, for the majority, was ‘Eichmann’ and in no way typical of them (Deutschkron 1983, 133). Nevertheless, the rejection of collective guilt, in the West German case, did not come at the expense of moral responsibility. Eichmann and NS criminals had committed crimes in their names. Thus, all Germans were morally responsible. This view reflects the

⁵ Based on a content analysis of German newspaper reports on the Eichmann trial in Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau. See also Cohen et al. (2002). ⁶ A former Oberfeldwebel of the German Luftwaffe in Die Welt, 17 May 1961, quoted in: Deutschkron (1983, 132). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Ich muss Ihnen das mal sagen, ich kann nicht anders! Ich muss das mal aussprechen, was ich empfunden habe und empfinde, wenn ich Ihre Nachrichten über den Eichmann-Prozess lese. Scham, Scham, Scham, weiter nichts als wilde hoffnungslose Scham! Scham, dass ich ein Deutscher bin und einmal gezwungen war, diese Uniform zu tragen.’

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72      essence of Adenauer’s official memory formulated in 1952. By the beginning of the 1960s, his version of the Nazi legacy had clearly begun to take on momentum more widely.

Outrage and Irritation: The Austrian Public Watches the Eichmann Trial In neighbouring Austria, the press too covered all court sessions and dispatched numerous correspondents to Israel. Printed articles equally mentioned the horrors of the Nazi crimes in all detail.⁷ Moreover, from journalists’ descriptions of gas chambers, mass shootings, and burials as ‘new’ or ‘sensational’, we can recollect the state of knowledge about the Nazi legacy at the beginning of the 1960s. At the time, this information was mostly unknown to readers.⁸ Until the trial, the extent of the crimes, particularly those committed towards the Jews, had been vaguely circumvented in Austria as ‘perishing in concentration camps’ (‘Umkommen im KZ’), or, as the Österreich Lexikon had suggested, ‘a drop in the Jewish part of the population’.⁹ Furthermore, in the course of Eichmann’s trial, Austrian journalists for the first time mentioned the Jews as the primary victims of the Nazis. A novelty was also that witnesses in Israel lent a voice and a face to a previously perceived anonymous mass of the dead.¹⁰ Through Eichmann’s trial in 1961, the Austrian public therefore received detailed and new information about the Nazi past through media and TV. Readers’ reactions in numerous letters to the editors make clear that the uncovering of Eichmann’s crimes triggered shock, outrage, and as a result,

⁷ Based on findings of a content analysis of articles related to the Eichmann trial in Die Presse, Austria’s biggest conservative newspaper that is closest to the Christian Democratic Party ÖVP and in Arbeiter Zeitung, the newspaper of the Social Democratic Party SPÖ. Timeframe of analysis: May 1960 to June 1962. For secondary literature on the Austrian public reaction to the Eichmann trial, see Garscha (2005, 187–8). ⁸ See, for instance, Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Die Juden wurden zu Tausenden hingeschlachtet. Erschütternde Augenzeugenberichte im Eichmann-Prozess’, 3 May 1961. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Kommen die Nazi-Zeugen nach Israel?’, 29 April 1961. Die Presse am Sonntag, ‘Extrareportage: Der Fall Adolf Eichmann’, by Louis Barcata, 9 April 1961. Die Presse, ‘Lebend verbrannt oder lebend begraben. Eichmann-Prozess enthüllt Greuel der SS’, 3 May 1961. ⁹ See Bamberger and Maier-Bruck (1966). Österreich Lexikon, Band 1, A-K, Entry on ‘Jews’ (‘Juden’). ¹⁰ See, for instance, Die Presse, ‘Duell zwischen Eichmanns Verteidiger und Ankläger: Monsterprozess in Jerusalem gegen Erfüllungsgehilfen von Hitlers Endlösung der Judenfrage eröffnet’, 12 April 1961. Die Presse, ‘Adolf Eichmanns Familie verschwunden. Der Judenliquitator lebte seit 1950 in Buenos Aires’, 5 June 1960. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Judenmörder Eichmann im Gefängnis in Israel’, 25 May 1960.

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sympathy with the Jewish victims: ‘The Jewish people are entitled to atonement for what constituted perhaps the most atrocious persecution in history,’¹¹ writes one commentator in Die Presse. This sentiment was widespread. However, while sparking sympathies with the Jewish victims and outrage over atrocities, Eichmann’s revelations did not hit home in Austria. The feeling of shame, for instance, that surfaced in German readers’ reactions was not present here. In the 1960s, National Socialism was widely perceived by Austrian readers as a foreign, German phenomenon only. Against this backdrop logic, Austrian news reporting reads like a paradox. Journalists described the crimes that happened on Austrian territory, yet always with a hint of German occupation. In this context, neither the fact that Eichmann himself was Austrian and grew up in Linz nor the blaming of many Austrians whose names came up in the course of the trail led Austrian journalists to ponder Austria’s co-responsibility for these crimes.¹² Even when details about specifically ‘Viennese’ practices of Jewish humiliation surfaced, for instance, making Jews clean the sidewalks with toothbrushes, these acts were always blamed on the occupying, foreign SS officers.¹³ In a similar logic, in an article on ‘Eichmann and us’, the reporter complains about the prevailing public silence about National Socialism. Yet his ‘historic fact-finding mission’ arrives at the conclusion that Austrians were also victims. That Austrians were perpetrators just like the Germans did not cross any journalist’s mind.¹⁴ At the beginning of the 1960s, reporters and their readers seem to have fully internalized the national narrative of victimhood under Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, the rare, critical voice also became loud as a result of Eichmann’s trial in Austria. Among the readers’ comments, for instance, one person reminded readers that ‘many Austrians also enthusiastically followed National Socialism and its Führer’.¹⁵ Another single comment published in the

¹¹ Die Presse, ‘Briefe an die Presse: Moral und Gesetz im Fall Eichmann’, by Dr. Josef Zitta, 16 April 1961. Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Das jüdische Volk hat Anspruch auf Sühne der wohl grauenhaftesten Verfolgung der bisherigen Geschichte!’ ¹² See Austrian reporting on cases of Austrian war criminals that were named during the trial: Die Presse, ‘Der “Kleine Eichmann” kommt vor Gericht. Hermann Höfle erwartet in Salzburg der Prozess’, 15 November 1961. For other reports on Nazi war criminals in Austria, see, for instance, Die Presse, ‘Höttl, heutiger Schuldirektor in Bad Aussee, sagt gegen Eichmann aus’, 27 April 1961. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Trotz drohender Niederlage erst recht Judenmord. Ein SS-Kollege: Eichmann trägt die volle Verantwortung’. The subtitle within this article concerned the case of Wilhelm Höttl: ‘Ein SS-Major jetzt Schuldirektor in Österreich’, 27 April 1961. ¹³ Die Presse, ‘Eichmann schlug Himmler die‚ Endlösung’ vor. Österreicher belasten Angeklagten schwer’, 27 April 1961. ¹⁴ Die Presse, ‘Eichmann und wir’, by Otto Schulmeister, 14 April 1961. ¹⁵ Die Presse, ‘Briefe an die Presse: Der Unterschied’, by Dr. Friedrich Reitlinger, 26 April 1961.

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74      left-wing Arbeiter Zeitung criticized the large looming public silence about the past and its potential consequences: No, there is no doubt about whether Eichmann’s trial is our business. We ourselves are being summoned as witnesses and as co-defendants. And not only those who lived through 1943 and who remained silent for a thousand different reasons, but also those who were born afterwards and who— because they did not receive an appropriate education in schools—have not become any smarter than their parents.¹⁶

This reader’s criticism was directed at the national victim narrative. Such comments, however, were a rarity. For the general Austrian, Eichmann was undoubtedly guilty. However, inferences from Eichmann to Austrians were ‘unthinkable’.¹⁷ This last assertion is supported by the public consternation caused at the first artistic attempt to question Austrians’ victim status in the form of a short one-person play called Der Herr Karl (Mister Karl). Produced by Austrian cabaret artists Helmut Qualtinger and Carl Merz, the play aired on the public television channel ORF in November 1961 and sparked a scandal overnight. The protagonist of the play, Karl, is a prototypical opportunist and a petitbourgeois collaborator who manoeuvres his way through different regimes and times without conscience and political convictions. During the time of Austria’s Anschluss, an anti-Semitic Karl knowingly and willingly plays along with the Nazis to seek his own benefit: ‘Then Hitler came [ . . . ] yes, I still remember—we stood at the Ring and the Heldenplatz. The policemen wore swastika armbands—fit!’¹⁸ Karl’s internal monologue continues in the logic of a willing Nazi follower and admirer: ‘One felt a certain grandeur.’¹⁹ The public reaction to the play was sheer outrage. As theatre critic Hans Weigel noted at the time, ‘one wanted to mock a specific type of person and a

¹⁶ Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Das Kalte Herz’, by O.F., 18 April 1961. Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Nein, es ist gar keine Frage, ob uns der Eichmann-Prozess etwas angeht. Wir sind selbst vorgeladen, als Zeugen und Mitangeklagte. Und nicht nur die, die 1943 erlebt und aus hunderterlei guten Gründen geschwiegen haben, sondern auch die, die später geboren wurden und—weil man sie in den Schulen nicht entsprechend belehrt hat—nicht klüger geworden sind als ihre Eltern.’ ¹⁷ Die Presse, ‘Briefe an die Presse: Generalisieren unstatthaft’, by Erich Steiner, 16 April 1961. ¹⁸ See Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF: Der Herr Karl, by Qualtinger, Merz, and Neuberg, aired 15 November 1961. The original is in the very typical Austrian dialect: ‘Dann is eh da Hitler kummen [ . . . ] na, i waaß no—am Ring und am Heldenplatz g’standen. De Polizistn mit de Hakenkreuzbinden—fesch!’ ¹⁹ Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF: Der Herr Karl, by Qualtinger, Merz, and Neuberg, aired 15 November 1961. In German: ‘Man hat eine gewisse Größe gespürt.’

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whole nation suddenly shouted Au!’²⁰ Evidently, Karl mirrored the general Austrian; thus the cabaret attacked everyone. Particular offence was taken at the questioning of Austrians’ victim status. Nazism was—as protestors insisted—a foreign, that is, German phenomenon and Austrians had nothing to do with it. The producers were denounced as mischief-makers at a time when Austrians finally enjoyed their well-deserved independence following the occupation.²¹ From the public protest against Herr Karl, we see how far the internalization of the victim narrative had progressed in the mindset by then, thus making it impossible for a majority of Austrians to see clearly into the mirror Karl held up. Altogether, in both West Germany and Austria, the news reporting on the Eichmann trial for the first time populated the Nazi past with vivid detail. Both countries’ journalists provided accounts of the horrors and crimes but also gave a face to perpetrators and victims. However, the information was already filtered through the social frames of the previously adopted narratives about the Nazi past. In West Germany, the population expressed shame and began to embrace moral responsibility for the Nazi crimes. In contrast, in Austria Eichmann’s case provided ‘an irritation, but no earthquake’, as Garscha (2005, 186) put it, because it was filtered through the country’s widespread victim myth: after all, Eichmann and National Socialism were foreign, German products and thus only reminded Austrians of the pitiful period of victimization under German occupation. Through this frame, any Austrian involvement in the Nazi regime had almost entirely escaped the public mindset.

‘Bring the Full Truth to Light and Do Justice!’: The Official West German Reaction to the Trial While media reporting and readers’ reaction to Eichmann’s trial mainly conveyed that the West German and Austrian publics had widely embraced two very diverse stories about the Nazi past, these two narratives were also present in the official responses. However, this time around, the respective images of responsibility and victimhood had become the ‘only available,

²⁰ Theatre critic Hans Weigel (1961), quoted in Die Zeit, ‘Kabarettist Helmut Qualtinger: Vom Herrn Karl . . . Vor 50 Jahren empörte Helmut Qualtinger mit dem Monolog eines Opportunisten die Nation’, by Georg Biron, No. 46, 10 November 2011. Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Man hatte einem bestimmten Typus auf die Zehen steigen wollen und eine ganze Nation schrie: Au!’ ²¹ Hans Weigel (1961), quoted by Georg Biron in Die Zeit, 10 November 2011.

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76      thinkable option’ rather than a strategic choice for the respective politicians. In the words of Hopf (2002, 290), for collective memory to carry identity, it must have become the ‘slate that decision makers are bringing with them’. In West Germany, this was certainly the case when Chancellor Konrad Adenauer appeared on television the night before the trial began, addressing his nation: We wish for the trial to bring the full truth to light and do justice. After Germany’s capitulation, everyone who started rebuilding was filled with shame and worry. We were filled with shame because now, for the first time, we realized the horrifying abyss of National Socialism. We were filled with worry because we asked how it could ever become possible to eradicate this poison from the soul and life of wider circles of the German people.²²

From this statement, we see that Adenauer’s approach towards the trial still contained all the elements of the narrative of moral responsibility that he had previously formulated for his country. The crimes had happened in the German name, and even if the German people were not guilty as a whole, they now needed to take on moral responsibility while confronting the feeling of shame that the Nazi legacy had brought on their name. The route selected was again one of offering full West German support: in helping the Israelis bring Eichmann to justice, ‘Eichmann will get what he deserves’ (Adenauer (1961), quoted in Lavy 1996, 87). This thinking reflects the logic of atonement of a morally responsibly perpetrator. Moreover, only this course of action will underline—as Adenauer relentlessly highlighted—the difference between the new and old Germany, the Rechtsstaat and the Third Reich, the Germans and the Nazis.²³ In expressing shame and worry regarding the Nazi past, official West Germany continued on the path towards Vergangenheitsbewältigung (= coming to terms with the past). Only by confronting the Nazi legacy and looking it in the eye, can the country ‘make good again’ (Wiedergutmachung). This time, however, there was no domestic

²² Adenauer (1961), quoted in Lamm (1961, III). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Wir wünschen, dass in diesem Prozess die volle Wahrheit ans Licht kommt und dass Gerechtigkeit geübt wird. Nach dem Zusammenbruch Deutschlands waren alle, die an die Arbeit gingen, Deutschland wiederaufzubauen, erfüllt von Scham und Sorge. Wir waren erfüllt von Scham, weil nunmehr zum ersten Male uns, dem deutschen Volk, der furchtbare Abgrund des Nationalsozialismus zum Bewusstsein kam. Wir waren erfüllt von Sorge, weil wir uns fragten, wie es möglich sein werde, dieses Gift aus dem seelischen Empfinden, aus dem seelischen Leben weiter Kreise des deutschen Volkes wieder zu entfernen.’ ²³ Based on Adenauer’s TV speech in 1961, quoted in Lamm (1961, III).

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opposition to this approach. Wiedergutmachung had become the only ‘thinkable, available’ reaction to the trial of Adolf Eichmann.

‘Eichmann Was Not Austrian!’: The Official Austrian Reaction to the Trial In Austria, unlike in West Germany, the political elite remained predominantly silent in light of Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. Most politicians refrained from commenting publicly at all.²⁴ Only Justice Minister Christian Broda at a routine press conference issued a rather general statement which, however, received little media attention: The trial against Eichmann became the historical reckoning with National Socialism as a system. It—at the same time—serves as a warning to all of us: let us not tolerate the creation of myths around the Third Reich!²⁵

The justice minister’s message certainly did not hit home. In fact, the other, brief official comment was entirely fabricated by the Interior Ministry: Eichmann was a German, not an Austrian citizen. In other words, officials were making it clear: Eichmann was none of Austria’s business. Although this was the message conveyed to the public, behind the scenes Austrian officials were fully preoccupied with Eichmann’s case, mainly to protect the country’s innocent status.²⁶ Official efforts began as soon as Eichmann was captured in Argentina. Within hours, the Interior Ministry worked relentlessly against inquiries, first from West German courts then from Israelis, about whether Eichmann had ever possessed Austrian citizenship.²⁷ ²⁴ An article in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse noticed the official silence, openly raising the question as to why Eichmann’s case seemed to constitute a taboo in Austria. See Die Presse, ‘Eichmann und wir’, by Otto Schulmeister, 14 April 1961. ²⁵ Broda (1961), quoted in: Garscha (2005, 195). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Der Prozess gegen Eichmann ist zur geschichtlichen Abrechnung mit dem Nationalsozialismus als System geworden. Er ist gleichzeitig eine Mahnung an uns alle: Dulden wir keine Legendenbildung um das Dritte Reich!’ ²⁶ Based on internal documents from the Austrian Interior Ministry, the Upper Austrian Police Authority (Eichmann and his family were residents of Linz, the capital of the region of Upper Austria, therefore the Upper Austrian Police Authority was in charge of his case), as well as archival material from the Foreign Ministry and the Embassy in Tel Aviv. All documents were retrieved from the Austrian state archives in Vienna. ²⁷ See, for instance, internal document between the Austrian Foreign and Interior Ministry on the ‘Question of Eichmann’s citizenship’, Vienna, 13 June 1960. ÖStA/AdR, BMI, Gz. 22568_2/60. Austrian Ambassador to Germany, Schöner, to the Foreign Minister on ‘Eichmann, Austrian?’ Bonn, 5 April 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 49, Gz. 17410_61.

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78      With Eichmann and his entire family having spent most of their lives in the Austrian city of Linz, this was not a straightforward task. However, Interior Minister Josef Afritsch went through backchannels and ordered an Upper Austrian policeman, Leo Meier: I need a report from you which states that Eichmann was a German citizen. Because if he is tried as an Austrian, we will pay crazy amounts of reparations. At such a trial, many victim organizations will bring in their claims, do you get it?²⁸

Meier understood and instantaneously started searching for relevant documentation in Eichmann’s hometown Linz. However, despite his best efforts, he could not find any evidence that Eichmann was not Austrian. Even though Eichmann was born in Solingen in the Rhineland in 1906, he was brought up and was a resident of the Austrian city of Linz. According to the citizenship law of 1918, permanent residence within Austria sufficed to receive Austrian citizenship. All discovered documents clearly revealed Eichmann was an Austrian, not a German citizen.²⁹ In his desperation, Meier came up with an idea: Austrian law prescribed that any Austrian who had joined a foreign military organization loses his/her citizenship. Given that Eichmann joined the ‘Austrian Legion’ in Bavaria in 1933, the policeman suggested applying this law to Eichmann and retroactively withdraw his citizenship (Safrian 1993, 320). The interior minister responded with praise: ‘Very well done! My colleagues, the ministers are very relieved.’³⁰ Once the trial in Jerusalem began, the Interior Ministry thus had already meticulously prepared its position: The investigations by the Austrian authorities have found no indication that Eichmann ever held Austrian citizenship. His father had applied for Austrian citizenship in 1928 and held dual citizenship after that. At the same time,

²⁸ Frank (1991), quoted in Safrian (1993, 320). Based on Leo Meier’s memoirs, written under the pseudonym Leo Frank. Translated by the author from the original in Austrian dialect: ‘Ich brauch’ von Ihnen einen Bericht, dass der Eichmann deutscher Staatsbürger ist. Weil wenn der als Österreicher verurteilt wird, dann zahlen wir uns mit den Wiedergutmachungen teppert [author’s remark: highly affective Austrian dialect for ‘stupid’, ‘foolish’]. Bei dem Prozess hängen sich eine Menge Opferverbände mit Forderungnen an, verstehn S’?’ ²⁹ Die Presse, ‘Wie Eichmann vom Österreicher zum Deutschen wurde’, by Siobhán Geets, 26 November 2011. ³⁰ Leo Frank (1991), quoted in Safrian (1993, 320). Translation by the author from the original in Austrian dialect: ‘Des habens sehr guat gmacht. Meine Ministerkollegen san sehr erleichtert.’

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Adolf Eichmann was already over 18 years old and was as such, not affected by his father’s decision. Eichmann himself never applied for Austrian citizenship and emigrated to Germany (as a German citizen) in 1933.³¹

Accompanying this official statement was a piece of advice to all Austrian diplomatic representatives worldwide to reject eventual press and other comments in ‘the appropriate form’. By ‘appropriate form’, they meant that of the Austrian victim narrative, that is, to fend off any doubt about Austria’s involvement in the Nazi regime and any moral responsibility stemming from it. Aware that such a course of action would put full blame on Germany alone, the advice included another hint: ‘refrain from engaging in any polemics and do not create the outward impression that your statements are aimed against the Federal Republic of Germany.’³² From Austria’s behind-the-scenes efforts, we see that maintaining a master narrative is indeed a form of governance. To that end, Austrian elites did well in formulating, controlling, and carrying their narrative through the official infrastructure. Their efforts, like Adenauer’s in the FRG, reflect the institutionalization processes needed to turn an isolated, official story into the basis for a credible and widespread public identity. As Berenskoetter (2014, 279) specified, this process needs agents who can claim expertise and legitimacy in carving out authentic memories and visions as well as creative skills to fuse them. Furthermore, it needs agents who can adopt and carry the narrative along and who possess the resources to affirm them with tangible practices. As a result, by 1961 in both countries there was little to no official opposition to moral responsibility in the West German case, or to victimhood in the Austrian case.³³ ³¹ The official statement was reprinted in a letter from the Austrian Foreign Ministry informing all Austrian representative offices on ‘The question of citizenship of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann’, (Highly Confidential!), Vienna, 6 April 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israeli 49, Gz. 17410_61. ³² The Austrian Foreign Ministry informing all Austrian representative offices on ‘The question of citizenship of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann’, (Highly Confidential!), Vienna, 6 April 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israeli 49, Gz. 17410_61. In German original: ‘Sie werden eingeladen, allfälligen Pressemeldungen oder sonstigen Äusserungen, dass Eichmann österreichischer Staatsbürger wäre bzw. dass seine Staatsbürgerschaft nicht geklärt und er möglicherweise österreichischer Staatsbürger sein könnte, in geeignet erscheinender Weise unter Hinweis auf die eindeutige Feststellung des Bundesministeriums für Inneres entgegenzutreten. Hierbei wäre jedoch unbedingt zu vermeiden, sich in eine Polemik einzulassen oder den Anschein zu erwecken, dass sich Ihre Feststellungen gegen die BRD richten.’ ³³ Notably, in the Austrian case, only the ambassador to Israel, Ernst Luegmayer, criticized the victim narrative. However, his hints were thoroughly ignored by the receiving ministers in Vienna. In a letter to the Ministry, he warned: ‘Attempts to declare Germans alone guilty or Austrians as not responsible can [ . . . ] only be unsuccessful and even provoke the opposite reaction as it is pointed out that the Federal Republic of Germany at least acknowledges its guilt and honestly aims at achieving

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Signalling Moral Responsibility: The West German Delegation to Jerusalem While at the very top knowledge about the strategic fabrication of memory persisted in 1961, among lower-ranking officials the logics of the two narratives had begun to frame their mindsets beyond their deliberate control. If we look, for instance, at the West German and Austrian representatives dispatched in official delegations to the trial, we find that their country’s version of the past had become internalized in their mission and messages. The West German delegation mirrored a mindset of moral responsibility. In terms of general make-up, the group was one of the largest of several countries and international organizations which had dispatched representatives to the trial. It consisted of ten people, including functionaries and staff from the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Press Office. Furthermore, it was equipped with a large budget of 426,756.11 DM. Evidently, the West German government had spared no expense for what it considered to be a vital and critical endeavour. Gerhard von Preuschen was the head of the delegation. He was a lawyer from Wiesbaden who had participated in the plot against Hitler on 20 July 1944. With this, he presented an ‘unproblematic’ candidate with regards to his personal biography. Moreover, by way of his profession, he was ideally equipped to participate in the search for ‘truth’. Being neither a politician nor a diplomat, von Preuschen conveniently avoided the outward impression of being a German ‘watchman’ over the trial (Große 1995, 162–5). After all, the main purpose of Germany’s presence in Jerusalem was to offer full support in bringing Eichmann to justice. The political intent behind the mission, however, topped this concrete and obvious goal. The actual task was much bigger than merely observing the trial. Since no bilateral relations existed between Israel and West Germany at the time, von Preuschen became the first official delegate of the West German government to Israel (Deutschkron 1983, 126). Therefore, the delegation’s presence in Jerusalem signified the first direct encounter between Israelis and Germans since World War II. Together, they faced—as the journalist Albert Wucher from Süddeutsche Zeitung recalled—‘the impossible’:

reparations, while Austria tries to duck out with all kinds of flimsy pretences.’ See Luegmayer to Foreign Minister Kreisky on ‘The improvement of the Austro-Israeli relationship’, Tel Aviv, 19 April 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, Gz. 23413_61.

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Isn’t Eichmann representing the typical German? Aren’t all Germans showing traits of Eichmann within their personalities? [ . . . ] Is it all just slumbering within you, now that you are well off? Is it at all possible for a nation that had committed such a sin on humanity to regain its innocence and moral integrity simply by way of changing the constitution?³⁴

While there were—of course—no answers, Israelis and West Germans at least for the first time confronted these questions together. This was precisely the pathway that Adenauer had begun to pave for his public a decade earlier. The trial thus constituted—as von Preuschen pointedly described it—‘a cut in the abscess’ but also ‘another step in the healing process between the two countries’.³⁵ It provided the opportunity to confront the past and face the Israelis in the honest wish to reach out. As the Federal Government’s Press and Information Office noted in April 1961, it helped to finally liberate the contacts between both peoples from ‘the burden of the unsaid’.³⁶ This is a highly desirable outcome for a morally responsible perpetrator.

Defending Innocence: The Austrian Delegation to Jerusalem In stark contrast to the large West German delegation, Austria dispatched only two observers to the trial and both were policemen: Joseph Wiesinger, the High Commissioner of the Upper Austrian Police in Linz, and his colleague from the police department, Leo Meier (who was mentioned earlier). They were both from Upper Austria because Eichmann lived in and escaped from this region in 1945. Furthermore, in their capacities as police officers, Wiesinger and Meier had already been part of Eichmann’s unsuccessful manhunt in 1945 and were thus familiar with his case. The selection of the two policemen mirrors the official intent: to enable cooperation between the Israeli and Austrian executive branches in order to bring Eichmann and his collaborators to justice. This intent was for the

³⁴ Wucher (1961), quoted in Deutschkron (1983, 131). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘War nicht in Eichmann typisch Deutsches, haben nicht alle Deutschen etwas von Eichmann in sich? [ . . . ] Schlummert es nur, weil es ihnen gutgeht? Kann eine Nation, die sich derart an der Humanität versündigt hat, ihre Unschuld, ihre moralische Integrität im Handumdrehen wiedergewinnen dadurch, dass sie ihre Verfassung ändert?’ ³⁵ Wiesinger to Luegmayer on ‘The trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem’, Jerusalem, 12 July 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMI, Gz. 20765_2A/62. ³⁶ Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung, April 1961, quoted in Weingardt (2002, 137).

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82      outside world to take notice. At a closer look behind the scenes, however, the Austrian mission was not only technical but also had a clear political angle: the observers should defend Austria’s victim image in the face of revelations emerging during the trial.³⁷ Not only did the many links between Eichmann and his crimes to Austrians and Austrian territory make such a defensive strategy necessary, but there were also persistent criticisms voiced by the Israeli public. The trial in Jerusalem gave journalists the opportunity to highlight Austria’s anti-Semitic attitude and its insufficient prosecution of Nazi war criminals during the postwar years. Due to large looming differences in opinion on Austria’s Nazi legacy, the unfolding encounter between Israelis and the Austrian observers constituted nothing less than a ‘dialogue of the deaf ’. For example, while Israelis inquired into Austria’s involvement in Nazi crimes, Wiesinger, in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Maariv, testified that during the war he had no idea of the existence of Mauthausen, the most infamous concentration camp located on Austrian territory.³⁸ Furthermore, his unquestioned belief in his country’s victim myth rendered him ‘deaf ’ to any Israeli critique. In his reports back to Vienna, he persistently complained about what he understood as deliberate and completely unjustified Israeli defamation campaigns against Austria. Israel’s press was ‘full of hidden accusations’ and all his tireless efforts were ultimately to no avail, reported a frustrated Wiesinger towards the end of the trial. He perceived Israeli behaviour as being both intentionally defamatory and outright absurd. The Israeli public, according to Wiesinger, had established a ‘strange interconnectedness’ between Austria’s unwillingness to pay reparations and its insufficient prosecution of war criminals, deriving motivation for both from sympathies for the Nazis and persisting anti-Semitic tendencies within the Austrian population.³⁹ Wiesinger’s irritation testifies how dominant the victim narrative was in his mindset at the time. He even interpreted the final plea of Attorney General

³⁷ See Police Department of Upper Austria, Director Dr. Kohler, on ‘Eichmann Adolf, former SSOberstrumbannführer; Participation of Austrian observers at the upcoming trial in Israel’, Linz, 2 June 1960. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 49, 17410_61. Ministry of Interior, State Police Department, Information. Vienna, 24 January 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 49, 17410_61. ³⁸ Maariv, ‘The Germans say: We knew nothing’, 10 April 1961 (translated from Hebrew by the Austrian Embassy in Tel Aviv). ÖStA/AdR, BMI, Gz. 25641_2A/61. ³⁹ See Wiesinger to Luegmayer on ‘The trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem’, Jerusalem, 12 July 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMI, Gz. 20765_2A/62. Wiesinger informs the Police Department of Upper Austria on the Eichmann trial: ‘Report on the 2nd part of the trial, December 1961’, Linz, 9 January 1962. ÖStA/AdR, BMI, Gz. 25641_2A/61.

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Gideon Hausner as one last attempt to discredit Austria. While Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were named as countries which had successfully prosecuted and executed war criminals, Austria—to the observer’s puzzlement—remained unmentioned.⁴⁰ The frame that the national victim narrative provided, coupled with Wiesinger’s position within the national security forces, did not allow him to see through Austria’s approach towards the Nazi past in any critical way. Instead, he turned to Israel and the country’s own problems for a more plausible explanation: Israel’s fear of Jewish return migration to European countries must have induced Israeli authorities to deliberately exaggerate anti-Semitic incidents in Europe.⁴¹ Only much later, when looking back in an interview in 2002, did Wiesinger put his previous positions in perspective: the mindset of the time, he recalled, was simply that National Socialism was a foreign, German phenomenon only. As such, anti-Semitism was considered to be non-existent in Austria and the Republic lauded itself for having closed all legal proceedings successfully against Nazi war criminals by 1955 (thirty Nazi criminals had been executed in Austria by that year). ‘The widespread attitude was that we have done enough and that we cannot continue like this forever.’⁴² In the same logic, the threatening ‘other’ of Austria’s victim identity was ‘Germany’ and not ‘Israel’ or ‘the Jews’. It follows that, throughout the trial, the Austrian observers adopted a defensive stance first and foremost against West Germany. In the eyes of Austrian officials, for instance, there was no doubt that the FRG aimed at nothing less than to palm off blame for Eichmann onto Austria. Their move to deny Eichmann’s German citizenship was regarded as evidence of this. In reality, however, blaming Austria was far from the West German intention. When Adenauer stated in the NBC programme Meet the Press that ‘Eichmann is not a German citizen, and we have no obligations to fulfil towards him’,⁴³ he was referring to the controversy about any legal obligations that West Germany might have towards Eichmann as a German

⁴⁰ Wiesinger to Luegmayer on ‘The trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem’, Jerusalem, 12 July 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMI, Gz. 20765_2A/62. ⁴¹ See Wiesinger informs the Police Department of Upper Austria on the Eichmann trial: ‘Report on the 2nd part of the trial, December 1961’, Linz, 9 January 1962. ÖStA/AdR, BMI, Gz. 25641_2A/61. ⁴² Interview with Wiesinger in 2002, quoted in: Garscha (2005, 218). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Die weit verbreitete Einstellung war, man habe genug gemacht und man könne das nicht ewig fortsetzen.’ ⁴³ Adenauer on the NBC programme Meet the Press, 16 April 1961, quoted in Deutschkron (1983, 124). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Eichmann ist kein deutscher Staatsbürger, und wir haben keine Verpflichtungen ihm gegenüber.’

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84      citizen, rather than attempting to turn Eichmann into an Austrian. According to the law, West Germany could have put in a request to extradite Eichmann and offer him legal protection, as Eichmann’s lawyer Servatius had initially demanded. West Germany, however, decided to keep Eichmann’s citizenship unresolved so as to bypass any obligation to grant him legal protection and thus avoid having to bargain with Israel over the extradition of a mass murderer (Deutschkron 1983, 123–5; Weingardt 2002, 134–5). This West German reasoning makes perfect sense considering the image it held of itself as a morally responsible perpetrator. However, this logic did not resonate with the defensive stance of the Austrian observers. As such, they made it their mission to remain vigilant towards any West German ‘provocations’. At one point, for instance, West German observers mocked Eichmann’s obvious Austrian accent and the Austrian observers took immediate offence.⁴⁴ That Eichmann could have adopted an Austrian accent while growing up in Linz entirely escaped the observers’ mind.⁴⁵ Despite the evident facts, this idea had become wholly unthinkable through the frame of the official narrative of innocent victimhood. With their defensive stance against West Germany, Austrian officials were once again in line with the rationale of their country’s innocent victim status. According to the logic of denying moral responsibility for the past, any successful portrayal of Austria’s innocence had to include putting full blame for National Socialism, the war, and the extermination of the Jews on Germany alone. From the observers’ convictions that anything else was ‘absurd’ in the literal sense of ‘unthinkable’, we see how ingrained the victim belief was in their mindset at the time. Only at the highest levels of the Austrian government were officials still aware of the constructed nature of this innocent victim status. As such, while high-ranking politicians deliberately fabricated, employed, and safeguarded the national victim narrative, lower-ranking officials, as well as the public, exhibited an undisputed and robust belief in it. The same was true for West Germany, yet with regards to a very different image: confronting the Nazi legacy by working through the past had become the only ‘thinkable, available’ option in the face of Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem in 1961.

⁴⁴ See: Austrian observer to the Eichmann trial, Wiesinger, to Interior Minister, Jerusalem, 15 May 1961. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 49, 17410_61. ⁴⁵ This notion was confirmed in an interview with Wiesinger in 2002, quoted in: Garscha (2005, 217–18).

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Conclusion: Memory with Time Forms Public Identity This chapter has illustrated that memory over time transforms from a deliberate international strategy into the unexamined public identity of a country. It has shown that, by the 1960s, the previously formulated versions of the Nazi legacy had come to mould the mindset of the West German and Austrian publics as well as their representatives. From the news reporting about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, it was clear that all information about the Nazi history had already filtered through the frames of two diverse narratives: one of moral responsibility, in the West German case, and one of innocent victimhood, in the Austrian case. Furthermore, while the highest levels of government were aware of the fabricated nature of these memories, among the executing officials this conscious knowledge had been lost. Both countries’ delegates to the trial exhibited an unexamined belief in their nations’ versions of the Nazi past. By the beginning of the 1960s, these narratives formed the mental lenses through which the trial, the Nazi crimes, Israelis, and Germans were perceived. In other words, they had become a broadly internalized collective identity, thus forming for the majority of the West German and Austrian public, the only ‘available, thinkable’ ways to face, process, and perceive the trial of Adolf Eichmann. The case study of this chapter therefore has demonstrated that collective memory, once successfully employed internationally, with time becomes a country’s domestic identity. What a decade earlier had been a somewhat isolated effort by elites to forge their country’s story vis-à-vis the Nazi legacy had now become internalized as the national narrative of their societies. Hence, in both cases, the previously formulated official versions of memory had created the basis for a wider national identity to emerge. This finding is also in line with Maurice Halbwachs’ seminal prediction: memory always relates to social frames, not to historical experience. In the social frames of the 1960s, these memories represented the ‘usable pasts’ (Anderson 1983). They were usable in a time context in which they furthered success in the form of normalization, westernization, and integration. While this finding does not fully answer the difficult question of how memory relates to experience, from the empirical scenario discussed we nevertheless can infer that memory relates to experiences of the past in present, international frames, instead of the actual experience of the past. The process by which memory transformed from strategy to identity unfolded precisely along these lines. In both countries, by the 1960s, the previously internationally formulated official versions of the past had created

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86      domestic social frameworks for national memory, which over only a decade had given rise to mnemonic communities among their publics that embraced that same content (Zerubavel 2003). Through this process, the official narrative formulated initially by state representatives had become the collective memory of their populations. With this, a selective memory had literally ‘re-membered’ the group (Olick 1999, 342), thus creating the country’s public identity. Only when a country’s identity construction is completed, when through the workings of collective memory its externally focused, deliberate story has become the domestically unexamined national narrative, can we turn our attention to the nexus between a country’s identity and its behaviour. Whether and how collective memory affects a country’s actions in the medium and long term is the subject of inquiry in the next chapter.

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4 Memory as State Behaviour This chapter shows how collective memory channels a country’s international behaviour. To that end, it first lays out the nexus between memory and state behaviour put forward by the temporal security concept. It then goes on to distinguish it from international relations’ (IR) classical realist and ontological security approaches and their predictions on state behaviour. To keep their temporal security intact, countries are assumed to enter into an ‘in-betweentime’ conversation with their ‘significant historical others’. Through the emotional trigger of shame, policymakers avoid potential disconnects with their country’s ‘narrated self in the past’, thus bringing their courses of action in line with collective memory. To illustrate this process, the empirical case study looks at the reaction of West Germany and Austria to two wars in the Middle East. It contrasts their support for either of the warring parties during the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War and international oil crisis of 1973. The qualitative analysis demonstrates that West Germany and Austria’s different collective memories of the Nazi legacy channelled their behaviour along diverse reasonings to support either the Israeli or the Arab side.

Memory Channels a Country’s Behaviour What determines a country’s behaviour in international relations? Constructivist IR approaches all point to state identity. This chapter does not dispute that identity shapes state behaviour. However, state identity can only determine state behaviour through the compass of collective memory. The direction in which memory points identity initially crystalizes by looking outwards towards the international environment. Chapter 2 demonstrated how a country’s foreign policymakers formulated an official narrative in response to external others. Chapter 3 then showed how this story, with time, became internalized in the domestic public memory landscape. It was in this process that memory passed from deliberate conscious political strategy to the unexamined subconscious identity of a country. It is only at this later stage

Collective Memory in International Relations. Kathrin Bachleitner, Oxford University Press (2021). © Kathrin Bachleitner. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192895363.003.0005

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88      that memory gains the capacity to determine state behaviour as well. If we posit a nexus between state identity and state behaviour in this chapter, it is, therefore, already infused with memory. The identity–behaviour nexus underlying all constructivist IR scholarship more accurately is a memory– identity–behaviour nexus. In adding memory’s role into the ontological security scholarship’s identity–behaviour nexus, we are thus able to specify where and how a country’s collective identity originates. Furthermore, we are now able to describe the procedure by which collective memory begins to carry identity. Besides, with this, we can point to specific constitutive (national) narratives in order to operationalize this process for empirical study. Grounded in a particular collective memory, the identity concept put forward by constructivists can be transformed into a dynamic ‘narrated identity’ on the collective level which emerges with time. It follows also that the identity–behaviour nexus posited by the existing ontological security literature needs a certain timespan to unfold its influence over state action. In the immediate aftermath of a ‘memorable’ event, it is unlikely that a particular memory has already begun to underlie identity in a way that this identity can then shape behaviour. Once, however, the identity formation is complete and goes from official strategy to public identity, we can also test its influence on state behaviour. It is hence only over time, and with memory in place as identity, that we can observe a nexus between memory and a country’s behaviour as well.

The Memory–State Behaviour Nexus Moving time-wise into the medium term, how does the memory–state behaviour nexus play out in detail? The concept proposed and termed in this book ‘temporal security’ describes state behaviour as a self-reflective struggle over memory, or in other words, over a ‘record of resemblances’ to be able ‘to be-intime’. Applied, this means that a country’s policymakers must retain an integrity with a certain collective memory in their selected courses of action. It happens through the establishment of continuity between the country’s narrated self (as contained in its national narrative) and its behaviour. The emotional driver behind this memory–behaviour nexus was posited as anxiety and shame vis-à-vis potential disconnects with ‘the narrated self in the past’. A narrated identity thus affects behaviour by way of establishing ‘temporal continuity’ through a certain course of action which allows the country to ‘be-in-time’.

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To show the value added by our temporal security concept, this chapter first aims to clearly distinguish its proposed nexus with state behaviour from the mechanisms posited by other IR approaches. In classical IR theory, state behaviour is assumed to be shaped mainly by one goal: ‘physical security’. As laid out in Chapter 1, in this view, countries’ best interest is to secure their survival by way of establishing an ‘integrity with their body’. As such, they maximize their security through a cost–benefit calculus geared towards a materially defined interest. This interest is static and rational; thus, it unfolds its logic equally in all actors within the international system (Morgenthau 1973; Waltz 1979; Nye 2009). Classical IR accounts, therefore, posit an interest–behaviour nexus. It predicts the following direction for state behaviour: a country pursues the course of action that is beneficial to its material/physical security. Classical IR’s interest–behaviour nexus therefore forms the first counter-assumption to our memory–behaviour nexus. The ontological security scholarship, on the other hand, emphasizes an identity–behaviour nexus. As elaborated in Chapter 1, in such a view, state behaviour is shaped by the effort to secure integrity with the self, that is, with identity. Here, not a fear for material survival, but the loss of integrity with identity is assumed to determine behaviour. To make their point, scholars have shown how countries compromise their physical security for ontological security (Steele 2005, 2008; Mitzen 2006). Broadly speaking, in such a view, countries’ cost–benefit calculus is skewed towards identity. It follows that their interest is never unitary nor static, but geared towards the ‘self ’ before the ‘interest’. Based on this broad constructivist premise, the ontological security literature then splits into the two branches mentioned in Chapter 1. Some view identity as ‘other-regarding’ and others see it as ‘self-regarding’. Both, as a result, predict a slightly different behaviour for countries. The other-regarding ontological security literature proposes that state behaviour follows routines which have been established with ‘external others’ (see Mitzen 2006; Zarakol 2010; Subotic and Zarakol 2012; Mälksoo 2015; Subotic 2018). Their identity– behaviour nexus thus unfolds by looking outwards and it is predicted that a country pursues the course of action congruent with its routinized relations with others. The other-regarding identity–behaviour nexus therefore forms the second set of counter-assumptions to our memory–behaviour nexus. Meanwhile, temporal security’s memory–behaviour nexus was built in Chapter 1 on the self-regarding branch of ontological security (see Diez 2004; Steele 2005, 2008; Rumelili 2007; Lebow 2008; Prozorov 2011). ‘Looking inward to the self ’, however, now is taken to mean that policymakers

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90      Table 4.1 Predictive routes for state behaviour in different IR approaches Approach

Nexus

Classical realism Ontological security Temporal security

Interest–behaviour Identity–behaviour

Reference point

Mechanism

Material/physical security Cost–benefit calculus Contemporary external Routines with others others Memory–behaviour Historical internal others Routines with the narrated self

Source: Author.

enter into a conversation with a narrated collective memory. The memory– behaviour nexus thus unfolds through a temporal conversation with the self ‘in time’. As such, the reference point is no longer a ‘significant external other’ taken from the contemporary environment of the country. It is instead a significant historical other taken from the country’s own past. With this, the identity–behaviour nexus does not unfold as a conversation ‘in-between states’. It instead describes an internal ‘in-between time’—conversation between the ‘contemporary self ’ and its historical other. To keep its ‘temporal continuity’ intact, a country thus pursues the course of action which secures routines with its narrated historical other in its own past, instead of with a ‘contemporary other’ in its current external environment. Table 4.1 summarizes the differences between all three concepts and their predictive routes for state behaviour.

The Emotion of Shame as the Corrective for State Behaviour When social agents choose a course of action that is incongruent with their sense of integrity, the feeling of shame ensues. As Chapter 1 demonstrated, this psychological finding links shame with ontological security’s identity– behaviour nexus: shame is triggered when an internal boundary is violated with regards to the inner sense of self-worth (Steele 2005, 526–7). The same mechanism applies with the temporal security concept. However, this time, shame unfolds vis-à-vis disconnects to a country’s narrated self in the past, that is, when a contemporary narrative vis-à-vis a collective historical other is violated through state action. Notably, in this view, the emotion of shame is linked to collective memory through a self-reflective process, but not because the content of a certain

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memory might be regarded as shameful. Irrespective of the memory content, for the link between memory and behaviour to hold, shameful can only ever be the inability to live up to a certain self-image in a course of action. In the discourses of political leaders, we must therefore look for expressions of shame or the fear of public shaming when political elites face a disconnect between biographical narrative and actual behaviour in what Steele (2005, 357) calls a country’s ‘discursive remorse’. Crucial for our approach is that shame must be triggered by a transgression vis-à-vis the collective narrative, and in wishing to avoid it, actors are assumed to adapt their behaviour to the national narrative in a self-reflective struggle to ensure ‘temporal security’.

The Case Study: Former Nazi States React to the Middle East Conflict In order to illustrate the explanatory potential of the temporal security model for state behaviour, the empirical study of this chapter analyses the reaction of former Nazi states West Germany and Austria to conflict in the Middle East. With this, the selected ‘critical situation’ is the following: during the 1960s and 1970s, two wars were waged in the Middle East. First was the Six Day War of 1967 with the warring parties being Israel and the Arab countries under the leadership of the United Arab Republic (UAR). In 1973 followed the Yom Kippur War and a concomitant global oil crisis. In an attempt to recover the losses of 1967, the Yom Kippur War saw the same warring constellations, however, with a stronger focus on an emerging player on the Arab side, the Palestinians and their representative organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). These parties are the ‘contemporary, external others’ in our case study. West Germany’s and Austria’s significant historical other, on the other hand, is Nazi Germany. As the previous chapters have illustrated, their narratives of themselves in the Nazi past, however, varied significantly. As such, they constitute an ideal scenario of comparison to show that collective memory drove their attribution of sympathies towards the warring parties of the Middle East. How did the two former Nazi states react to the two wars? What was their reasoning behind their support for either of the warring parties? For the posited memory–behaviour nexus to hold, West Germany and Austria with their different collective memories had to exhibit diverse behaviours in 1967 and 1973 and the logic of their reasoning had to be geared towards their own historical other, Nazi Germany.

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92      To illustrate this, the empirical case study proceeds in two parts. First, it analyses the public reaction in West Germany and Austria to when war broke out in 1967. The critical situation of this case study is therefore the sudden escalation of tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbours which led to a short but full-blown war between 5 and 11 June 1967. To gain an insight into the West German and Austrian public perception, I assess their news reporting on the war via a qualitative content analysis. Furthermore, I explore public engagement and organized actions to help as well as opinion polls issued in 1967. These findings should then make it possible to determine the prevailing lens through which reality was perceived, and to answer whether these countries’ diverse public memories of Nazism contributed towards viewing the warring parties of the Middle East in different ways. In a second step, we move to the official West German and Austrian reaction to the Six Day War in 1967 and, for comparative purposes, to the follow-up Yom Kippur War in 1973. To gain insight into officials’ reasoning about these two wars, the analysis resorts to original historical documents retrieved from the case countries’ state archives. To determine that in both instances a memory–behaviour nexus guided their support for either of the warring parties, we will apply the temporal security framework and contrast it with the assumptions of physical and ontological security approaches. Considering a temporal logic, West German and Austrian behaviour must differ from their counter-predictions as well as from one another in 1967 and 1973. Empirically tracing a temporal, self-reflective process requires turning to the official and private discourse of elites and its underlying ‘system of signification’ (Milliken 1999). For that purpose, as of yet unpublished, foreign-policy documents were qualitatively coded (following Abdelal et al. 2009). The codes used for an extensive content analysis included the relevant historical other and the logic behind a national narrative concerning that historical other. In this case scenario, Nazi Germany was coded as the historical other of West Germany and Austria, in addition to the diverse logics of their national narratives: in the West German case, admitting guilt and moral responsibility for Nazi Germany implied the notion of the self as a repentant perpetrator. Such a narration implies the attempt to make good again with efforts that ameliorate the harm in any way possible. In contrast to the logic of the West German ‘guilt narrative’, the Austrian ‘victim narrative’ centred around the notion of ‘innocent victimhood’. Such a narrative implies descriptions of the self as passive and defenceless. Speaking to this version of the self means to fend off any hints at the country’s responsibility while aiming to achieve

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recognition and compensation only for their own suffering.¹ For the theory to hold, these codes must be present in the case countries’ official public rhetoric as well as in private and behind-the-scenes reasonings of policymakers. The latter is based on unclassified documents from the state archives and available autobiographies of relevant leaders.² To render the memory–behaviour nexus empirically tangible, shame was furthermore posited as the emotional driver which brings behaviour in line with collective memory. The empirical study thus looks for expressions of shame in policymakers vis-à-vis potential disconnects between their country’s narrative and considered courses of action. With this, the empirical study process-traces the presence of a self-reflective struggle over ‘being-in-time’ to a differing support of the warring parties in 1967 and 1973.

The Six Day War of 1967 Tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbours had existed since the first Arab–Israeli war in 1948; however, animosities escalated once again in the spring of 1967. By mid-May, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had expelled UN troops stationed on Sinai and Gaza and closed the Straits of Tiran for Israeli ships. On 30 May, Egypt and Jordan formed a defence alliance, which was joined by Iraq on 4 June. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of Arab politicians intensified and became ever more aggressive, ultimately culminating in extermination threats against Israel. The intention to ‘throw all Jews into the sea’, expressed first by PLO leader Ahmed Shukeiry, became the general tenor of Arab leaders and their publics, triggering a widespread existential angst among Israelis that rose to outright fears of an imminent and renewed Holocaust. When the Israeli Defence Forces reacted with a general mobilization, all sides now prepared for war. Internationally, the UN called for a de-escalation in the Middle East while the two superpowers took sides. The United States supported Israel; the Soviet Union sided with Egypt. The Arab– Israeli conflict threatened to turn into yet another proxy war between East and West.

¹ For more on the diplomacy of guilt and guilt behaviour, see Hall (2015). For more on the ‘new’ notion of victimhood, see Assmann (2016). ² In the Austrian case, documents stem from the archive of the Republic/Ministry of Foreign Affairs: ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, as well from the Bruno Kreisky Archive in Vienna. Rolf Vogel collected original West German foreign-policy documents concerning Israel and the Middle East in several book editions. The quotations used for this study stem from his collections published in 1967 and 1977.

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94      War broke out on 5 June 1967 when Israel decided to strike pre-emptively to counter an ever-closing Arab encirclement. The Israeli air force caught the Egyptian air force by surprise, destroying it within hours while it was still on the ground. In the following days, the Israeli army conquered Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and highly symbolic East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. On 10 June, a victorious Israel declared a ceasefire, which was signed on 11 June 1967 (e.g. Oren 2002). Even though the war in 1967 lasted only six days and in the end did not trigger any direct superpower involvement, international attention to the events in the Middle East was huge. At no other time in history did the world show as much interest in a comparably brief, regional conflict. Without doubt, the majority of the European publics euphorically and overwhelmingly sided with Israel (Laqueur 1969, 207). This strong pro-Israeli sentiment prevailing throughout the entire Western world was closely linked to the ongoing Cold War: the West aligned itself with Israel, whereas the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc supported the Arabs. What in the East was considered an ‘Israeli imperialist aggression’, in the West was viewed as the struggle for survival of ‘David’ facing unjustified extermination threats by an overpowering and bloodthirsty ‘Goliath’ embodied by President Nasser and his UAR.³ In this international context, how did the two former Nazi perpetrator states, West Germany and Austria, align their sympathies during the Six Day War? Did they also come to support Israel as their affiliation with the West would suggest, and if yes, based on which reasoning did they do so?

The Public Perception of the Six Day War in West Germany and Austria When war broke out in the Middle East on 5 June 1967, the West German and Austrian press covered it extensively. In their reporting, journalists in both countries mainly echoed the Israeli view on the conflict and fully aligned

³ This assessment is based on an analysis of foreign-policy documents circulating in 1967, as well as on newspaper reports in Western European countries on the Six Day War. For original documents, see e.g. ‘Austrian Embassy in Warsaw reports to the Foreign Ministry on “Israel is stigmatized as the aggressor; Polish government declaration’, Warsaw, 9 June 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, Gz. 13825_67. For newspaper articles, see e.g. Die Presse, ‘Die Brandstiftung’, by Otto Schulmeister, 6 June 1967.

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themselves with Israel. Irrespective of their political affiliations, news reports let through a widespread outrage about what was broadly perceived as an ‘Arab aggression’, and all articles overtly sympathized with ‘the endangered Jewish state’.⁴ In countless often very emotional reports, Israel was portrayed as a ‘peace-loving, righteous, and successful country’ whose existence was now under threat from the ‘war-mongering, ideologically blinded and backward’ Arab states.⁵ Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s actions were furthermore described as a ‘useless show of force’ in an attempt to instigate the ‘Arabs’ psychosis of a Holy war’ with ‘bloodthirsty announcements’ that led to a ‘lethal stranglehold’ for Israel.⁶ Notably, the characterization of Nasser as irrational, aggressive, and war-mongering triggered frequent comparisons between him and Hitler. As Figure 4.1 exemplifies, this view on Nasser manifested itself in a series of cartoons that mocked Nasser by portraying him with Hitler’s moustache. In the light of this version of the Six Day War, it is not surprising that public opinion polls in both countries showed strong sympathies with Israel. In West Germany, 55 per cent sided with Israel, and only 6 per cent supported the Arab side.⁷ In Austria, 54 per cent wished for Israel to win the war, in contrast with only 11 per cent siding with the Arabs.⁸ Furthermore, and notwithstanding the geographic distance, the West German and Austrian publics showed an unprecedented interest in this war. According to journalists’ estimations at the time, the people treated it as if it was ‘theirs’. They listened ‘live’ to the latest developments, receiving Kol Israel—The voice of Israel, Here Radio Cairo, and Radio Damascus directly

⁴ In the timeframe between 1 and 15 June 1967, the analysis of articles related to the Six Day War in the social-democratic Arbeiter Zeitung showed a very strong partiality for Israel: there was no single article or comment that was critical of Israel or sympathetic with the Arabs and their cause. Compared to the Arbeiter Zeitung, the conservative newspaper Die Presse was more neutral in its reporting about the Six Day War, giving a little more room to Arab perspectives; however, Die Presse also retained a clear pro-Israeli attitude throughout all of its articles and comments. ⁵ See e.g. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Israels Kriegsziel heisst Friede’, by AZ-Sonderberichterstatter Hacker, 9 June 1967; ‘Tragödie im Nahen Osten’, by Friedrich Scheu, 6 June 1967; ‘Folgt auf Nasser wieder nur ein Nasser? Möglicherweise wäre der Nachfolger noch extremer—Wenig Chancen für eine Demokratie in Ägypten’, by Otto Fielhauer, 11 June 1967; ‘Die Stunde der Großen’, by Franz Kreuzer, 7 June 1967; ‘Einschub: Brennglas: “Die Brüder” ’, by Otto Fielhauser, 1 June 1967; ‘Kein Jubel über Nasser-Sturz’, by AZ-Sonderberichterstatter Hacker, 11 June 1967; and Die Presse, ‘Die Brandstiftung’, by Otto Schulmeister, 6 June 1967; ‘Aufmarsch zum nächsten Akt’, by Ludwig Marton, 13 June 1967; ‘Kopf aus dem Sand’, by Thomas Chorherr, 9 June 1967; ‘ “Zweites Jalta” in Nahost? Keine Rolle für Paris im Vermittlerspiel der Großmächte’, by Hermann Bohle, 12 June 1967. ⁶ Die Presse, ‘Die Brandstiftung’, by Otto Schulmeister, 6 June 1967. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Die Stunde der Großen’, by Franz Kreuzer, 7 June 1967. Die Presse, ‘Moskaus Rechnung’, by Johannes Eidlitz, 8 June 1967. Die Presse, ‘Aufmarsch zum nächsten Akt’, by Ludwig Marton, 13 June 1967. ⁷ See Jahrbuch der öffentlichen Meinung (1965–7), quoted in Deutschkron (1983, 338). ⁸ See Sozialwissenschaftliche Studiengesellschaft, quoted in Reiter (2001, 110).

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Figure 4.1 Cartoon comparing Nasser with Hitler, published in an Austrian newspaper in 1967 Source: Arbeiter Zeitung, cartoon, 11 June 1967. Reproduced with permission from Arbeiter Zeitung.

into their living rooms.⁹ ‘From the bakery to the hairdresser’s salon, everyone followed the news’, recounted an Austrian reporter in Die Furche (Brandstaller (1967), quoted in Embacher and Reiter 1998, 124). Journalist Inge Deutschkron (1983, 337) observed an equally strong interest in the FRG. ‘Be it the student from West Berlin, the postman from Munich or the steel worker from Stuttgart’,¹⁰ everyone in 1967 sympathized with Israel. Meanwhile, in Austria, the war was described as an outright wake-up call for a country sheltered from global events in a mix of post-war idyll and neutrality: The ostrich tears its head out of the sand and looks around surprised. The Austrian does the same: he was woken up by the sound of thunder coming ⁹ Source: Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Werbung für Radiowellen—Hören Sie direkt vom Kriegsschauplatz’, 7 June 1967. ¹⁰ Die Presse, ‘Dayan wird mit Rommel verglichen. Welle der Sympathie für Israel auch in der Bundesrepublik’, by Klaus Emmerich, 13 June 1967.

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from afar, disturbed in his sweet dreams and chased from the resting pillow of neutrality, because what happens in Israel touches him [ . . . ] He suddenly understood that his home is the world [ . . . ] and that the Middle East is at his very own doorstep.¹¹

As a result of this heightened public interest and sympathetic news reporting, the Six Day War led to an unprecedented outpour of public action in support of Israel. Numerous pro-Israeli protests took place in West German and Austrian cities.¹² ‘We stand with Israel—Our hearts are flames of solidarity’ (‘Wir stehen zu Israel—Unsere Herzen sind Flammen der Solidarität’), or, ‘Berliners, help Israel!’ (‘Berliner, helft Israel!’) could be read on signs held up at various student demonstrations in West Berlin. ‘Israel’s death is the death of the free world’ (‘Israels Tod ist der Tod der freien Welt’) was written on banners in Munich. In Düsseldorf, demonstrators comprising trade unionists and church organizations called for ‘peace and the rescue of Israel’ (‘Wiederherstellung des Friedens und die Rettung der Existenz Israels’) (Vogel 1967, 314, 321, 330). Meanwhile, in Vienna, a massive demonstration of solidarity with Israel was organized by youth organizations linked to the Social Democratic Party.¹³ Speakers came from the highest levels of government and included Bruno Pittermann, the President of the Socialist International; Bruno Kreisky, the Head of the Social Democratic Party in Austria; and Vienna’s Major Bruno Marek. All speeches were equally directed against Arab aggression and called for solidarity with and support for Israel.¹⁴ Smaller demonstrations also took place in front of the Israeli, Arab, Soviet, US, and British embassies, and nearly all Arab embassies in Vienna received frequent bomb threats.¹⁵ At the Saudi embassy, unknown delinquents ¹¹ Die Presse, ‘Kopf aus dem Sand’, by Thomas Chorherr, 9 June 1967. Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Vogel Strauß zieht den Kopf aus dem Sand und blickt erstaunt um sich. Desgleichen tut der Österreicher, vom fernen Donnergrollen geweckt, aufgefahren aus dem Ruhekissen der Neutralität nun aus süßen Träumen, weil ihm das, was sich in Israel abspielt, so unter die Haut geht [ . . . ]. Schlagartig ist ihm bewusst geworden, dass er in der Welt zu Hause ist, [ . . . ] der Nahe Osten liegt vor der eigenen Haustür.’ ¹² For Germany, see: Deutschkron (1983, 337–9) and Vogel (1967, 312). For Austria see e.g. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Protestkundgebung der SP-Jugend’, 3 June 1967; ‘Der Geist Israels—in Österreich. Machtvolle Solidaritätskundgebung’, 9 June 1967; ‘Wien: Begeisterungssturm für Israel’, 8 June 1967. ¹³ The event took place on 7 June in the Kongresshaus Margaretengürtel, and it included Sozialistische Jugend, Verband Sozialistischer Studenten, and the socialist faction of the Gewerkschaftsjugend. ¹⁴ See Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Der Geist Israels—in Österreich. Machtvolle Solidaritätskundgebung’, 9 June 1967; ‘Protestkundgebung der SP-Jugend’, 3 June 1967; ‘Wien: Begeisterungssturm für Israel’, 8 June 1967. ¹⁵ Source: Peterlunger to Sektion III on ‘The crisis in the Middle East: Protests in front of Embassy buildings’, Vienna, 7 June 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, Gz. 13825_67. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘AUAMaschine nach Tel Aviv kehrte um’, 7 June 1967.

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98      managed to remove the Saudi coat of arms and replaced it with the Star of David. Furthermore, Arab students studying in Austria received a warning telegram from their representative body, the Austrian Hochschülerschaft (ÖH): ‘All those who preach an exaggerated nationalism and call for the destruction of peoples have lost the sympathy of the Austrian students.’¹⁶ Public sympathies lay exclusively with Israel in 1967.

Varying Reasons behind Public Support for Israel in West Germany and Austria When comparing the levels of public engagement and sympathy for Israel in 1967, there was hardly any difference between West Germany and Austria. However, on closer scrutiny, the motivations for their pro-Israeli activity and the reasoning that had led to the outpouring of public sympathy differed fundamentally in the two countries. Take, for instance, the call for solidarity issued by the President of Vienna’s Israelite Community, Ernst Feldberg (see Figure 4.2). In this call, Feldberg addressed all Austrians as ‘anyone of good will, Christians, democrats, all progressive elements of society, former concentration-camp inmates, resistance fighters, all humans who feel solidarity with Israel and its people’ at this darkest hour. Notably, solidarity was sought out explicitly from the victims of the Nazi regime. In contrast, a similar initiative in the FRG addressed everyone irrespective of their biographic background: ‘We call upon you to help, in order to reestablish peace in the Middle East and save Israel from destruction’, read the West German equivalent issued by Adolf Arndt, a member of the German Bundestag (Arndt (1967), quoted in Vogel 1967, 329).¹⁷ Supported by the German–Israeli Society, and published in all major newspapers as well as on the walls of West German cities and villages, the German statement—in further contrast to the Austrian note—unambiguously invoked public solidarity on the grounds of a moral responsibility stemming from the past: We cannot remain silent when the Israeli people face annihilation. The State of Israel is the last home of many who originated in our country and

¹⁶ Die Presse, ‘Welle der Sympathie für Israel’, 7 June 1967. ¹⁷ Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Wir rufen: Helft mit, den Frieden in Nahost wiederzugewinnen und Israel vor dem Untergang zu bewahren.’

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Figure 4.2 Call for solidarity with Israel, published in an Austrian newspaper in 1967 Source: Printed in Arbeiter Zeitung, 7 June 1967. Reproduced with permission from Arbeiter Zeitung.

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100      who managed to escape the genocide organized by Germans against the European Jews.¹⁸

Another public call in Koblenz that was signed by multiple leading personalities equally referenced German responsibility vis-à-vis the Jewish state: ‘There can be no neutrality when faced with injustice. It is our moral duty to take sides. Declarations of sympathy are not enough!’ (Vogel 1967, 333–4).¹⁹ Similarly, in Munich, Major Hans-Jochen Vogel formed a committee supported by several public figures. Also in Munich’s call, it was obvious that West Germans interpreted the Six Day War as an opportunity ‘to prove that they never wanted the Jewish people to be mistreated, disregarded, and then nearly annihilated without having done anything wrong’ (Vogel 1967, 334–5).²⁰ As such, the reasoning as to why one should support Israel diverged in two different directions in the FRG and Austria. Despite the variances in rhetoric, words were in both countries equally followed by deeds. The Samariterbund and the Red Cross, for instance, established a blood donation service named ‘blood for Israel’ (‘Blut für Israel’). Caritas called for contributions and student and youth organizations established humanitarian drives.²¹ Austrian efforts herewith were as strenuous as in the FRG. The Israeli embassy in Vienna reported an enormous increase in donated blood, money, and volunteers.²² Equally, the Israeli embassy in Bonn received six hundred telephone calls as well as numerous letters inquiring how to best help Israel. Furthermore, 1,600 West Germans asked to join the Israeli army and about 3,500 people volunteered their workforce (Deutschkron 1983, 338–9). However, looking once more at the motivations behind these actions, the reasoning again differed fundamentally in the two countries. In West Germany, we find clear overlaps with the collective mindset of moral responsibility, if ¹⁸ Arndt (1967), quoted in Vogel (1967, 329). Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Wir können nicht schweigen, wenn das israelische Volk mit Völkermord bedroht wird. Der Staat Israel ist die letzte Heimat vieler Menschen, die aus unserem Lande stammen und dem von Deutschen ins Werk gesetzten Völkermord an den europäischen Juden entronnen sind.’ ¹⁹ Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Gegenüber dem Unrecht gibt es keine Neutralität. Es ist unsere moralische Pflicht, Stellung zu beziehen. Sympathieerklärungen allein genügen nicht!’ ²⁰ Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Beweist, dass es niemals unsere Billigung fand, als dieses Volk schuldlos misshandelt, verachtet und dann zum großen Teil vernichtet wurde.’ ²¹ See e.g. Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘AUA-Maschine nach Tel Aviv kehrte um’, 7 June 1967; ‘SPSpendenaktion für Israel. Beschluss des Parteivorstandes’, 9 June 1967; Die Presse, ‘Polizei stopt (sic!) arabische Invasion’, 9 June 1967. ²² See Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Israel-Botschaft: Viele Blutspender’, by Reinhold Perner, 6 June 1967; ‘Gegen Mitarbeit österreichischer Techniker in Heluan machtlos—Keine Panikkäufe’, by Paul Fritz, 8 June 1967.

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not guilt. To name just one individual instance, a former SS officer called the Israeli embassy in Bonn to issue his donation of 1,500 DM to Israel with the accompanying message that not all former SS officers were criminals.²³ His notion that support for Israel was a way of Wiedergutmachung was also echoed frequently in West German news reporting: The Jews have suffered enormous injustice at our—German—hands; therefore we have the obligation to help them in the moment of their existential fight. Neither in order to undo the past, nor in order to make the Jews forget, but in order to be there for them when the Jewish state is facing its test— because we all need to contribute to a better future.²⁴

West Germans, particularly the younger generation, in 1967 did not shy away from requesting partiality for Israel specifically due to the country’s ‘special responsibility for the Jewish state’ stemming from the Nazi past. Supporting Israel was viewed by the majority of West Germans almost as a moral obligation. More so, anyone who harboured pro-Arab sentiments in 1967 immediately came under suspicion of exhibiting Nazi leanings.²⁵ Thus, the temporal logic applied to justify motivation for behaviour in West Germany followed its underlying collective memory as a morally responsible perpetrator. From it, the West Germans derived the obligation to sympathize with the ‘victims’, i.e. Israel. In the Austrian case, this sentiment was wholly absent. While there was a similar outpouring of sympathy with Israel, the reasoning as to why one should support Israel followed a very different logic. Yet the conversation was also directed inward and looked towards the Nazi past. To promote solidarity for Israel, Austrian opinion-leaders in 1967 drew parallels to Austrians’ own situation in 1938. They called the public to action with a reminder that Austria in 1938 was also left to its own devices. With this analogy, the democratic powers of the world were warned not to make the ²³ Source: Die Presse, ‘Dayan wird mit Rommel verglichen. Welle der Sympathie für Israel auch in der Bundesrepublik’, by Klaus Emmerich, 13 June 1967. ²⁴ Die Presse, ‘Dayan wird mit Rommel verglichen. Welle der Sympathie für Israel auch in der Bundesrepublik’, by Klaus Emmerich, 13 June 1967. Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Den Juden ist von uns, den Deutschen, so viel Unrecht geschehen, dass wir im Augenblick ihres Existenzkampfes um Staat und Volk helfen müssen. Nicht um es ungeschehen zu machen, nicht um die Juden vergessen zu lassen, sondern um dabei zu sein, wenn sich der jüdische Staat zu bewähren hat, damit wir alle für eine bessere Zukunft sorgen.’ ²⁵ Source: Austrian Embassy in Bonn to Foreign Minister Tončić-Sorinj on ‘The German attitude in the Middle East conflict’, Bonn, 6 June 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, 13825_67. See also Der Spiegel, 12 June 1967, quoted in Embacher and Reiter (1998, 142). Ben-Natan (1967), interview with Rolf Vogel, quoted in Vogel (1967, 339).

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102      same mistake again and come to the rescue of Israel.²⁶ The country’s victim narrative clearly formed the basis for this comparison. Furthermore, Austrian sympathies also mirrored the West German sentiments when they pointed to the suffering of the Jewish people ‘amongst them’ during World War II, however, always with slight rhetorical caveats geared towards Austrians’ own victimization under Nazi Germany:²⁷ Our feelings for Israel are being nurtured by the fact that many former Viennese and other Austrians are among the peoples who live in Israel today [ . . . ] Many of these elderly men and women have suffered such hardship in their lives and it is saddening to think that now they face the horrors of war in a country which gave them hope for refuge and peace.²⁸

The blame for Jewish suffering was, however, always put on Nazi Germany, and as a result of this logic, moral responsibility was attributed to West Germany alone. Some Austrian journalists had internalized the Austrian victim narrative to the extent that they felt safe enough to even mock the FRG’s sympathies for Israel as a ‘belated’ German philosemitism: ‘Are hidden abysses of the German soul suddenly coming to the forefront? The entire people [ . . . ] seek to protect the Jews [ . . . ].’ While Nasser certainly killed fewer Jews than Hitler, continued the article, ‘he apparently killed enough so that certain Germans can finally free themselves from their guilt and throw stones from the glasshouse in which they sit into the Middle East.’²⁹ Such public statements once more testify to how far Austria’s victim narrative had transformed from strategic, official fabrication to an internalized public identity.

²⁶ Bruno Pittermann, the President of the Socialist International and chairman of the MPs, quoted in Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘AUA-Maschine nach Tel Aviv kehrte um’, 7 June 1967. Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Österreich hat es selbst erlebt, [ . . . ] was geschieht, wenn ein Kleinstaat angegriffen wird und wenn die demokratischen Mächte meinen, man könne darüber hinwegsehen. Auch 1938 meinte die demokratische Weltöffentlichkeit, der Angriff Hitlers auf Österreich ginge sie nichts an, und erst sehr spät griff sie ein. Möge es diesmal gelingen, den Frieden in jenem Teil der Welt rasch wiederherzustellen und den Völkern den Frieden zu sichern [ . . . ].’ ²⁷ See, for instance: Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Israels Kriegsziel heißt Friede’, by AZ-Sonderberichterstatter Hacker, 9 June 1967. ²⁸ Source: Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Tragödie im Nahen Osten’, by Friedrich Scheu, 6 June 1967. Translated by the author from the German original: ‘Unsere Gefühle für Israel werden auch durch die Tatsache genährt, dass viele ehemalige Wiener und andere Österreicher unter den Menschen sind, die heute in Israel leben und die, die israelischen Staatsbürgerschaft besitzen. Viele dieser älteren Männer und Frauen haben in ihrem Leben so viel Schweres mitmachen müssen, dass es einem das Herz bedrückt, zu denken, dass sie jetzt in dem Land wo sie Zuflucht und Frieden zu finden hofften, noch einmal den Schrecken des Krieges ausgesetzt sind.’ ²⁹ Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Brennglas: Gasmasken für Israel’, by Otto Fielhauser, 3 June 1967. Translated by the author.

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Altogether, the Nazi past was present in the internally directed self-conversation that took place in the public spheres of the FRG and Austria in 1967. However, the route of this conversation looked different in the two countries: in West Germany, support for Israel was linked to the notion of moral responsibility for the victims. In Austria, support for Israel was promoted as a form of solidarity with the victims. Thus, while West German and Austrian newspapers give very similar accounts of the Six Day War, in addition to coming to the same conclusion, i.e. support for Israel, they both started from different places: one sympathized with a victim, and the other one sympathized as a victim. Nevertheless, in these two diverse ways, they both formed a ‘record of resemblances’ between the situation in 1967 and their own narrative. This record of resemblances, however, was puzzled together along the lines of very diverse self-narratives. In West Germany’s case, the story concerned moral responsibility. In Austria’s case, it referenced its victimhood. To claim that this specific collective memory also channelled these countries’ official behaviour, we now turn to the reasoning behind policymakers’ choices. In which direction did decision-makers lead their country’s support during the Six Day War of 1967 and the follow-up Yom Kippur War in 1973? How did they reason about their countries’ interests towards the warring parties of the Middle East? Did their thinking take their country’s collective memory into account? In other words, did the official stances come about as a result of sympathy with, in the German case, or as a victim, in the Austrian case? Only when these same narratives obligated politicians to a certain course of action can we claim that collective memory channelled West German and Austrian behaviour towards the Middle East conflict.

Former Nazi States Take Sides in the Middle East Conflict The public reaction to the Six Day War demonstrated that the previously formed official narratives of West Germany and Austria were still the predominant story of their publics at the end of the 1960s. With these collective memories confirmed at the basis of collective identity, we can now start applying the memory–state behaviour nexus put forward by the temporal security approach. In it, collective memory was hypothesized to stabilize state behaviour along a temporal line. In the course of this process, policymakers are supposed to renegotiate their actions to keep in line with an intersubjective self that stretches from the past to the present and into the

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104      future. This self was furthermore assumed to be reflected in the previously adopted and now widely internalized national narrative of moral responsibility, in the West German case, and victimhood, in the Austrian case. Notably, in carrying identity in this way, collective memory is not an unchanging vessel for bringing the past into the present and future, but instead it describes a process of active engagement that allows for multiple outcomes and pathways by which to achieve a certain ‘temporal continuity’. To demonstrate the explanatory value of our framework, we suggested distinguishing it from existing IR explanations. For that purpose, it is contrasted to (a) the interest–behaviour nexus posited by the IR literature on physical security, and (b) the outward-looking identity–behaviour nexus posited by works on ontological security. This section, therefore, starts with looking at the predictions of (a) and (b) for the case countries’ behaviour in 1967 and 1973. After that, we apply the temporal security approach developed in this book to explain decision-makers’ ‘temporal reasoning’ when it came to supporting either of the warring parties in the two Middle Eastern wars of 1967 and 1973.

The Quest for Physical Security: Predicted Behaviour for West Germany and Austria The first suggested route into state behaviour is based on the assumptions of classical IR conceptions of physical security: these emphasize a country’s rational reasoning and mere material desires when it comes to deciding its course of action (Morgenthau 1973; Waltz 1979; Nye 2009). In such a view, what is beneficial to the material security of a country will be pursued. If we now look to the case scenario, in 1967 the material incentive structures were in no small part dependent upon the ongoing Cold War. Sentiments and support for either of the warring parties reflected the global East–West competition: the West sympathized with Israel and the Eastern bloc with the Arab side. Ideological predispositions, therefore, must have also pulled the West German and Austrian governments towards sympathizing with Israel. At the same time, the FRG’s founding principle of non-interference in international matters and Austria’s neutrality rendered support for Israel in 1967 neither necessary nor advisable in this global environment. Moreover, from a material viewpoint, everyone must have had vital economic interests in the Arab world. Since the beginning of the 1960s, Middle Eastern countries experienced unprecedented levels of economic growth

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boosted by rapidly increasing oil production. Between 1950 and 1970, the region’s share in oil production rose from 17 to 41 per cent. Meanwhile, the post-war economic miracles of Western European countries crucially depended on Middle Eastern oil. Furthermore, the sizeable economic area of the combined Arab countries with a population of 112 million³⁰ and its ongoing massive public investments in infrastructure, health, and education during the 1960s formed an essential market for European products (see Yousef 2004, 95–7; Weingardt 2002, 191–2, 228–30). Combining these systemic, material factors at play in 1967, we find the following pushes and pulls for West Germany and Austria: their associations with the Western bloc and resulting pro-Israeli public sentiments were counterweighed by the legal need for neutrality and non-interference coupled with strong economic interests in the Arab countries. Following a rational-material cost–benefit calculus only, West German and Austrian decision-makers therefore must have concluded to stay neutral during the Six Day War, and not side with either of the warring parties (see Table 4.2). While West Germany and Austria neither in 1967 nor during the following Yom Kippur War in 1973 had to fear physical harm, they, however, had to fear a change in material capabilities from their selected courses of action. This concern became even more evident in the face of the global oil crisis triggered as an immediate result of the tide of war turning again in Israel’s favour in 1973. On 17 October, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) used their leverage over the world price-setting mechanism for oil by reducing the supply rate first by 5 per cent and a month later by 25 per cent. These quadrupled oil prices triggered panic among European states whose economic growth after World War II was to a large extent based on a steady supply of Middle Eastern oil at constant prices. Immediately, the oil shock created a significant rift within NATO and the EEC, with countries seeking to disassociate themselves from Israel and US foreign policy in the Middle East for the sole purpose of avoiding becoming a target of the boycott (Siniver 2013, 3–4). Considered from the perspective of a strategic, material cost–benefit calculus only, these altered economic and political incentive structures, therefore, required shifting the support from Israel towards the Arab side as the logical next step in 1973 (see Table 4.3).

³⁰ Based on the World Bank’s population data for the Arab World in 1967. Online at: https://data. worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?end=1969&locations=1A&start=1967 (accessed 2 August 2018).

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The Quest for Ontological Security: Predicted Behaviour for West Germany and Austria The second route for predicting state behaviour moves away from traditional concepts of the case countries’ physical security needs and towards the concept of ontological security. Here, not a fear for material survival, but for the loss of integrity between identity and state behaviour is assumed to determine outcomes. With our approach of temporal security being a form of ontological security’s self-regarding identity–behaviour nexus, we must first distinguish it from the other-regarding branch. That said, with the more dynamic concept of ontological security, it is hard to make the same clear-cut predictions about state behaviour as when applying a material cost–benefit logic. For illustration purposes, we therefore assume a simplified version of the ‘structural’ and ‘endogenous’ ontological security literature. In such a view, routines that have been established with ‘external others’ will be adhered to in selected courses of action in order to keep a country’s ontological security intact. Let’s see how West Germany and Austria are predicted to act in 1967 and 1973 if we take only their routinized relationships with significant external others, in this scenario particularly with Israel, into account. When it comes to their bilateral relationship with Israel, both the FRG and Austria by the time of 1967 had established ‘friendly diplomatic relations’ which, however, cannot be explained without the large-looming Holocaust legacy in the background. In all its post-war interaction with the Jewish state, the FRG’s bilateral acts reflected attempts to ameliorate the harm and make good again, the most obvious example being the massive amounts of reparation payments to Israel since 1952. From 1953 to 1965, the FRG delivered ships, machine tools, trains, cars, medical equipment, and telephone technologies that amounted to 15 per cent of annual Israeli imports (Herf 1997, 288). On a more secret level, the FRG also sent arms to Israel. With these exchanges being in the sole benefit of Israel, West Germany created ‘special relations’ with Israel in an effort to atone for the Nazi past and take on moral responsibility for its victims (see Deutschkron 1983; Feldman 1984; Weingardt 2002). Austria, on the other hand, insisted from the beginning on ‘normal relations’ with Israel with no moral obligation attached to it (Embacher and Reiter 1998). These consisted of mutually beneficial deals ranging from raw materials (coal and steel products from Austria in exchange for citrus fruits from Israel) to the issue of immigration and non-alignment. With regards to the latter two, Austria’s strategic position as a neutral country between the blocs soon turned it into a stepping stone for Eastern European and Russian Jews who wanted to

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make Aliyah to Israel—a role that Austria tolerated tacitly (Albrich 1997, 181; Hotam 2005, 146–8). If we only take into account these countries’ routinized relationships with one another, the FRG would thus be predicted to side with Israel as it had supported the country since 1952 unconditionally. Austria, on the other hand, because of its international status of neutrality and its ‘normal’ and nonobligatory relations with Israel, would be predicted to stay neutral and not take sides at all (Table 4.2). If we extend the logic of routinized relationships to 1973, the FRG must be assumed to continue its support for Israel also during the Yom Kippur war and oil crisis. West German relations with Arab countries at the time had reached their low point, not least because of its preferential treatment of Israel, and the Cold War still dictated a close association between West German policies and the United States. Austria, on the other hand, with its identity firmly anchored in neutrality, would be predicted to remain neutral also in 1973. Only neutrality could confirm its ontological security against significant external others, be it West Germany (still the key reference point for the Austrian identity), Israel, or the global powers of the East–West conflict. The theoretical route focussing on routinized relationships with external others thus predicts the same behaviour for 1967 and 1973: each time, West Germany is supposed to side with Israel, and Austria is assumed to stay neutral (see Tables 4.2 and 4.3).

Table 4.2 Predictive results for the distribution of sympathies in 1967 Reasoning to outcome

Anti-Israel

Material cost–benefit Routinized relations with external others Actual behaviour

Pro-Israel

Neutral

FRG & Austria FRG Austria FRG & Austria

Source: Author.

Table 4.3 Predictive results for the distribution of sympathies in 1973 Reasoning to outcome

Anti-Israel

Material cost–benefit Routinized relations with external others Actual behaviour

FRG & Austria

Source: Author.

Austria

Pro-Israel

Neutral

FRG FRG

Austria

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The Quest for Temporal Security: West Germany and Austria during the Middle East Conflict To explain the deviations in outcome, we turn to our framework on temporal security. Viewing the case countries as temporal security-seekers, we specified the identity–behaviour nexus as a contemporary conversation with a significant historical other around which a country’s memory had been formed. Considering this temporal logic, the predictions for state behaviour therefore are likely to differ from what exogenous ontological security approaches forecast (b), not to speak of what physical security predicts (a). When the ‘other’ is not contemporary, we might see routines when the collective selfnarrative is not endangered, and a change in routines when it is. Similarly, to navigate around ‘shame’ vis-à-vis potential disconnects with a narrative, material security might be compromised. Notably, with its roots in collective memory, our approach allows for multiple reasonings and can account for different outcomes in each case, instead of positing a static connection between identity and the same behaviour in 1967 and 1973.

Avoiding Shame: The West German Decision in 1967 When war was imminent in the Middle East, the West German grand coalition led by the Christian Democrat Kurt Georg Kiesinger as Chancellor and the Social Democrat Willy Brandt as Foreign Minister recalled the FRG’s founding principle of strict neutrality and noninterference in international affairs. A closer analysis of the West German discourse in 1967, however, reveals a strong pull away from this formal position. As soon as Nasser’s closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships became known, the Federal government did not hesitate to condemn the United Arab Republic. Note that the FRG did not stand alone with this judgement. In the eyes of the entire Western world, Nasser’s step constituted a breach of the principle of freedom of navigation. Yet, West German

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reasoning went beyond the international legal perspective when Foreign Minister Brandt told the German Bundestag: I am very much inclined [ . . . ] to once more emphasize as my personal conviction, with which I, however, do not stand alone, that our noninterference and therefore our neutrality in an international legal sense of the word does neither mean a moral indifference, nor an inertia of the heart.³¹

That official neutrality in this matter implied support for Israel was echoed across party lines: Chancellor Kiesinger fully shared Brandt’s sentiment. Equally, Helmut Schmidt from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) expressed his sadness over the outbreak of war, adding that he could not help but perceive the threat to Israel’s existence with ‘deeply felt involvement’ (Schmidt (1967), quoted in Vogel 1967, 316). This widespread sentiment led West German politicians to openly show their solidarity with the Israeli people: non-interference, in this particular case, could never imply moral and political indifference regarding the outcome of this conflict. Only the liberal opposition, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), showed restraint and warned against departing from the principle of strict neutrality with an eye to the FRG’s business interests in the Arab world. However, for the majority of West German politicians, dispositions adhering to the logic of the ‘heart’, as Brandt had expressed it, overrode material concerns and brought them firmly onto the side of Israel.³² Once weakened in words, the principle of neutrality and non-interference was also weakened in deeds. When, for instance, Egypt’s use of poison gas was suspected, the FRG decided to deliver 20,000 gas masks to Israel. The discursive, internal justifications that took place around this issue are particularly interesting for tracing the political elite engagement with their country’s memory. While Kiesinger and Brandt immediately approved, Defence Minister Gerhard Schröder refused on the basis that delivery of war material to a war zone constituted a clear breach of the principle of neutrality and bore

³¹ Brandt (1967), quoted in Vogel (1967, 320). Translated by the author from German: ‘mir liegt sehr daran, [ . . . ] noch einmal unterstreichen zu dürfen—als meine persönliche Überzeugung, mit der ich aber nicht allein stehe—, dass unserer Nichteinmischung und damit Neutralität im völkerrechtlichen Sinne des Wortes keine moralische Indifferenz und keine Trägheit des Herzens bedeuten kann.’ ³² Based on Vogel’s (1967) document collection of West German diplomatic correspondence and official Bundestag documents.

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110      the risk of drawing the FRG into the Middle East conflict. Schröder, however, was the only minister to hold this opinion. In a special session of the cabinet, it was decided to hand the matter over to Interior Minister Paul Lücke instead. Sidestepping the defence minister, the provision of gas masks was declared to fall under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry and its task of ‘protecting civilians’, approving their delivery to Israel. In addition to these, trucks—again defined not necessarily as ‘war material’—left West Germany for Israel, and the Israeli airline El Al received ‘tacit permission’ from authorities to fly ‘any freight’ via their territory. A blind eye was also turned towards American weapon deliveries via the FRG.³³ In walking a tightrope internally, these actions were brought in line with what the country’s positioning vis-à-vis its significant historical other demanded: support for Israel. While some historians suspect that West German involvement in the Six Day War window-dressed history while following the demands of the East–West conflict,³⁴ the analysis utilizing our framework found in the West German discourse frequent expressions of shame. Shame was especially evident in politicians’ reaction to the East German position. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) followed the Soviet support for the Arab side, but in even more virulent rhetoric: it blamed Israel ‘the aggressor’ while the Western world’s and West German sympathies for Israel were called a camouflage for hiding imperialism.³⁵ Leaving aside ideological disagreements dictated by the Cold War, West German politicians expressed first and foremost shame about these statements according to a very different logic: [ . . . ] we are ashamed by the fact that official speeches and words of those in charge of the other part of Germany contain nothing—and absolutely

³³ Based on Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘Bonn liefert Israel Gasmasken. 20,000 Stück—aus humanitären Gründen—vorher Konflikt in der Regierung’, 1 June 1967. The incident also found its way into secondary works on West German–Israeli diplomatic relations: Deutschkron (1983, 338–9); Weingardt (2002, 190; 1997, 66). ³⁴ Wolffsohn (1993, 29) interpreted West Germany’s reaction to the Six Day War as pursuing the dictates of the day (Tagespolitik) while only pretending to be attending to the requirements of history (Geschichtspolitik). Fink (2006, 281–5) interprets the Six Day War as a significant turning point in West German–Israeli relations: the grand coalition of SPD and CDU stood for a less penitent West Germany and with the bilateral relationship fully normalized in 1965, automatic support for Israel was now no longer a given. Despite Brandt’s expressed moral obligation towards Israel, the West German reaction to the Six Day War was therefore defined mainly by the gradually weakening Cold War consensus and Bonn’s opening to the East rather than by the FRG’s moral responsibility stemming from the Nazi past. ³⁵ Based on the following archival documents: ‘Erklärung jüdischer Bürger der DDR’, printed in Neues Deutschland, 23 June 1967. Letter from the FRG’s observer to the UN, Ambassador Baron Sigismund von Braun, to the president of the UN General Assembly, 29 June 1967.

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nothing—of the special responsibility that we Germans hold vis-à-vis these people.³⁶

Chancellor Kiesinger struck a similar tone as his coalition partner Schmidt and condemned East German behaviour with explicit reference to German history: ‘Given the recent past of our people, it is truly tragic that those in power in the other part of Germany aim to fuel the conflict by acting in a completely irresponsible manner’ (Kiesinger (1967), quoted in Vogel 1967, 316). For West Germans, the East German behaviour was shameful because it stood against the descriptions under which West Germany narrated itself: it did not fit with the internal conversation that the FRG had entered into with its significant historical other, Nazi Germany. As a result, for the FRG anything else but support for Israel would have meant an internal transgression triggering national shame. This process, however, did not apply to East Germany. In the GDR, a narrative of victimhood concerning Nazi Germany similar to Austria’s formed part of its temporal relations with itself, thus allowing for full support of the Arab side.

The Persistent Influence of the Threat of Shame: The West German Reaction in 1973 When the Yom Kippur War in 1973 triggered a global oil crisis, the pulls for West Germany to switch its support from Israel to the Arab side were twofold: first, there was the material, economic necessity created by the FRG’s dependence on oil imports from the Arab world. Moreover, a common European position gravitated towards the Arab side. Nevertheless, when we analyse the internal debates taking place in light of these arguments, we find that the drive to avoid shame at the hands of breaking with its repentant perpetrator image overrode concerns in both cases. When the threats emanating from oil mounted, now Chancellor Willy Brandt held firmly against his oil minister’s demand for a more pro-Arab stance: ‘One cannot buy friends by applying pressure, not even when using oil as a bargaining chip.’³⁷ The Federal government instead began to firmly insist ³⁶ Schmidt (1967), quoted in Vogel (1967, 316). Translated by the author from German: ‘[ . . . ] dass wir beschämt sind von der Tatsache, dass die offiziellen Reden und Äußerungen der Verantwortlichen im anderen Teil Deutschlands von der besonderen Verpflichtung, die wir Deutschen diesem Volk gegenüber haben, nichts, aber auch gar nichts spüren lassen.’ ³⁷ Brandt at the SPD Bundestagsfraktion, 6 December 1973, quoted in Deutschkron (1983, 379).

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112      on its politics of impartiality regarding the Middle East conflict. Surprisingly, this was the case against the backdrop of Brandt’s new Ostpolitik that promoted a rapprochement with the Eastern bloc and thus, reaching out to the Soviet-supported Arab countries would have presented an invaluable opportunity to also advance this new foreign policy interest. However, as became clear in the dire debates among West German politicians in 1973, all these interests were overridden by the anxiety of facing shame at the hands of its significant historical other. While Foreign Minister Walter Scheel repeatedly attempted to roll the past that bound the FRG to Israel back behind present economic needs, Chancellor Brandt understood his country’s historical identity as a moral obligation: ‘German–Israeli relations have to be viewed against the gloomy backdrop of the National Socialist reign of terror. It is this that we imply when we state that our normal relations have a special character’ (Brandt (1973), quoted in Weingardt 2002, 223). Brandt’s formulation of ‘normal relations with a special character’ was just like his 1967 stance on ‘the impossibility of neutrality of the heart’ in line with the FRG’s narrative vis-à-vis Nazi Germany. This collective memory left the FRG with no other option but to sympathize with Israel even in the wake of the oil crisis. While West Germany’s temporal security drive resisted Arab economic threats, an emerging position of the European Communities (EC) on the Middle East conflict began to reflect an increasingly pro-Arab tenor. The FRG’s membership in the EC thus posed renewed difficulties for West German politicians to bring a joint European Middle Eastern stance in line with the prescriptions under which it valued itself concerning its own historical other, Nazi Germany. In fact, under the umbrella of the EC, West Germany had to manoeuvre its way through a predicament: namely, that despite pressures on the West German economy, the political and diplomatic obligations that stemmed from the FRG’s past bound it on the one hand to Israel, and on the other hand—via the Franco-German friendship treaty of 1963—to neighbouring France. Besides, circumstances rendered West Germany’s security strongly dependent on the United States, while at the same time West Germany favoured a unified foreign policy voice of the EC. However, this unified voice under the leadership of France now clearly took up a pro-Arab/Palestinian stance, and as a consequence, it qualified as both anti-Israeli and anti-American. The EC statement thus clashed with the FRG’s historical identity and had to be defended from fierce domestic opposition. A significant part of the West

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German press³⁸ and public³⁹ regarded it as solely in the interest of Arabs, shaming West German decision-makers. Equally, in the Bundestag, Social Democrats and the opposition CDU/CSU protested against the anti-Israel tendencies of the document by way of hinting at the feeling of shame it would inflict upon the country especially with an eye to its Nazi past. Instead, they now requested the FRG’s neutrality in international matters that had been happily compromised for the sake of Israel in 1967. In response, Chancellor Brandt showed what Brent Steele (2005, 357) called ‘discursive remorse’: There shall be no doubt: we are involved witnesses. [ . . . ] I have often emphasized, and I would like to confirm it once again. For us, there can be no neutrality of heart and conscience. If we acted neutrally in that sense, we would have no interest in participating in the attempt to find a just and lasting peace for the suffering Middle East. We understand our duties differently!⁴⁰

With these circumlocutions, Brandt described a ‘more balanced’ Middle East policy that included the Arab side out of necessity but strongly leaned towards Israel in its sympathies. Only such a notion was in line with his country’s collective memory, and as such, the West German stance during the Yom Kippur War could at the last minute be rescued from the imminent shame of supporting a party in the conflict that is incongruent with its collective self-understanding. In this temporal logic, partiality with Israel, i.e. ‘a non-neutrality of the heart’ was the only available option for the FRG, also in 1973.

³⁸ The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, for instance, called the document ‘a sign of partisanship for the Arabs’; the Süddeutsche Zeitung spoke of ‘an invitation to Arabs to exert more pressure’ and added ‘In Brussels, oil counts most’ (in German: ‘In Brüssel zählt das Erdöl mehr’). ³⁹ Allensbach Institute’s survey of October 1973 found that 57 per cent of West Germans were on the side of the Israelis and only 8 per cent held a pro-Arab attitude regarding the Yom Kippur War (source: Weingardt 1997, 86–7). ⁴⁰ Brandt (1973), quoted in Deutschkron (1983, 383). Translated and shortened by the author from the German original: ‘Ich möchte zunächst sagen, wenn wir Zeugen sind des Konfliktes, [ . . . ] dann soll doch niemand daran zweifeln dürfen, dass es sich nicht um irgendwelche Art von Zeugen, sondern um beteiligte Zeugen handelt. [ . . . ] Ich habe oft betont—und mir liegt daran, es hier zu bestätigen—, dass es für uns keine Neutralität des Herzens und des Gewissen gibt und geben kann. Wären wir in diesem Sinne neutral, dann hätten wir geringen Anlass, die Forderung nach einem gerechten und dauerhaften Frieden in jener gequälten Nahostregion zu der unseren zu machen. Wir begreifen unsere Pflichten anders.’

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Avoiding Shame: The Austrian Decision in 1967 Like the FRG, Austria, the neutral hinge between the Eastern and Western blocs, had no strategic advantage to gain from supporting either of the warring parties during the Six Day War. However, while the ruling conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) insisted on the country’s neutrality,⁴¹ the opposing Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) soon began to side with Israel loudly. An analysis of politicians’ discourse reveals the motivation behind this support as stemming from history. Bruno Pittermann, the President of the Socialist International and Chairman of the SPÖ, for instance, declared that: Austria itself knows what happens when a small state is being attacked and when democratic powers ignore such a situation. In 1938, the democratic world’s public believed that Hitler’s aggression against Austria was none of their business and so the world intervened only too late. May it work this time that peace is restored quickly for the peoples of the region.⁴²

From this statement, it is apparent that in Austria too, the justification for supporting Israel resulted from an inward-directed conversation with the country’s past. In the portrayal of this discourse, Austria in 1938, like Israel now in 1967, had both fallen prey to an overpowering, external aggressor. By comparing Austria in 1938 to Israel in 1967, the Social Democratic opposition therefore invoked the country’s collective victimhood, that is, its constituting national narrative vis-a-vis Nazi Germany as its historical other. Based on this logic, a sense of victim solidarity was created that made Austria support Israel in 1967, despite its formal neutrality. That officially Austria was indeed inclined towards the Israeli side is also apparent in its voting behaviour at the UN regarding the Six Day War. During the formulation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, Austria, due to its neutrality, was not bound by the Cold War bipolarity to vote in line with either bloc. Arab, Eastern-bloc, as well as non-aligned countries, were aware of this and increased their diplomatic pressure on the small neutral ⁴¹ Source: Tončić-Sorinj to the Council of Ministers on the ‘Middle East conflict; Austrian statement’, Vienna, 6 June 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, Gz. 13825_67. ⁴² Pittermann, quoted in Arbeiter Zeitung, ‘AUA-Maschine nach Tel Aviv kehrte um’, 7 June 1967. Translated by the author from German: ‘Österreich hat es selbst erlebt was geschieht, wenn ein Kleinstaat angegriffen wird und wenn die demokratischen Mächte meinen, man könne darüber hinwegsehen. Auch 1938 meinte die demokratische Weltöffentlichkeit, der Angriff Hitlers auf Österreich ginge sie nichts an, und erst sehr spät griff sie ein. Möge es diesmal gelingen, den Frieden in jenem Teil der Welt rasch wiederherzustellen und den Völkern den Frieden zu sichern.’

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country. The vote constituted a ‘question over life and death’, emphasized, for instance, a Syrian diplomat in his correspondence, threatening Austria with a break in economic relations with the Arab world.⁴³ On the other hand, inner Israeli circles already viewed support from Austria as a lost cause. According to Israeli diplomats, Austria would surely abstain from voting precisely because of its neutrality.⁴⁴ Against Israeli and also rational-choice predictions, Austria, however, did not abstain but in the end voted in favour of Israel. The internal conversation that took place within Austria was not directed outwards at the international community or the warring parties, but inwards towards its self in the past. Discursive justifications reveal how Austria’s collective memory of victimhood overrode any material cost–benefit logic and rendered only the path in favour of Israel available: Hundreds of thousands of former Austrian citizens live in Israel, who have— without their fault and the fault of the Austrian government—first suffered grave injustice, and then had to leave their country to find a new home [ . . . ] We think that we can count on the Soviet Union’s understanding that out of these reasons a different casting of the vote would have been unthinkable for Austria.⁴⁵

Interestingly, the pre-prepared official text for diplomats to defend Austria’s decision had initially contained an additional sentence that was crossed out by hand in the draft and disappeared in the document’s final version: ‘Austria has the moral responsibility to support its former citizens in preserving their livelihood in their new homeland.’⁴⁶ Moral responsibility, however, was not ⁴³ Sources: Austrian ambassador in Beirut, Breycha-Vauthier, to the Foreign Ministry on ‘The attitude of Austria in the upcoming UN debate on the Middle East conflict; Declaration of the Syrian Foreign Minister to the Austrian government’, Beirut, 16 June 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, 24244_67. Depeche from the Austrian Embassy in Cairo to the Foreign Ministry in Vienna, Cairo, 22 July 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, 13825_67. Austrian ambassador in Beirut, Breycha-Vauthier, to the Foreign Minister on ‘Syria and the Austrian vote at the UN’, Beirut, 14 July 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, 24244_67. ⁴⁴ Bauer to Tončić-Sorinj on ‘Israel and the Austrian attitude to the Middle East conflict’, Tel Aviv, 27 July 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, 24244_67. ⁴⁵ Austrian Foreign Ministry, ‘Official language rules for Moscow, Belgrade and New York’, Vienna, July 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, 24244_67. Translated by the author from German: ‘[ . . . ] dass in Israel hunderttausende ehemaliger österreichischer Staatsbürger leben, die ohne ihr Verschulden und ohne Verschulden der österreichischen Bundesregierung zunächst schwerstes Unrecht erleiden und dann ihr Land verlassen mussten, um in Israel eine neue Heimstätte zu finden. Wir glauben auf das sowjetische Verständnis rechnen zu dürfen, dass schon aus diesem Grunde eine andere österreichische Stimmabgabe nicht möglich erschien.’ ⁴⁶ Austrian Foreign Ministry, ‘Official language rules for Moscow, Belgrade and New York’, Vienna, July 1967. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, 24244_67. In German: ‘Österreich hat für diese seine

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116      contained in the country’s national narrative of victimhood vis-à-vis Nazi Germany and as such triggered anxiety about potential disconnects with the narrated self. To avoid shame, it was swiftly corrected. Austria’s choice to support Israel was to reflect a sense of solidarity with the victims and should in no way be mistaken for a moral obligation on the Austrian part.

Avoiding Shame by Confirming Victimhood: The Austrian Reaction in 1973 During the oil crisis, the obligation of conscience which bound West Germany to Israel did not apply to Austria. As we have seen, Austria’s sympathies with Israel in 1967 were driven by a sense of solidarity between two victims rather than a moral responsibility for the victim. In the wake of Israel’s sweeping victory, however, Israel’s previous image as a weak and defenceless victim dissolved into a new role of a victorious, self-confident, but also occupying power in the Middle East. Thus, with the area under Israeli control tripling as a result of the Six Day War, a new victim group emerged and came to the increased attention of the world: the Palestinians and their representative organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Considering both its national narrative as a victim of Nazi Germany and material incentives stemming from the oil crisis, the Austrian government could now be expected to turn its attention to the Arab world. And indeed it did: the Austrian Social Democratic Chancellor Bruno Kreisky immediately grasped the importance of the economic interdependence between Arab oil states and Western industrial societies and began to reach out. In his memoirs, he remembers, ‘I have created a vivid connection which especially in the economic area has proven to be excellent [ . . . ] Today, Austrians over there are regarded as friends’.⁴⁷ Kreisky’s move towards the Arab/Palestinian side, however, not only stemmed from a rational-material cost–benefit calculus regarding oil but was—taking a closer look at his autobiography—motivated by his own personal experience as a refugee in Sweden during World War II: ‘I have been a political refugee, a, if you want, displaced person [ . . . ] That is the reason why ehemaligen Bürger nach wie vor die moralische Verpflichtung, ihnen die Lebensmöglichkeit in ihrer neuen Heimat erhalten zu helfen.’ ⁴⁷ From Bruno Kreisky’s biography, published by Rathkolb (2007, 442–3), and translated by the author.

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I have always and already from early on voiced my sympathy for the displaced Palestinians’ (Rathkolb 2007, 436–7). Somewhat paradoxically, Kreisky, who was Jewish, always emphasized his persecution for political rather than racial reasons (Secher 1994; Bachleitner 2018, 35). With that, he aligned his biography with the Austrian national biography: both the country and its chancellor valued themselves under the presuppositions of having been in resistance to and a victim of Nazi Germany. As such, Austria’s Jewish Chancellor was in a strong position to invoke the ‘solidarity between two victims’ logic, however, this time concerning a different victim group, namely the Palestinians, rather than the Israelis. That it was this logic which gave rise to Austrian sympathies for the Arab side and even overrode economic incentives becomes clear when one looks at the country’s relentless, follow-up efforts for Palestinian rights. Kreisky was, for instance, the first Western head of state to invite Arafat to visit their country in 1979. This political move increased the PLO’s international reputation immensely at a time when it was viewed as a terrorist organization by most Western countries.⁴⁸ Disregarding Western criticism and security concerns stemming from Palestinian terrorist activities (taking place even in Austria), neutral Austria was also the first Western European country to recognize the PLO in 1980 diplomatically.⁴⁹ On the question of why out of all European democracies Austria took this maverick stance, Kreisky answered: Many of us know exactly how much we would have saved ourselves, maybe even a ten-year-long occupation after liberation in 1945, if we had had such a representation of our national interests after 1938.⁵⁰

By comparing Austria in 1938 to the situation of the Palestinians, the conversation with Austria’s significant historical other thus continued and it was as

⁴⁸ See letter correspondence between Kreisky and Arafat: Arafat to Kreisky, Beirut, 10 June and 25 July 1979. Kreisky Archiv, IX. 3, Prominenten-Korrespondenz, Box 2. Austrian ambassador Franz Parak to Foreign Ministry: ‘ARAFAT Gespräche in Wien; Syrische Haltung und Erkärungen von Oberst Ghadafi in Damaskus’, Damascus, 13 July 1979. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, Gz. 88.19.57/12II.4a_79. ⁴⁹ Bundesministerium für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten/Tschofen: ‘Österreich und die PLO, Information’, Vienna, 18 March 1980. ÖStA/AdR, BMAA, Israel 2, Gz. 88.19.19/44-II.4_80. ⁵⁰ Kreisky (1979), quoted in Riegler (2011, 75). Translated by the author from German: ‘[ . . . ] dass viele von uns sehr genau wissen, wie viel wir uns erspart hätten—vielleicht sogar eine zehnjährige Besatzung nach der Befreiung im Jahre 1945, wenn es eine solche Vertretung unserer nationalen Interessen nach 1938 gegeben hätte.’

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118      such that the wholly fabricated Austrian victimhood narrative fostered a bond with the Palestinians rather than with the Israelis in the 1970s. For the purpose of stabilizing its temporal security vis-à-vis its historical other, Austria therefore switched sides between 1967 and 1973. By confirming its own victim image in its new choice of supporting the Palestinians, the country managed to avoid the looming threat of shame that originated in potential disconnects with its constituting national narrative of victimhood. From this, it follows that the routinized relationship that guaranteed temporal security had to be maintained with its historical other, irrespective of its connections with the contemporary others, be they Israel, the Arab states, or the international community. The quest to achieve temporal security and the focus on the self-reflective and adaptive process vis-à-vis a certain collective memory thus best accounts for Austria’s actions in 1967 and 1973.

Conclusion: Memory over Time Forms State Behaviour This chapter has specified the link between collective memory and a country’s behaviour. In the application of the temporal security concept, it has shown how state action is brought in line with a pre-existing national story to avoid (public) shame. In choosing the example of former Nazi perpetrator states, it demonstrated how West Germany and Austria perceived war in the Middle East in 1967 and 1973 through their selective memory lens of a responsible perpetrator and innocent victim vis-à-vis their own historical other, i.e. Nazi Germany. As a result, when it came to supporting either of the warring parties, policymakers’ logic followed neither a mere material cost–benefit calculus (physical security) nor pre-established routines with the warring parties (outward-looking ontological security), but instead a temporal relationship with these countries’ narrated self in the past (temporal security). To establish temporal continuity, courses of action were aligned with the selective national narrative which carried these countries’ identities. Through a self-reflective struggle against the omnipresent anxiety of ‘self-shaming’, West Germany in 1967 and 1973 came to support Israel, and Austria switched sides from the Israelis to the Palestinians between 1967 and 1973. To use Halbwachs’ terms again, the quest to establish a ‘record of resemblances’ ( = collective memory) allowed only for these courses of action. Through them, both countries managed to ‘be-in-time’ and therefore kept their temporal security intact. State behaviour unfolds along a temporal axis which looks inwards, to the country’s identity anchored in its collective memory of its very own past.

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Overall, and in demonstrating how collective memory over time transforms from a simple foreign policy resource (Chapter 2) to a complex cultural system which defines identity (Chapter 3) and constrains action (Chapter 4), we find that collective memory in three decades turned from a mirror into a lamp, to use the words of Meyer H. Abrams again. It served as a mirror for public identity and as a lamp for state behaviour. In reflecting its image, memory became unexamined. In shining its light on a pathway, it was necessarily selective. From this, we can see that memory’s processes are intrinsically normative. When collective memory determines state behaviour through identity, it thus forms what is valuable to a collective and which pathway is suitable for that particular country to pursue. It is by way of this subtle influence that collective memory is set to exert its impact upon politics over the long term. With time passing, collective memory therefore not only shines a light for behaviour by suggesting a ‘suitable’ course of action. It also—outside the spotlight of its lamp—subtly and subconsciously influences what is going to be understood as a ‘good’ course of action in the first place. In other words, once memory had carried collective identity and shaped state behaviour, it begins to underwrite a country’s value system for the long run. This last manifestation of collective memory in world politics will be the focus of the next chapter.

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5 Memory as National Values This chapter places collective memory at the source of a country’s values. In that regard, it enquires into the nature of obligations arising from memory. Based on moral-philosophical considerations, it finds normativity in the ‘processes surrounding memory’ described in the temporal security concept. The relationship between collective memory, identity, and behaviour over time is said to generate the ‘duty to act’ for countries in the sense of ‘ought’. This last and most diffuse impact of collective memory unfolds and persists into the long run. Through it, collective memory, entirely outside the realm of conscious choice, channels behaviour towards one good course of action. To illustrate this, my empirical study picks up the case countries, Germany and Austria, at a late point in time. In 2015, large numbers of refugees arrived at their borders during what became known as the ‘European refugee crisis’. In this ‘critical situation’, both countries were required to react and thus position themselves vis-à-vis the highly normative issue of asylum. With the help of a content analysis of official speeches, the empirical case study demonstrates how German and Austrian politicians came to identify different versions of what a good response entails based on their country’s diverse collective memories.

Memory as the Source for a Country’s Values Collective memory, in this chapter, is placed at the roots of a country’s value system. It is assumed to be the source of normativity. This late and diffuse impact of collective memory unfolds in entirely unexamined ways and, importantly, over the long run. As such, this chapter builds on preceding forms of memory described already in this book. To recap, previous chapters demonstrated how a version of the past initially forged for foreign policy strategy begins to shape the domestic identity of a country, and consequentially channels also its state behaviour in the international realm. The empirical examples so far have illustrated how in the direct aftermath of World War II, West German and Austrian officials made memory available in the form of a Collective Memory in International Relations. Kathrin Bachleitner, Oxford University Press (2021). © Kathrin Bachleitner. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192895363.003.0006

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strategic, international narrative (Chapter 2), and how that version of memory then began to furnish these countries’ sense of self (Chapter 3). The assumed ‘ontological urge’ for—what this book termed—‘temporal security’ then led to practices that established integrity between the narrated self in the past and the country’s behaviour in the present (Chapter 4). Altogether, the described processes surrounding collective memory formed the grounds for reliable obligations. While not made explicit until now, obligations arising from identity always contain an intrinsically normative element. With memory underwriting identity, the link between memory, identity, and normativity can therefore be specified as follows: how and what we remember partly determines who we are, and who we are is normative for us and as such, a source of values and obligations of various sorts. As demonstrated already implicitly in previous chapters, this means that holding a particular memory on which a collective’s identity is based makes it ‘valuable’ for a country to do certain things which another country with a different memory would not value to do (Blustein 2008, 49). Notably, this nexus unfolds because the obligations implicated in identity raise the cost of defection: in engaging integrity, speaking in terms of the ontological security scholarship, there is now more at stake in fulfilling them. This finding is not new. It forms the cornerstone of constructivist scholarship in general as well as of the ontological security literature in particular. The ‘self ’ before the ‘interest’ matters, and material cost–benefit calculi get skewed towards identity. The conventional way to show this in international relations (IR) is—as was done in Chapter 4—to demonstrate that a certain identity—in this book’s case specified as a selective collective memory or narrative—pushed decision-making down a path that does not entirely make sense from a material/physical security point of view. Acting through identity—so the broad constructivist tenor—creates ‘possibilities for action’ (Hopf 2002, 10). With the value of these courses of action generated through the lens of identity, many scholars jump to the conclusion that identity provides an explanation for normative action, that is, for value-based behaviour. But, at a closer look, identity, and with it its carrier, memory, have a much more significant effect on normative behaviour than constructivists and ontological security scholars suggest. Identity does not only generate diverse valuable options for a country but, in the end, it creates value itself. ‘Obligations’, according to moral philosopher Christine Korsgaard, ‘spring from what identity forbids’ (Korsgaard 1996, 101). If the posited constructivist connection

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122      between identity and behaviour holds and identity indeed establishes an obligation to act, this obligation therefore also holds authoritative weight in the sense of ought, not only is. The identity–behaviour nexus thus not merely determines normative behaviour but one right course of action. In fact, what is perceived as ‘good’ or ‘right’ about that action cannot be generated without the reference point of identity. Returning to the words used above, in engaging integrity, morally speaking, there must be everything at stake in fulfilling the obligations arising from identity.

The Ethics of Memory and IR Placing identity, and with it memory, at the source of normativity is novel, in both the collective memory and IR literature, even if each discipline generated a considerable amount of normative enquiry into their research subjects. In the case of collective memory, several works on ‘the ethics of memory’ have emerged (e.g. Margalit 2002; Blustein 2008). In IR, there is a significant body of literature on ‘the ethics of constructivism’ (e.g. Price 2008; Weber 2014). In these, scholars, however, generally tend to focus on the ‘properties’ of memory, or of norms and values in the constructivist case. Either they observe memory or values as social facts that must matter or they go a step further and ask whether memory or a norm is morally desirable. When the answer is yes, some authors ponder what makes up a ‘good’ memory or norm, and in the case of ‘the ethics of memory’, whether there is an intrinsic worth in the act of remembering or forgetting. Furthermore, the ethics of memory literature led to a whole new, burgeoning interdisciplinary inquiry into the normative link between truth and (transitional) justice, reconciliation, forgiveness, and redemption. Through it, philosophers, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists equally pose the question as to why individuals and groups need to remember. Most of them uncover ‘the ethical demands that memory places on us’ in the famous aphorism by George Santayana (1905, 284): ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ From the urge not to repeat the mistakes of the past, scholars thus derive an ‘imperative to remember’. In that same logic, IR work on the ‘politics of memory’ likens the increasing number of global restitution cases, official apologies, and international justice tribunals with an ‘emerging morality in IR’ (Barkan 2001). What unites all is the assumption that remembering is ‘better’ or ‘more just’ than forgetting. With this, they attach normative value to specific

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properties of memory or the act of remembering itself. However, they do not look to the ‘practices of memory’ as a source of normativity.

The Practices of Memory Generate Values This chapter argues that values are generated in the process encapsulated in the concept of temporal security. It posits that values emerge in the selfreflective struggle over being-in-time, that is, in the practices of memory. New with this, the source of normativity is grounded in an objective process. Meanwhile, normative IR theory places normativity in subjective individuals only. Emerging findings in moral philosophy, however, support our approach. Particularly Christine Korsgaard (2009) roots normativity in the processes surrounding identity. For her, identity ‘necessitates’ (= obligates) individuals and it is this mechanism that creates moral law itself. The reference point of ‘morality’ is therefore a person’s particular, practical identity. This book’s temporal security concept describes this same process for collectives: collective identity, against the reference point of a specific memory, obligates states. It follows that temporal security-seeking behaviour in states generates their values: through the ongoing identity construction in narrative form, normativity originates in the practices of memory, not in memory’s ‘properties’. The temporal security concept thus does not judge whether it is ‘good’ to remember or forget, nor does it attempt to answer whether a particular way of remembrance is morally better than another. It merely seeks to explain a country’s behaviour by way of looking back on its self-conversation with its narrated past. With this, the temporal security concept does not suggest what countries ought to remember. It only seeks to demonstrate how the practices of memory, in the long run, give rise to normative horizons by determining oughts. With Korsgaard (2009), we, therefore, emphasize that obligations implicated in memory run through identity and these engage our integrity in absolute ways: morally speaking, there must be everything at stake in fulfilling the obligations arising from memory. Memory, in the form of identity, therefore, creates a duty to act in a certain (= good) way. Duties are obligatory.¹ Responsibility, on the other hand, even though it also describes the necessity to become active from an outside

¹ This definition of duty goes back to Cicero’s famous work On Duty in which he understands duty as resulting from human beings, in other words, from their identity: one’s place, character, and own moral expectations.

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124      impulse, is voluntary. In arising out of freedom, responsibilities can be rejected or accepted. Duty is always outside of such deliberate choice. In fact, it is wholly unintentional (Blustein 2008, 44–6): ‘Our duties rule out many options—exclude them from our mental horizon. This is a way of guiding our life, perhaps the deepest and most profound way’ (Raz (2001), quoted in Blustein 2008, 45). It follows that as a duty, identity creates one good option at the expense of other possibilities. Notably, this process unfolds entirely outside the realm of conscious deliberation and choice. The same mechanism is contained—even if not made explicit—in IR constructivists’ identity–behaviour nexus as well. For instance, for Hopf (2002, 4–16), identities form robust cognitive devices that render specific actions ‘thinkable’ while excluding others from the radar of ‘the possible’. That the ‘radar of the possible’ is to a large part dependent on memory is also present in IR scholars’ conceptualization of state identity. Berenskoetter (2014, 272–4), for instance, finds that through their ‘national biography’, countries design their normative visions of the present and future by looking back to experience. Along similar lines, Cruz (2000, 311) emphasizes that ‘how we remember shapes what we can imagine as possible’. Equally for Müller (2002, 31), in circumventing ‘the possible, thinkable’, memory gains the power to create via identity ‘moral certainty’ at best, and ‘moral absolutism’ at worst. The one possible option herewith turns out to be the one good option.

From the Imperative to Remember to the Duty to Act To argue that memory generates values over the long term thus requires focusing not on the properties, but on the practices of memory. While the former outlook led scholars to point out an imperative to remember, the practices of memory generate the duty to act. Where the imperative to remember relies upon an intentional calling into the mind of a particular version of memory, the duty to act originates in the unintentional workings of memory that in the long run give rise to diverse normative horizons for collectives and their countries. It follows that in the temporal security concept put forward in this book, the obligation to act does not lie with an abstract ‘norm’ (property of memory), but with a narrated memory process (practices of memory). ‘The moral demands of memory’ (Blustein 2008) are thus not found in a lofty ‘responsibility to remember’ the past and the ethical demands such a responsibility places on communities, but instead in the relationship between memory and

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identity. Only when identity is implicated in remembrance can it supply compelling ethical reasons for regarding remembrance as an obligation. One collective identity as a result of this may require the responsibility to remember from its society, whereas another one might imply the ‘responsibility to forget’. As such, memory’s normative significance consists in its relationship to whatever specific values and obligations can plausibly be construed as ingredients of a particular identity. X’s identity as Y gives rise to obligations Z, but because X does not identify itself as Y, X does not recognize the obligations Z that flow from Y (Blustein 2008, 48). The examples of this book, West Germany and Austria, illustrate precisely this point. If we only took the first part of the sentence into account, we would hypothesize that both countries (X) are Nazi perpetrators and this identity (Y) should give rise to the obligation to remember the Nazi legacy (Z). From the accounts in Chapters 2 to 4, we, however, have learned that because Austria (X) does not remember itself as a Nazi perpetrator (Y), it also does not recognize the obligation to remember the Nazi legacy (Z). How the relationship between memory and identity formed in detail thus is the only way in which the ‘obligation to remember’ may overlap with the duty to act. In this chapter, the relationship between memory as the narrated past and state identity is assumed to determine how a collective ought to act. In the long run, memory in this way creates national values. Outside of conscious choice, it channels state behaviour down one good option circumvented by the vague yet persisting moral horizons of collective memory.

The Case Study: Germany and Austria Respond to the European Refugee Crisis To illustrate how a concomitant validation of ideals flows from the ‘selfreflective struggle over memory’, this chapter analyses German and Austrian politicians’ reasoning during the so-called European refugee crisis of 2015. This critical situation and late point in time was chosen to demonstrate the long-term effect of collective memory on a country’s value system. Needless to say, our two case countries have changed significantly. Most notably, Germany in 1990 had been reunited, and Austria had entered the European Union in 1995. Meanwhile, generational change also altered these countries’ memory landscapes: their ruling politicians’ ‘late birth’ naturally shaped their relationship to the Nazi legacy in different ways than those of their predecessors.

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126      In Austria, the changed context had even swept away the victim narrative altogether. In 1991, the country’s Social Democratic Chancellor Franz Vranitzky began to officially substitute the national story of victimhood with one of co-responsibility for the Nazi past (e.g. Maier 1988; Uhl 1992, 2011; Radonic and Uhl 2016). Still, if our theories are to hold, and if collective memory indeed exerts a long-term, albeit subtle, impact on a country’s value system, then we must find diverse versions of ‘good’ courses of action being identified in Germany and Austria also at this later stage in time. The highly normative issue of refugees provides the critical situation to test this. At no other time was the topic of refugees more urgent for our two case countries than in 2015. Starting in the late summer of 2015 and as a result of the Syrian war, an estimated number of over 1.3 million people² made their way along a new path towards Europe: the Western Balkan route. This loophole arose as a result of Greece’s inability to cope with the mass influx of refugees at the EU’s Southern border. As a consequence, displaced people soon began to arrive at the doorsteps of Central Europe, including in our case countries, Germany and Austria. At this moment in time, German and Austrian politicians were required to react quickly and unilaterally. The scenario, therefore, lends itself well to investigating the normative basis for decision-makers’ response to the incoming refugees. What did German and Austrian policymakers identify as the right or morally good answer to this crisis? If our theoretical framework holds, we must find that both countries came to different ‘right’ responses and were bound to them by way of varied sources of obligation stemming from their diverse national narratives. The empirical documents used for the analysis of this chapter are political speeches. Speeches selected include those of relevant government officials such as chancellors, presidents (because of their symbolic role outside of daily politics and voting pressures), interior ministers, and foreign ministers. In the case of Germany, speeches analysed include those of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and his Minister of State for Europe, Michael Roth, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, and President Joachim Gauk. In Austria, speeches include those of Chancellor

² The figures are based on Frontex’s ‘West Balkan Risk Analysis’, which tracked illegal bordercrossings by non-regional migrants en route from Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria. In the quarter from July to September 2015, numbers peaked for the first time with 610,000 entries. From October to December 2015, an estimated number of 1.3 million people walked from Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria along the Western Balkan Route. Available at https://frontex.europa.eu/publications/?pq=&year= 2015&category=riskanalysis (accessed 20 October 2019).

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Werner Faymann, Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, and President Heinz Fischer. The timeframe for investigation was limited to the first few months of the crisis, starting in late August 2015 and ending with the onset of terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, which significantly altered the deliberative public debate. Particularly in this initial time of sudden, unexpected crisis and suspended European legal frameworks, the case countries can be expected to act within the confines of their very own normative horizons when faced with the mass arrivals of refugees. For the purpose of a content analysis, speeches were coded according to politicians’ reasoning about their country reflected in the national stories invoked during the crisis. These narratives in 2015 not only reference the Nazi legacy but also other cornerstones of Germany and Austria’s post-war history. In either case, however, the way politicians narrated their country’s story in the national debate must be demonstrated to have led to different obligations towards the refugees. For our theory to hold, the duty to act must be shown to stem from a specifically narrated memory.

The German Response to the Refugee Crisis ‘Wir schaffen das!’ (‘We can do this!’)³ was the immediate and intuitive answer of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the large influx of Syrian refugees at the end of the summer of 2015. Initially, to offer help and let people in need into the country was identified by German politicians across party lines as the right or good response to the refugee crisis. In their immediate reaction, the German government thus put the humanitarian aspects of the issue front and centre. Their point of departure was to sympathize with people’s tragic fate and to acknowledge the dangers that fleeing individuals are subjected to in situations of war and flight. In short, refugees were portrayed as innocent victims of state failure, violence, and criminal people smugglers along their paths to safety. Exemplary for the humanitarian approach towards refugees was the frequent use of the word Schutzsuchende (= individuals who seek protection) rather than Flüchtlinge (= refugees).⁴ Towards those who seek protection, Germany had an obligation to help.⁵

³ Angela Merkel, Sommerpressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, Mitschrift Pressekonferenz im Wortlaut, 31 August 2015. (All translations in this chapter are by the author). ⁴ The term Schutzsuchende was present in all analysed speeches. ⁵ See e.g. Angela Merkel, Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, 24 September 2015.

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128      That in the case of Germany this obligation had the status of duty becomes apparent in the rhetoric of politicians. To use the exact words of Chancellor Merkel (CDU/CSU): ‘We have a duty to treat people who come to us out of need with respect [ . . . ] We owe that to them, the refugees, and to ourselves.’⁶ Here Merkel is precisely in line with our theories and explicitly confers moral authority to identity. The second part of her account, more than the first, carries the normatively binding weight for the state and its people. Identity, instead of the situation of refugees themselves, lies at the source for a response to constitute a duty. Following the same logic, in the European context, a specific German identity obligated the country to a particular good European response as well. According to Germans, Europe’s answer must entail a common asylum policy that protects the EU’s external borders coupled with the combined effort to distribute the burdens of migration among member states in a fair manner by introducing compulsory quotas.⁷ Such a response would not only help tackle the refugee crisis, but it would ultimately also confirm Europe’s identity (as the Germans understand it). In contrast, allowing for nationalisms and borders to re-emerge in Europe would mean a loss of ‘our values and as such also our identity. If we ignore that, we’ll betray ourselves.’⁸ Like its domestic answer, Germany’s good European response stemmed from a specifically narrated European identity based on the principles of humanity, solidarity, and the rule of law. This particular identity, in the German view, called upon all Europeans to take on responsibility for the refugees. The call, however, could only be lifted in Germany to the status of a duty: ‘It is our duty to live up to our European values and provide shelter and refuge to those in need.’⁹ With an eye to sceptical fellow Europeans, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued a plea for understanding, if not following, the German position:

⁶ Angela Merkel, Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel vor dem Europäischen Parlament, 7 Oktober 2015. In German: ‘Wir haben die Pflicht, Menschen, die aus Not zu uns kommen, mit Respekt zu begegnen. Humanitäre Mindeststandards einhalten bei Versorgung und Unterbringung: Das sind wir ihnen, den Flüchtlingen, und uns selber schuldig.’ ⁷ See e.g. Thomas de Maizière, Rede des Bundesinnenministers zum Bundeshaushalt 2016— Einzelplan 06, 24 November 2015. ⁸ Angela Merkel, Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, 24 September 2015. In German: ‘Die Bindung an unsere Werte ginge verloren und damit unsere Identität. Wenn wir das missachten, verraten wir uns selbst—nicht mehr und nicht weniger.’ A similar argument can also be found in: Angela Merkel, Sommerpressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, Mitschrift Pressekonferenz im Wortlaut, 31 August 2015. ⁹ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Rede von Außenminister Steinmeier bei der Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen in New York, 1 October 2015.

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When we speak of people fleeing persecution, violence, or civil wars, I would first of all suggest that we do not speak of a ‘German problem’. Firstly, this is not a problem but a humanitarian duty. And secondly, it is not just a German responsibility, but a European responsibility!¹⁰

From this statement, we see that identity is the ultimate reference point for duties. However, a particular identity is needed to create a duty to act. The broad ‘human’ identity with this is not enough. It loses its authoritative weight and thus becomes an appeal instead of being an actual obligation. Along similar lines, the loose European identity seems to be too vague to generate a duty either. Instead, it constitutes a responsibility to act only. Importantly, responsibilities do not contain the obligatory nature of duties. As such, only for German politicians was it clear from the beginning and across party lines that their country had the duty to accept that responsibility.¹¹ The human tragedies happening in the Mediterranean Sea and on the land routes to Europe—in the exact words of Chancellor Merkel—admonished them,¹² and thus cried out for (German) responsibility: ‘That is why we are responsible. We take this responsibility seriously.’¹³ Although human tragedy demanded German responsibility, it did not universally have this effect on other European countries. From a moral point of view, we might be inclined to think that the refugee crisis should admonish everyone; the tragedy of the refugees, however, admonished Germans specifically. This puzzle points in the same direction as our theory does. To understand why a specific German identity, and not a European or humanitarian one, obligated its policymakers to open the doors to refugees, we must shift our attention to the sentence that preceded Merkel’s ‘We can do this’ phrase which is usually taken out of context: ‘We’ve done so much—we can do

¹⁰ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Rede von Außenminister Steinmeier im Deutschen Bundestag im Rahmen der Haushaltsdebatte, 11 September 2015. In German: ‘Deshalb würde ich zunächst einmal vorschlagen, wenn wir von Menschen sprechen, die vor Verfolgung, Gewalt oder Bürgerkriegen zu uns fliehen, nicht von einem “deutschen Problem” zu sprechen. Denn erstens ist dies nicht ein Problem, sondern eine humanitäre Pflicht. Und zweitens ist es nicht nur eine deutsche, sondern eine europäische Verantwortung!’ ¹¹ In the analysis of German speeches, the mention of ‘responsibility’, be it for Germans or Europeans, is present throughout. In stark contrast, the word responsibility was hardly ever mentioned in Austrian politicians’ speeches. ¹² Angela Merkel, Pressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, dem österreichischen Bundeskanzler Faymann, dem serbischen Ministerpräsidenten Vučić, und der Hohen Vertreterin der Union für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik und Vizepräsidentin der Europäischen Kommission Mogherini anl. der Konferenz zum westlichen Balkan, 27 August 2015. ¹³ Angela Merkel, Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel im Deutschen Bundestag, 9 September 2015. In German: ‘Deshalb sind wir in der Verantwortung. Diese Verantwortung nehmen wir wahr.’

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130      this!’¹⁴ Evidently, what made Merkel sure of her response to the refugee crisis was a specifically national, collective experience. This suspicion directs us to scrutinize the narrated identity underlying German behaviour. If duty arises indeed from what identity forbids, specific narratives of the country must have created the obligatory nature for Germans to accept refugees during the autumn of 2015. In the German case, three historical memories regularly appeared in politicians’ speeches. These concern the Nazi legacy, partition– unification, and immigration.

The Memory of Germany’s Nazi Legacy German politicians’ appeal to take up responsibility for the arriving refugees was frequently coupled with an explicit hint to the country’s dark Nazi past.¹⁵ The memory of World War II and National Socialism was employed as a strong warning not to erect borders and walls based on racist, nationalistic agendas. In the words of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, protecting an open, liberal society in opposing borders, fences, and nationalisms was a ‘historical responsibility’, particularly for Germans:¹⁶ ‘Our difficult history is both a reminder and an obligation for us to defend the rule of law decisively not only in Germany, but also in Europe.’¹⁷ As such, ‘we must not sacrifice the fundamental openness of our society on the altar of refugee policy. We owe this to our history, to our common European work.’¹⁸ Against the reference point of this particular German story, responding with openness towards the refugees became a duty for Germans. Unlike what many might want to suggest, this German response evidently did not stem from the country’s liberal identity but rather from its particular narrative about its Nazi legacy. Steinmeier’s Minister of State for Europe, Michael Roth, renders it explicit that the authoritative element stemmed from this ¹⁴ Angela Merkel, Sommerpressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, Mitschrift Pressekonferenz im Wortlaut, 31 August 2015. In German: ‘Wir haben so vieles geschafft—wir schaffen das!’ ¹⁵ See, for instance: Angela Merkel, Sommerpressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, Mitschrift Pressekonferenz im Wortlaut, 31 August 2015. ¹⁶ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Welt aus den Fugen—was hält uns zusammen? Die internationale Ordnung 70 Jahre nach Gründung der Vereinten Nationen,’ FU Berlin, 21 October 2015. ¹⁷ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Gemeinsame Grundwerte stärken—Europa stärken’, 15 October 2015. In German: ‘Unsere schwierige Geschichte ist uns Mahnung und Verpflichtung zugleich, nicht nur in Deutschland, sondern auch in Europa Rechtsstaatlichkeit entschieden zu verteidigen.’ ¹⁸ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Rede zur Eröffnung des Wirtschaftstages der Botschafterkonferenz 2015, 25 August 2015. In German: ‘Aber wir dürfen die prinzipielle Offenheit unserer Gesellschaft nicht auf dem Altar der Flüchtlingspolitik opfern. Das sind wir unserer Geschichte, unserem gemeinsamen europäischen Werk, schuldig.’

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specific German past: ‘to live and protect the values of democracy with determination and passion. That we owe to the many victims of the Holocaust.’¹⁹ In this narrative, the Nazi legacy now demanded an obligation to act. In the wake of the refugee crisis, German politicians thus invoked West Germany’s specific understanding of itself as a guilty and morally responsible perpetrator for the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. As previous chapters had illustrated, this national self-understanding had become entrenched in the FRG’s post-war political culture. The obligation derived from it demands Germans to ‘make good again’ (Wiedergutmachung). In this particular version of the story, Germany’s shameful Nazi past thus came to serve as a source that necessitated taking on responsibility for others actively. Only the recipients of this German duty changed over time. In the immediate post-war decades, Israel and the Jews, as well as Germany’s Western neighbours, were targeted. With the onset of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, the FRG reached out to its Eastern neighbours, particularly Poland during the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, the logic underlying this obligation always stayed the same. As such, in 2015, the familiar German attempts to make good again and ‘be a people of good neighbours’²⁰ were extended from the direct German neighbourhood to the EU’s external borders: ‘In the face of such a terrible human catastrophe as we witness it in Syria, we are all neighbours!’²¹ Foreign Minister Steinmeier explains further: When I meet a family from Syria that tells me their story that has driven them all the way from Damascus to Berlin, then I find new meaning in Willy Brandt’s sentence. Today, as the world has grown smaller, but the problems have not, we want to renew this spirit and we reaffirm: we Germans want to be a people of good neighbors, to those near and those far.²²

From these statements taken altogether, it appears that the willingness to take in refugees did not arise from a humanitarian (liberal) duty but instead from a ¹⁹ Michael Roth, Gedenkrede zum 77. Jahrestag der Reichsprogromnacht, 9 November 2015. In German: ‘die Werte der Demokratie entschlossen und leidenschaftlich leben und schützen. Das sind wir den vielen Opfern des Holocaust schuldig.’ ²⁰ This expression goes back to Willy Brandt and his Ostpolitik pursued vis-à-vis Eastern neighbours during the 1970s. ²¹ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Rede von Außenminister Steinmeier bei der Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen in New York, 1 October 2015. In German: ‘Im Angesicht einer so entsetzlichen menschlichen Katastrophe wie in Syrien sind wir alle Nachbarn!’ ²² Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Rede beim Empfang zum Tag der Deutschen Einheit in New York City, 1 October 2015 (Speech in English).

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132      specific understanding of the German legacy. ‘“Good neighbourliness” for Germans’, in the foreign minister’s words, ‘implied more than just humanity; it included an active political responsibility’.²³ By grounding responsibility in a specific narrative of the country’s Nazi legacy, Steinmeier rendered it ‘active’, thus assigning it the status of a duty. This, however, only worked against the backdrop of a particular interpretation of the Nazi past which gave rise to the obligation to help refugees for Germans only.

The Partition–Unification Memory Apart from the Nazi legacy and the lessons derived thereof, several politicians also invoked the experience of German partition and unification during the refugee crisis. The way this narrative was told in 2015 created the obligatory nature for Germans to act by issuing two specific moral ‘commands’. First, the German experience of East–West partition served as a warning of what happens when fences and walls are being built in Europe. As was the case with the narrative of the Nazi past, the legacy of East–West partition demanded Germans to take a certain kind of action. In the words of Michael Roth, the Minister of State for Europe, this logic finds expression: Fortunately, we have overcome those divisions of the past. And we do not want to go back to living in a Europe of walls and fences. Unfortunately, however, the refugee situation is making quite a few politicians think about building fences again to stop the flow of immigrants. That is not acceptable. And I must admit that I simply cannot understand this refusal to draw any lessons from our past.²⁴

Again, a particular German identity apparently forbade building fences. Instead, it obligated defending openness and thus created a duty towards refugees. The experience of East–West partition and the subsequent unification efforts were also invoked in another manner. The story of successful unification after 1989 was regularly referenced to portray the positive payoffs for everyone coming out of a great national effort. This historic achievement now ²³ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Rede von Außenminister Steinmeier bei der Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen in New York, 1 October 2015. ²⁴ Michael Roth, Speech at the opening event of the 80th Session of the European Youth Parliament in Leipzig, 9 November 2015 (Speech in English).

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came to serve as an encouragement for Germans that ‘they can indeed do this’. In the exact words of Chancellor Merkel: The experience of German reunification as a whole also conveys the basic feeling and the confidence that we can successfully master the tasks that lie ahead of us—no matter how great they may be. This also applies to the Herculean task which currently deeply moves us and demands a national effort from us!²⁵

In order to avoid the obvious pitfalls of applying the unification narrative to the current situation in which not fellow Germans, but culturally and religiously diverse foreigners have to be integrated into one society, President Joachim Gauk went as far as to turn Brandt’s famous exclamation ‘What belongs together is growing together again’²⁶ on its head: Now ‘shall grow together what until now did not belong together’. This logic was coupled with a call for action, just as in the 1990s: ‘It is again and again necessary to attain inner unity.’²⁷ The message here is clear: while the task is certainly challenging, it will ultimately be crowned by success for all.²⁸ When politicians invoked the narrative of unification during the refugee crisis, it thus served as a call to action for all German. This action, however—and in analogy to the 1990s— must go in a particular direction. ‘The boat was not full twenty years ago’,²⁹ and if we are to follow this logic, it is therefore also not full now. The partition—unification narrative thus too created a duty to act in the direction

²⁵ Angela Merkel, Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel zum Festakt ‘25 Jahre Deutsche Einheit–25 Jahre Sachsen-Anhalt’ in Halle (Saale), 1 October 2015. In German: ‘So vermitteln auch die Erfahrungen der deutschen Einheit insgesamt das Grundgefühl und die Zuversicht, dass wir die Aufgaben, die auf uns zukommen, erfolgreich bewältigen können—mögen sie auch noch so groß sein. Das gilt auch für die Herkulesaufgabe, die uns gegenwärtig sehr bewegt und die eine nationale Kraftanstrengung von uns verlangt!’ ²⁶ In his speech addressing the fall of the Berlin Wall in front of the Rathaus Schöneberg on 10 November 1989, Brandt declared: ‘What belongs together is growing together again.’ In German: ‘Jetzt sind wir in einer Situation, in der wieder zusammenwächst, was zusammengehört.’ The essence conveyed in this sentence was from then onwards frequently refenced as the spirit of German unification. Online source: Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt Stiftung: https://www.willy-brandt.de/diestiftung/ (accessed 14 October 2018). ²⁷ Joachim Gauk, Rede beim Festakt ‘25 Jahre Deutsche Einheit’, Frankfurt am Main, 3 October 2015. In German: ‘[es] soll zusammenwachsen was bisher nicht zusammengehörte . . . Es gilt wiederum und neu, die innere Einheit zu erringen.’ ²⁸ See also Angela Merkel, Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel zum Festakt ‘25 Jahre Deutsche Einheit–25 Jahre Sachsen-Anhalt’ in Halle (Saale), 1 October 2015. ²⁹ Joachim Gauk, Rede beim Festakt ‘25 Jahre Deutsche Einheit’, Frankfurt am Main, 3 October 2015.

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134      of integrating refugees. Collective narratives channel towards one possible option by circumventing the specific confines of their moral horizon.

The Immigration Memory While the invocation of the Nazi and Cold War legacies created a duty to act welcomingly towards the refugees, in their speeches politicians pointed to a third historical experience, i.e. that of Germany as a country of immigration (Einwanderungsland). This claim is supported by references to ethnic Germans from the East, so-called ‘homeland expellees’ (Heimatvertriebene) who came to Germany after 1945. Further immigration waves mentioned include those of Southern European and Turkish migrant workers, so-called guest workers (Gastarbeiter) coming to West Germany during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Unified Germany then saw increased immigration from former Soviet countries as well as the influx of refugees in the wake of the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. The lessons drawn from these waves of immigration all arrive at the same conclusion: by becoming fellow citizens (Mitbürger), immigrants enriched German society and increased the pie for all. In describing the essence of this new, pluralist society, politicians furthermore tried to emphasize that Islam, too, belongs to Germany.³⁰ Moreover, as with the unification analogy, the integration of immigrants was portrayed as an effort required from everyone. However, also this effort would ultimately pay off in terms of the benefits that living in a pluralistic society will bring to all. In such a community, everyone deserves a chance, and ‘we do well to live up to this claim. It shows who we are and whom we want to be.’³¹ President Gauk’s assertion highlights once more how identity forbids and commands, i.e. it obligates. That duty stems from a particularly narrated memory becoming once again clear in the strong reactions to transgressions.³² Racist attacks against refugees, for instance, were immediately sanctioned with the exclusion from the collective as a whole: ‘People who hate refugees actually hate our country as well’,

³⁰ See e.g. Angela Merkel, Sommerpressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, Mitschrift Pressekonferenz im Wortlaut, 31 August 2015. Michael Roth, ‘Common challenges need European answers: how to strengthen solidarity in the EU’, Stockholm, 22 October 2015. ³¹ Joachim Gauk, Rede beim Bildungs-Tag der ZEIT-Stiftung ‘chancengerecht.bilden: Herausforderung für Staat und Zivilgesellschaft’, Hamburg, 6 November 2015. In German: ‘Wir tun gut daran, uns diesem Anspruch zu stellen. In ihm zeigt sich, wer wir sind und wer wir sein wollen.’ ³² See e.g. Angela Merkel, Rede von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel im Deutschen Bundestag, 9 September 2015.

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declared Interior Minister de Maizière.³³ In a similar spirit, Chancellor Merkel warned: ‘There shall be no tolerance towards people who question the dignity of other people.’³⁴ On the other hand, the spontaneously emerging public ‘welcome culture’ (Willkommenskultur) towards refugees was lauded by German politicians precisely because it confirmed the self-narrated identity. In Merkel’s exact words, ‘it had once again confirmed that we are a truly humane country’.³⁵ In speaking to the country’s humane open and pluralistic self-image, the public’s welcoming reaction also rendered President Gauk proud of his nation: ‘this is what makes our country beautiful’.³⁶ Identity-confirming behaviour always and quasi ‘naturally’ generates pride about the self. However, more so, identity in the first place created the obligation towards this particular course of action. As such, President Gauk’s interpretation of Germany as liberal, pluralistic, and open—for him—undoubtedly obligated Germans towards welcoming refugees: If we give this country a human face, it is our answer to agitators, arsonists, and misanthropists. This civilized country, Germany, does not see freedom as an entitlement to hate and contempt. It understands and spells out the task of freedom as a mandate to take responsibility.³⁷

A ‘mandate’, however, can only be generated against the reference point of a specific interpretation of the German identity and this interpretation varied among different members of the German society.

Different Memories, Different Normative Horizons While the process surrounding memory forbids and commands, it does so only with the reference point of specifically interpreted memory. However, the ³³ Thomas de Maizière, Rede des Bundesinnenministers anlässlich der 2./3. Lesung des des Asylverfahrensbeschleunigungsgesetzes, 1 October 2015. In German: ‘Menschen die Flüchtlinge hassen, hassen in Warhheit auch unser Land.’ ³⁴ Angela Merkel, Sommerpressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, Mitschrift Pressekonferenz im Wortlaut, 31 August 2015. In German: ‘Es gibt keine Toleranz gegenüber denen, die die Würde anderer Menschen in Frage stellen.’ ³⁵ Angela Merkel, Sommerpressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, Mitschrift Pressekonferenz im Wortlaut, 31 August 2015. ³⁶ Joachim Gauk, Rede, Schloss Bellevue, 10 September 2015. In German: ‘Das macht unser Land schön.’ ³⁷ Joachim Gauk, Rede bei der Eröffnung des Bürgerfestes, Schloss Bellevue, 11 September 2015. In German: ‘Wenn wir diesem Land ein menschliches Gesicht geben, so ist es unsere Antwort an Hetzer, Brandstifter und Menschenfeinde. Dieses Bürgerland Deutschland versteht Freiheit nicht als Berechtigung zu Hass und Verachtung. Es versteht und buchstabiert die Aufgabe der Freiheit als Beauftragung zur Verantwortung.’

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136      national interpretation of such a memory is neither static nor unitary, but variable and multiple. Within any society as well as amongst politicians, there coexist different experiences and narratives about the past. These diverse stories must then also obligate actions towards diverse outcomes. A particularly illustrative example of this is provided via a brief look at apparent normative differences between former East and West German regions when it comes to the issue of asylum. It is essential to remind ourselves that the way in which the three mentioned memories about the Nazi past, partition–unification, and immigration were invoked reflected mainly the West German experience. The East German selfunderstanding was based on very different historical experiences and memories. The German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) post-war narrative was one of collective victimhood under Nazi Germany and per extension, Western imperialism. East Germans thus merged their national story with the Soviet historical experience of resistance to and liberation from external fascist aggression. Furthermore, the unification after 1989 was, of course, predominantly a West German effort to integrate the former East German parts into West Germany’s existing economic and political system. Besides, the GDR as a communist country was culturally homogenous, and hence East Germans had little to no experience with immigration before 1989 (Herf 1997). An identity based on the West German narratives of responsibility for Nazism, unification, and immigration thus did not carry the same obligatory weight for East Germans. Altogether, this weakened the obligation for East Germans to their country’s response to the refugee crisis. It is thus not surprising that there was a much stronger opposition and outright hostility to the government’s refugee policies in the former East German parts of the country. Following this logic, it is also no surprise that the right-wing AfD party (Alternative für Deutschland, or Alternative for Germany) received its most substantial support from former GDR citizens. The party’s view of the German identity is based on altogether different narratives than those narrated by ruling politicians. In fact, AfD’s idea about ‘German Leitkultur’ references the Nazi legacy, the partition–unification, and the experience with immigration in almost opposite ways. As a consequence, their narratives overlap more with those of East Germans. As per our theory, different memories then obligated AfD’s politicians and a majority of East Germans to different courses of action. Their interpretation of the German identity demanded that they define and defend rather than dilute and open national borders. In stark contrast, the interpretation of German memory put forward by ruling German politicians forbade this as absolutely wrong: ‘if it is true that

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inside and outside are blurring, that national borders are disappearing, then it is precisely the wrong moment to raise mental borders again. Then it is the wrong moment for a debate about “German Leitkultur”.’³⁸ It was ‘wrong’, however, only through the lens of Foreign Minister Steinmeier’s interpretation of the identity of his country. In the East German parts of the country and among rising political opponents such as the AfD, Germany’s identity was narrated in a very different way and thus began to circumvent a very different normative horizon with which to understand the issue of asylum. In all cases, however, the way the stories about the self were told within the public discourse came to constitute diverse right courses of action in response to the refugees.

The Austrian Response to the Refugee Crisis On 27 August 2015, the deadly fate that refugees suffered in the Mediterranean Sea arrived in the heart of Austria: on a motorway, a stranded lorry was discovered containing 71 dead bodies. The shock united the country and gave Austria’s initial response to the refugee crisis a strong humanitarian overtone. Refugees are ‘victims, not perpetrators’ highlighted the Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann while urging the country to show a human face: ‘Austria must not receive people who have risked everything to flee from war with barbed wire fences, but with decent shelters.’³⁹ He justified his view with his social-democratic understanding of Austria’s liberal values: We are a society that upholds the values of freedom and the right of asylum which is a human right. A society that never hesitates to tell others how to exercise their human rights cannot cause a humanitarian catastrophe.⁴⁰

³⁸ Frank-Walter Steinmeier, ‘Welt aus den Fugen—was hält uns zusammen? Die internationale Ordnung 70 Jahre nach Gründung der Vereinten Nationen,’ FU Berlin, 21 October 2015. In German: ‘wenn es stimmt, dass Innen und Außen verschwimmen, dass nationale Grenzen schwinden, dann ist es doch genau der falsche Moment, um mentale Grenzen wieder hochzuziehen. Dann ist es doch der falsche Moment für eine Debatte über “Deutsche Leitkultur”.’ ³⁹ Werner Faymann, speech in parliament, ‘Gemeinsame Erklärung des Bundeskanzlers und des Vizekanzlers zur Asylsituation’, 89. Sitzung, 1 September 2015. In German: ‘Österreich wird die Entscheidung zu treffen haben, ob wir Kriegsflüchtlinge, die um ihr Leben laufen, mit Stacheldraht empfangen oder mit menschlich ordentlichen Quartieren.’ ⁴⁰ Werner Faymann, ‘Ein stärkeres Europa’, Rede des Österreichischen Bundeskanzlers über die Flüchtlingskrise und Freiheit, in Süddeutsche.de, 19 November 2015. In German: ‘Eine Gesellschaft, die Werte der Freiheit, des Asylrechts, eines Menschenrechts, hochhält, die auch nie zurückschreckt, andere auf der Welt darauf hinzuweisen, wie sie ihre Menschenrechte wahrnehmen sollen, kann keine humanitäre Katastrophe anrichten.’

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138      Like his counterpart in Germany, the Austrian chancellor viewed his country under humanitarian prescriptions and this identity forbade using executive force against arriving refugees. However, while Austrian politicians equally regarded walls and borders as wrong, the obligation to this view was not quite as ‘unconditional’ as in the German case. In Austria, particularly the conservative coalition partner ÖVP and Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner sharply criticized Faymann’s humanitarian stance by pointing to the limits in the country’s capacities as well as the dangers for security arising from uncontrolled migration. In contrast to the Chancellor’s view, the interior minister saw national measures such as the introduction of temporary border controls as a practical necessity rather than an immoral act of ‘walling-off ’.⁴¹ Furthermore, there was broad agreement among the coalition partners that a common European solution would be the best solution for Austria. In substance, the Austrian vision of such a European solution looked a lot like the German suggestion. It should include the securitization of external borders, investment into reception centres along these borders, and an increase in humanitarian aid while simultaneously fighting human trafficking.⁴² However, and in stark contrast to Germany, underlying the Austrian vision of a good European response was a continued adherence to the EU’s Dublin regulation. This regulation, which was agreed upon in 1990 and came into force in 1997 with updates in 2003 and 2013, prescribed that the first EU country in which an asylum-seeker arrived should either provide permanent haven or send them back. This rule had put the burden predominantly on the frontline countries with an external EU border such as Italy and Greece. At a time when arrivals were relatively low, the regulation held and to some extent worked despite the occasional complaint. Once the numbers of refugees spiked in 2015, however, the unsustainability of this regulation became evident (Betts and Collier 2017, 63–5). German politicians’ response reflected this insight. For them, a reform of the EU’s Dublin regulation was essential. Austrian officials, on the other hand, clung onto the obsolete regulation even amid the 2015 crisis and still regarded non-compliance with Dublin as a breach of EU law.⁴³

⁴¹ Mikl-Leitner, speech in parliament, ‘Private Unterbringung von Asylwerbern im Zulassungsverfahren’, 100. Sitzung, 11 November 2015. Mikl-Leitner, speech in parliament, ‘BFRG und BFG 2016, UG 11 Inneres’, 104. Sitzung, 26 November 2015. ⁴² See e.g. Sebastian Kurz, Open Debate Security Council, Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Settlement of Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, 30 September 2015. ⁴³ See e.g. Mikl-Leitner, speech in parliament, ‘Private Unterbringung von Asylwerbern im Zulassungsverfahren’, 100. Sitzung, 11 November 2015.

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With this, Austrian politicians—whether deliberately or not—gave rise to the perception that refugees should not have come to Austria in the first place. Permanent references to upholding the Dublin regulation further created a shared sense of the country as a victim to the situation, particularly, to the mistakes of other EU members. These were Greece, which had neglected the refugees; Hungary, which had mistreated them; and Germany, which had invited them. The somewhat bizarre Austrian belief that Chancellor Merkel had ‘invited’ the refugees to Germany goes back to a tweet posted on 25 August 2015 by the German BAMF (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge): ‘Dublin proceedings are currently suspended for Syrian nationals.’⁴⁴ BAMF’s message was intended for internal purposes, but was accidentally leaked to the public. ‘A grave mistake’, as Interior Minister Mikl-Leitner pointed out frequently to her German counterpart Thomas de Maizière: ‘it opens the gates and raises false hopes’ (Mikl-Leitner (2015), quoted in Ultsch et al. 2017, 33).⁴⁵ While the tweet might have raised the refugees’ hopes, for Austrian politicians it provided suitable proof that German authorities had deliberately invited the refugees to their country (Ultsch et al. 2017, 111). From such an assessment of the situation does not flow the obligation to take on responsibility actively, but rather the entitlement to push responsibility off and onto others, mainly onto Germany. After all, if it were not for the actions of others, refugees would have never arrived in Austria, a country surrounded by EU member states. Against this backdrop, Austria’s initial humanitarian response was thus soon turned into a double-edged sword. While on the surface, a ‘welcome culture’ (Wilkommenskultur) was celebrated, Austrian humanitarianism was short-lived. Refugees were greeted kindly at train stations and then waved goodbye towards those who—in the view of Austrian politicians—seem to hold ‘actual’ responsibility to keep them: the Germans. In their book Flucht (Ultsch et al. 2017), Austrian journalists give a detailed account of this paradoxical situation. While Chancellor Faymann euphorically exclaimed at Vienna’s Westbahnhof to ‘open all barriers for the sake of humanity’, a shuttle service to the Upper Austrian green border with Germany was organized by his authorities (Ultsch et al. 2017, 63). In other words, Austria had become predominantly a country of transit rather than a country of destination for

⁴⁴ In German: ‘Dublin-Verfahren Syrischer Staatsangehöriger werden zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt von uns weitestgehend faktisch nicht verfolgt’ (Ultsch et al. 2017, 33). ⁴⁵ In German: ‘Ich halte das für einen schweren Fehler, damit werden die Schleusen geöffnet und falsche Hoffnungen geweckt.’

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140      refugees while paying lip service to a Dublin regulation that others were blamed for abandoning. Roughly speaking, the initial Austrian response to the refugee crisis was thus to facilitate transit for refugees to Germany. In numbers, the Austrian policy of ‘waving refugees through’ looked like this: between September 2015 and March 2016, around 800,000 migrants crossed Austria. More than 56,000 of these applied for asylum in Austria, while the rest was provided with transit to Germany. Exact numbers remain unknown due to the authorities’ keenness not to register refugees for pure fear of leaving Germany with the future option of sending them back to Austria (Ultsch et al. 2017, 107–8). It is interesting from the viewpoint of our framework that border fences were portrayed as immoral in the Austrian discourse, whereas escorting refugees to Germany was not. Much more, the policy of providing transit to refugees from Hungary to Germany appeared to have been identified as the only right thing to do. To explore why we turn to Austria’s specific identity that was constructed in the Second Republic based on different historical memories than Germany’s. This process thus must have tweaked the obligation that arose from Austria’s identity towards the refugees in the specifically ‘Austrian’ way of organizing a state-sponsored transit for refugees during the autumn of 2015.

The Memory of Europe’s Nationalisms ‘Excessive nationalisms have torn Europe apart in war’ was a frequent warning that appeared in Austria’s social-democratic rhetoric during the refugee crisis. Particularly, Chancellor Faymann repeatedly reminded Austrians of a ‘Europe of barbed wire’ that would soon develop ‘into the direction of violence, neighbourhood hostility, and ultimately hatred’.⁴⁶ At times, World War II was explicitly named as the culmination point of all nationalistic sentiments. Such a narrative, of course, forbids fences and walling-off in the name of nationalism, and commands defending an open Europe: We will one day be judged by whether this Europe of ours is strong enough or whether it is falling apart—as has often been the case in history—into ⁴⁶ Werner Faymann, speech in parliament, ‘Aktuelle Herausforderungen der Flüchtlingsfrage erfordern europäische Lösungen’, 100. Sitzung, 11 November 2015. In German: ‘Ich will nicht, dass dieses Europa sich zu einem Europa der Stacheldrähte entwickelt, in Richtung Gewaltbereitschaft, Nachbarschaftsfeindlichkeiten und letztendlich Hass.’

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selfishness, into individual interests, and, ultimately, into inevitable confrontations with one another. We, our generation, will have to prove whether we are capable of tackling and solving the question of the protection of people, of humanity.⁴⁷

Chancellor Faymann’s statement hints at the judgement of actions against the reference point of a specific memory. However, notably, the warning and call to action springing from it is directed at all Europeans, if not, at all peoples. But not at Austrians in particular. Invoking Europe’s war-torn, nationalistic past in this very general way must make—in Faymann’s words—‘anyone who looks back at history’ honour the right to asylum.⁴⁸ In this context, it is interesting that the Austrian chancellor talks about nationalisms in the plural, whereas the most excessive forms of nationalism, fascism, and Nazism are mentioned sparingly. Moreover, and in stark contrast to Germany, there was little to no direct reference to Austria’s own Nazi legacy. This omission is hardly surprising because, with regards to their single most relevant historical experience, National Socialism and World War II, Germany and Austria in the post-war decades had positioned themselves in very different ways. As Chapter 2 illustrated, (West) Germany took on moral responsibility for its Nazi legacy, aiming for absolution through Western integration as early as 1952. In contrast, Austria viewed itself as the first victim of Nazi Germany, confirming its innocence in its independence and neutrality since 1955. However, Austria’s official victim narrative was also revised entirely during the 1990s. In a historical step, Chancellor Franz Vranitzy admitted co-responsibility for World War II on behalf of his country in 1991.⁴⁹ This rewriting of national memory was triggered by generational ⁴⁷ Werner Faymann, speech in parliament, ‘Gemeinsame Erklärung des Bundeskanzlers und des Vizekanzlers zur Asylsituation’, 89. Sitzung, 1 September 2015. In German: ‘Wir werden eines Tages daran gemessen werden, ob dieses Europa stark genug ist oder ob es zerfällt—wie schon oft in der Geschichte—in Egoismen, in Einzelinteressen und letztendlich dann auch in unaufhaltsame Auseinandersetzungen gegeneinander. Wir, unsere Generation wird zu beweisen haben, ob wir in der Lage sind, diese Frage des Schutzes von Menschen, der Humanität anzupacken und zu lösen.’ ⁴⁸ Werner Faymann, Pressekonferenz von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, dem österreichischen Bundeskanzler Faymann, dem serbischen Ministerpräsidenten Vučić, und der Hohen Vertreterin der Union für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik und Vizepräsidentin der Europäischen Kommission Mogherini anl. der Konferenz zum westlichen Balkan, 27 August 2015. ⁴⁹ See Vranitzky’s speech before the Austrian parliament, 8 July 1991, in: Nationalrat, XXIV.GP, Stenographisches Protokoll, 40. Sitzung, p. 91. Available online at the website of the Austrian parliament: http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/NRSITZ/NRSITZ_00040/SEITE_0091.html (accessed 28 April 2020). His original words: ‘There exists a co-responsibility for the suffering that, even if not Austria as a state, its citizens have caused other peoples. We’d like to acknowledge all our past actions of all segments of our population, the good ones and the bad ones; as we claim the good ones in our benefit, we also have to apologize for the evil ones—to the survivors and the descendants of the dead.’

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142      change (Vranitzky was the first Chancellor born in the second generation), but also by an altered international and domestic memory context. Internationally, the Cold War had ended, and with it, the communist East had disappeared as the ‘evil other’ threatening ‘the West’. In its place had stepped ‘Auschwitz’ as the radical ‘other’ of Western civilization. The slogan of ‘Never again!’ at the time became—as Judt (2007, 803) put it—the entry ticket into Europe. The post-war myths of victimized ‘raped and occupied nations’ had become unacceptable in a Europe uniting in such a spirit (Judt 1992; Diner 2007, 12–20; Uhl 2016, 85–95). The revision of the victim myth in Austria thus not entirely accidentally coincided with the country’s application for EU membership and its accession to the EU in 1995. Chancellor Vranitzky confirmed this link between his personal motivations and the country’s prospects for EU accession in an interview with the author in 2017.⁵⁰ As Austria’s revision of its victim myth in the 1990s showed, this process involves international memory landscapes and incentive structures as well as the leadership of specific political actors. Furthermore, domestically, a crucial trigger for national memory review occurred due to a particular case in 1986: through what became called the Waldheim Affair, the mythical character of Austria’s victim status was exposed to a new generation. When running for the Austrian presidency, former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim was asked about his wartime role as a Wehrmacht soldier and declared that he had done nothing but his duty. With this statement, Waldheim came to represent a typical Austrian ‘follower biography’ (Uhl 1992, 86–7; Uhl 2011; Beker 2010, 102–8). However, in the altered environment of the late 1980s, the irreconcilability between being victimized and ‘faithfully performing one’s duty’ finally became plain to a more significant part of the Austrian public, thus dismantling the country’s victim myth altogether. Still, Austria came late to taking on responsibility for its Nazi legacy. It is thus no surprise that there are differences between Austria’s belated memory culture and Germany’s decades-long practice of responsibility. Memories— even if changing—have a long-term impact. Albeit subtle, this impact was still present in the refugee crisis of 2015. That Austria chose a very diverse postwar approach vis-à-vis its Nazi legacy was still visible in politicians’ general reminder of ‘Europe’s history’ that stood out in stark contrast to Germans’ explicit reminder of German history. While German politicians frequently warned their people of the horrors of their Nazi past, Austrian politicians

⁵⁰ Franz Vranitzky in an interview with the author, Vienna, 30 March 2017.

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hardly ever mentioned it at all,⁵¹ and if, then only to remind others: ‘Orbán acts irresponsibly [ . . . ] Putting refugees on trains and making them believe that they are going somewhere else, this brings back memories of the darkest time on our continent.’⁵² That Austrians themselves had significantly contributed to ‘the darkening of the continent’ remains unmentioned in the chancellor’s statement. This finding is quite astonishing against the historical reality of Austria as a Nazi perpetrator. To illustrate this point, it suffices to imagine such a statement coming from a German politician. In the German context, it would be nothing short of ‘unthinkable’ to make such a remark, let alone to hand it out in the form of criticism directed at the Hungarians. The Austrian framing of who they were during the Nazi period thus differed significantly from the German framing. As a consequence, German politicians steered a response that actively encouraged responsibility for the refugee crisis, whereas Austrians—even if not deliberately—promoted pushing responsibility onto others. It was precisely this Austrian mindset that rendered it morally acceptable that Austria facilitated the transit of refugees to Germany.

The Memory of Immigration ‘We are a country which has a lot of experience with immigration,’ pointed out Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, and coupled this with an encouragement similar to Merkel’s: ‘I am convinced that we in Austria can and will manage this!’⁵³ Along the same lines, Austria’s moral authority, President Heinz Fischer reminded his people of previous immigration waves that the Second Republic of Austria was able to successfully absorb over the decades. Refugees came first from communist Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the 1950s. Guest workers (Gastarbeiter) from Southern European countries and Turkey followed throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. After 1989, immigration from Eastern Europe to Austria peaked. Yet the most significant refugee wave arrived with the outbreak of war in neighbouring former Yugoslavia during ⁵¹ Compared to German speeches, references to World War II and National Socialism were rare in Austrian addresses. If so, then they only appeared in very general circumventions, mainly made by Chancellor Faymann. ⁵² Faymann in an interview in Der Spiegel, entitled: ‘Österreichs Kanzler vergleicht Orbáns Flüchtlingspolitik mit Holocaust’. In German: ‘Orbán handelt unverantwortlich [ . . . ] Flüchtlinge in Züge zu stecken in dem Glauben, sie würden ganz woanders hinfahren, weckt Erinnerung an die dunkelste Zeit unseres Kontinents.’ The citation is taken from Ultsch et al. (2017, 80). ⁵³ Sebastian Kurz, Rede anlässlich des öffentlichen Segments der Botschafterkonferenz, 3 September 2015. In German: ‘Wir sind ein Land das an viel Zuwanderung gewohnt ist. Ich bin aber fest davon überzeugt, dass wir das in Österreich schaffen können und werden!’

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144      the 1990s. Among the immigrants were many Muslims, reminded President Fischer, and added: Islam is part of Austria since its legal recognition as a religious community in 1912.⁵⁴ How Austrian politicians mentioned their country’s experience with immigration and integration, therefore, mirrored the German rhetoric. Nevertheless, with one caveat: in the Austrian discourse, the current refugee wave was portrayed as more significant than previous ones. As such, it formed a unique and unprecedented challenge for Austria. President Heinz Fischer went so far as to call it the second biggest challenge that the Second Republic of Austria had faced. The first was the country’s fight for independence from the occupying powers.⁵⁵ Undoubtedly, when the president compared the refugee crisis with the most critical event in the country’s history, he augmented the scale through which the challenge was perceived. Moreover, in portraying the current refugee crisis as ‘unique’, the situation soon became regarded as ‘overwhelming’, particularly for a small country like Austria.⁵⁶ In this context, ‘overwhelming’ and ‘crisis’ came to be viewed under exclusively negative connotations. German efforts to sell the crisis as a chance/opportunity rather than as a challenge were wholly absent in Austria.⁵⁷ In comparison with earlier immigration waves, the current refugee influx was thus placed on a different and unique scale. Furthermore, the memory of previous immigration waves and successful integration efforts in the Austrian case served to advance the image of the country as ‘having done a lot already’, instead of emphasizing the country’s ability to shoulder the crisis. Told in this way, the memory of immigration therefore created the impression that the current challenge was ‘exceptional’ and ‘too big’, hence, ‘unsuited’ for Austria. Narrated as such, the obligation which flows from the Austrian experience with immigration was for others, not for themselves to act in 2015.

⁵⁴ Heinz Fischer, KRONE-Interview zum Thema Flüchtlinge, 26 October 2015. ⁵⁵ Heinz Fischer, KRONE-Interview zum Thema Flüchtlinge, 26 October 2015. ⁵⁶ See e.g. Sebastian Kurz, Rede anlässlich des öffentlichen Segments der Botschafterkonferenz, 3 September 2015. Mikl-Leitner, speech in parliament, ‘Private Unterbringung von Asylwerbern im Zulassungsverfahren’, 100. Sitzung, 11 November 2015. ⁵⁷ In stark constrast to Austrian politicians, German politicians aimed at selling the refugee crisis as an opportunity. See e.g. the speeches of Thomas de Maizière and Angela Merkel: ‘Das Wort “Krise” kommt aus dem Griechischen und hat zwei Bedeutungen, Chance und Risiko [ . . . ] dann läge in dem, was vor uns steht, eine verdammt große Chance. Wir sollten sie nutzen.’ Source: Thomas de Maizière, Rede des Bundesinnenministers anlässlich der 1. Lesung des Bundeshaushalts 2016 (Innen, EP 06), 8 September 2015. ‘Ich bin fest überzeugt: die Chancen sind so viel größer als die Risiken.’ Source: Angela Merkel, Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzlerin Merkel, 24 September 2015.

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The Narrative of Austria’s Neutrality Apart from the memory of Europe’s nationalistic past and Austria’s experience with immigration, the narrative of neutrality showed up frequently in politicians’ rhetoric. When Austria was portrayed as small and powerless in the face of this large-scale crisis, a hint about the country’s neutrality went hand in hand with these attributes.⁵⁸ As mentioned in Chapter 2, Austria’s neutral status was negotiated and achieved with independence from the occupying powers in 1955. Since then, it has formed the backbone of a post-war Austrian identity as explicitly different from Germany (Pick 2000; Rathkolb 2010). As illustrated in detail in Chapter 2, neutrality reflected Austria’s relative unimportance, smallness, and powerlessness compared to Germany and thus confirmed its ‘historical innocence’ vis-à-vis Nazi Germany. Put simply, the national tenor from then onwards was that small and innocent Austria belonged to nothing, and as such, nothing was precisely its responsibility. Despite the official revision of the country’s innocence in the course of the Waldheim affair and under Franz Vranitzky’s chancellorship in the 1990s, neutrality remains at the core of a distinctive Austrian identity today. How closely neutrality is connected with Austria has become apparent in politicians’ frequent recourse to it. Since 1955, neutrality has been referenced in all foreign policy decisions and during any crisis the country had faced. As such, it is no surprise that Austrian politicians also mentioned neutrality during the 2015 refugee crisis. The self-identification with neutrality, however, implies the country’s small size and passiveness and thus obligates it to cooperate with others. At the same time, it forbids independent action or intervention. It follows that the refugees of 2015 are not Austria’s, but others’, i.e. the Germans’, business. In approaching the refugee crisis through the particular Austrian understanding of neutrality, Austrian decision-makers therefore resorted to passively alleviating the pain caused by the inflow of refugees and especially by the ‘mistakes’ of its European neighbours. The Austrian response was sheer ‘selfdefence’ (Notwehr). Self-defence is the opposite reaction to what it means to take responsibility for and control of a situation. The Austrian neutrality narrative thus forbade once more taking action, and instead demanded the

⁵⁸ For Austrian speeches invoking neutrality during the refugee crisis, see, for instance: Sebastian Kurz, Statement at the 70th General Assembly of the United Nations, 1 October 2015. Rede von Heinz Fischer zum Nationalfeiertag, 26 October 2015. As well as an interview with the president: Heinz Fischer, KRONE-Interview zum Thema Flüchtlinge, 26 October 2015.

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146      duty to act from others, not from Austria itself. In either case, however, the memories which politicians invoked in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis confined the national, moral horizon.

Conclusion: Memory over Time Forms National Values This chapter has illustrated that collective memory over the long run underwrites a country’s value system. In unexamined subtle ways, the narration of certain memories was hypothesized to produce normativity itself, thus determining what—for policymakers—is good about a course of action. To demonstrate the link between collective memory and values, the responses of German and Austrian politicians to the refugee crisis in 2015 served as the case study. In the German case, a specifically narrated Nazi legacy, the partition–unification narrative, and the experience with previous immigration waves generated a duty to act and help refugees. On the other hand, in the East German parts of the country where diverse interpretations of these historical memories dominated, this particular West German memory carried little obligatory weight, thus leading to different opinions on what a right response to the refugee crisis ought to be. In the Austrian case too, another course of action was identified as good against the reference point of a specific Austrian identity: the country’s policymakers organized a state-sponsored transit of refugees to Germany. That this was the right response for Austria became clear through its self-identifications as a neutral and small European country with little responsibility of its own. In all cases, however, the normative horizons which circumvented decision-making in 2015 had been cemented by a specifically interpreted collective memory. How a country remembers its historical experience thus has lasting consequences on its normative horizons. In the self-reflexive struggle over being-intime, policymakers choose and redefine their interpretations of collective memory, and as such also their moral purpose. Emphasizing temporal security within the ontological security concept hence adds that countries through the processes surrounding memory not only become purposive actors but importantly, they become morally purposive actors. Underlying memories do not only define a collective’s identity and subsequently its behaviour, but also form for the long term what policymakers come to understand as ‘good’ about a selected course of action. With this, we place collective memory at the root of normativity itself. Neither the content nor the properties of memory now circumvent a country’s

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value system. Instead, the practices surrounding memory, that is, the narrated interpretation of collective memory through time lay the grounds for its national values. The duty to act in the sense of ought is generated in an unexamined self-reflective internal struggle. Returning to Meyer H. Abrams’ analogy, collective memory indeed leads through time as a mirror and a lamp. It is a model of and a model for a country’s value system. In the long term, what is right is perceived only where memory’s lamp illuminates, and good is the course of action in which the country is reflected through memory. The virtuous state only exists in the confines of its collective memory.

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Index Note: Tables and figures are indicated by an italic ‘t’ and ‘f ’ following the page number. For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Abrams, Meyer H. 24, 119, 146–7 Adenauer, Konrad moral responsibility for Nazism and support for Israel 47–54 trial of Adolf Eichmann 68, 70–1, 76, 83–4 Afritsch, Josef 77–8 Allies 43–4, 47, 54–5, 62–3 Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party 136 America see United States American Civil War 16 Anderson, Benedict 25–6 Anschluss 6–7, 55–6, 114 anti-Semitism 82–3 anxiety 17–21, 27, 29, 88 Arab–Israeli conflict see Six Day War; Yom Kippur War Arafat, Yasser 117 Assmann, Aleida and Jan 38 Austria Anschluss 6–7, 55–6, 114 international relations in the post-WWII decade 5–8, 42–7, 57, 62–4 trial of Adolf Eichmann, response to official 68–9, 77–85 public and media 68, 72–5 Middle East conflict, response to 91–4, 104–8 Six Day War, response to official 92, 107t, 114–16 public and media 92, 94–103, 99f Yom Kippur War, response to 92, 107t, 108, 116–18 European refugee crisis, response to 125–7, 137–46 victim narrative 55–63, 67–8, 73–5, 79, 82–6, 92–3

co-responsibility for the Nazi past 125–6, 141–3 Israel, relationship with 57–63, 81–3, 101–3, 106–7, 114–16, 118 Palestine, relationship with 116–18 West Germany, relationship with 83–4 Austrian State Treaty 6, 62–3 Bachelard, Gaston 1 ‘being-in-time’ 21–2, 25–6, 29–31 Ben-Gurion, David 69 Berenskoetter, Felix 27, 124 Blanchot, Maurice 40 Bodnar, John 38 Böhm, Franz 51 Bonn–Paris agreement 54 Brandt, Willy 6, 108–9, 111–13, 131, 133 Brexit 14–15 British identity and values 14–16 Broda, Christian 77 Caruth, Cathy 40 case study selection 5–8 Churchill, Winston 43–4 Cicero 123n.1 classical realism see international relations theory, classical Cold War 43–4, 62, 94, 104 collective consciousness 24, 67 collective identity see public identity; state identity collective memory as ‘being-in-time,’ 21–2, 25–6, 29–31 as collective consciousness 24, 67 concept of 1–3, 22, 26

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160  collective memory (cont.) content and degree 2, 31–2, 42, 63–4 ethics of 122–3 manifestation of 33–5, 34f memory–behaviour nexus 4–5, 9–10, 87–90, 90t, 103–4, 118–19 and narratives 26–8 and national values 120–5, 146–7 nature of 1, 22–5 origins of 31, 37–41 international dimension 41–7, 55, 63–4 as a social process 23–5 as state identity 25–6, 65–8, 75–6, 85–6 study of 3–4, 7–10 temporal dimension of 4–5, 25–6, 31–3 concentration camps 82 constructivism 3–4, 66, 87–8, 121–2, 124 see also ontological security Cruz, Consuelo 124 Der Herr Karl 74–5 diffidence 18–19 Dublin regulation, European Union 138–40 Durkheim, Emile 23n.14, 23n.15, 29–30 duty to act 121–6 see also national values East Germany 43–4, 110–11, 135–7 Egypt 93–4 see also United Arab Republic Eichmann, Adolf, trial for war crimes 69–70 Austria’s response official 68–9, 77–85 public and media 68, 72–5 West Germany’s response official 68–9, 75–7, 80–1 public and media 68, 70–2, 75 citizenship, question of 77–9, 83–4 Ejdus, Filip 27 emotions see anxiety; fear; shame ethics of memory 122–3 European Community (EC) 44, 54, 112–13 European identity and values 14–15, 128–9 European refugee crisis Austria’s response 125–7, 137–46 Germany’s response 125–37, 139, 142–3 difference between former East and West German regions 135–7 speeches 126–7 European Union 125–6, 128, 141–2 Dublin regulation 138–40

Faymann, Werner 137–43 fear 12–13, 17–21 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) see West Germany Feldberg, Ernst 98, 99f Figl, Leopold 6, 62–3 Fischer, Heinz 143–4 Foucault, Michel 38 France 112, 126–7 Frank, Leo see Meier, Leo Garscha, Winfried 75 Gauk, Joachim 133–5 German Democratic Republic (GDR) see East Germany Germany (see also West Germany) European refugee crisis, response to 125–37, 139, 142–3 difference between former East and West German regions 135–7 national values 14–15, 131–5 Giddens, Anthony 13–14, 27 Greece 126 Gruber, Karl 57–8 guilt 45–6 narrative of in West Germany 45, 50–5, 67–8, 71–2, 85–6, 92–3 See also ‘perpetrators and victims’ of war; shame Halbwachs, Maurice 2, 4, 23, 25–6, 28, 29, 63–4, 85, 118 Hartl, Karl 59, 61–2 Heidegger, Martin 17–18, 21–2 Herf, Jeffrey 40 Herr Karl, Der 74–5 Hilberg, Raul 7n.7 Hitler, Adolf 94–5, 96f Hobbes, Thomas 12–13, 18–19 Hobsbawm, Eric 25–6 Holocaust 6–7, 42–3, 45–7 Hopf, Ted 75–6, 124 identity see public identity; state identity identity–behaviour nexus 3–4, 14–17, 89, 90t, 106–8, 124 immigration 134–5, 143–5 see also European refugee crisis Innes, Alexandria 27

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 international relations, ethics and morality 122–3 international relations theory, classical 89, 90t, 104–6 see also constructivism; ontological security international strategy and the origins of collective memory 41–7, 55, 63–4 Iron Curtain 43–4 Israel (see also Eichmann, Adolf, trial for war crimes; Six Day War) Austria, relationship with 57–9, 81–3, 101–3, 106–7, 114–16, 118 credit agreement 60–3 West Germany, relationship with and reparations 47–55, 80–1, 106, 111–13, 118 Jewish Claims Committee 62–3 Judt, Tony 45, 141–2 Kierkegaard, Søren 17, 21 Kiesinger, Kurt Georg 108–9, 111 Korsgaard, Christine 121–3 Kosovo 16 Kreisky, Bruno 116–17 Kurz, Sebastian 143–4 Locke, John 22–3 Luxembourg Treaty 53–5 Maizière, Thomas de 134–5 Mälksoo, Maria 27, 29n.20 Marshall Plan 44, 60 McCloy, John 47 media coverage of Adolf Eichmann’s trial 68–75, 82 coverage of Six Day War 94–6, 96f, 99f, 103 Meier, Leo 77–8, 81 memory see collective memory Merkel, Angela 127–30, 132–5 Merz, Carl 74 Middle East conflict 91–4 see also Six Day War; Yom Kippur War Mikl-Leitner, Johanna 138–9 Mitzen, Jennifer 13–16, 19–20 Molotov, Vyacheslav 6

161

Moscow Declaration 55, 57, 59, 62–3 Müller, Jan-Werner 124 narratives as carriers of collective memory 26–8 guilt narrative in West Germany 45, 50–5, 67–8, 71–2, 85–6, 92–3 victim narrative in Austria 55–63, 67–8, 73–5, 79, 82–6, 92–3 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 93–5, 96f, 108–9 National Socialism see Nazi legacy national values 3, 34–5, 34f, 36 duty to act 121–6 formed by collective memory 120–5, 146–7 nations and nationalism 25–6, 45, 140–3 NATO 16, 54 Nazi legacy 45 in Austria 5–8, 42–7, 63–4, 82–3, 91, 125, 142–3 in Germany 130–2, 142–3 in West Germany 5–8, 42–55, 63–4, 91, 125 oil crisis 91, 104–5, 111–12, 116 Olick, Jeffrey K. 4, 24n.17, 26, 31–2 ontological continuity 17–21 ontological security (see also temporal security) compared to temporal security 30–1, 30t, 90t and emotions, fear, anxiety and shame 17–19 identity–behaviour nexus 3–4, 14–17, 89, 90t, 106–8, 124 and narrative identity 27–8 principles of 3–5, 8n.9, 9–10, 13–14, 24 security-as-being 12–29, 20t temporal dimension of 21–2, 28–9 Ostpolitik 111–12 Palestine and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 16, 91, 93, 116–18 ‘perpetrators and victims’ of war 45–7, 55, 68, 141–2 physical security 19–21, 20t, 89, 104–6 Pittermann, Bruno 114 Poland 6

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162  political strategy 3, 5, 32–5, 34f domestic 38–41 international 41–2 and the origins of collective memory 63–4 ‘politics of memory,’ 38–9, 41–2, 122–3 press see media Preuschen, Gerhard von 80–1 process-tracing 8 public identity 3, 33–5, 34f, 36 see also state identity Qualtinger, Helmut 74 Ranger, Terence 25–6 refugees see European refugee crisis Renan, Ernest 25–6, 45 reparations for Israel 42–3 credit agreement with Austria 60–3 from West Germany 48–55 research design 3–11 research methods 8–9 Ringmar, Erik 27–8 Roth, Michael 130–2 Rumelili, Bahar 19n.10 Russia see Soviet Union Santayana, George 122–3 Schäffer, Fritz 52 Schmidt, Helmut 109–11 Schröder, Gerhard 109–10 Schudson, Michael 39, 42 Schwartz, Barry 24 self, temporal dimension of 21–2 shame 18–19, 45–6, 71–3, 88 as the corrective for state behaviour 90–1, 93 felt by West Germany 76, 110–12 Sharett, Moshe 54–5, 57–8, 61–2 Six Day War 93–4 Austria’s response to official 92, 104–8, 107t, 114–16 public and media 92, 94–103, 99f West Germany’s response to official 92, 104–11, 107t public and media 92, 94–103 slavery 16 social trauma 39–40 socialism 44

Soviet Union 43–4, 62, 94 state behaviour 3 identity-abiding 13–15, 19, 88 influenced by collective memory 33–5, 34f, 36 nexus with memory 4–5, 9–10, 87–90, 90t, 103–4, 118–19 nexus with state identity 3–4, 14–17, 89, 90t, 106–8, 124 and shame as the corrective for 90–1, 93 state identity collective memory becomes 65–8, 75–6, 85–6 and the formation of national values 121–2, 124–5 and narratives 26–8 nexus with state behaviour 3–4, 14–17, 89, 90t, 106–8, 124 temporal dimension of 28–9 ‘states as persons,’ 13, 24 Steele, Brent 13–16, 19–20, 27, 91, 112–13 Steinmeier, Frank-Walter 128–31, 136–7 Subotic, Jelena 27 Syrian war 126, 131 see also European refugee crisis temporal conceptualization of state identity 28–9 temporal dimension of the self 21–2 temporal security ‘being-in-time’ 21–3, 25–6, 29–31 compared to ontological security 30–1, 30t, 90t memory–behaviour nexus 4–5, 9–10, 87–90, 90t, 103–4, 118–19 memory’s content and degree 31–2 and national values 123, 146 West Germany and Austria during the Middle East conflict 108, 118 terrorism 126–7 trauma, social 39–40 Treaty of Warsaw 6 Trump, Donald 14–15 Unger, Immanuel 58–9 United Arab Republic (UAR) 91, 94, 108–9 United Nations 114–15 United States 14–15, 43–4, 62, 94, 112

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 values see national values victim narrative in Austria 55–63, 67–8, 73–5, 79, 82–6, 92–3 ‘victims and perpetrators’ of war 45–7, 55, 68, 141–2 Vranitzky, Franz 125–6, 141–2 Waldheim, Kurt 142 war, immediate aftermath 39–41 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 6 Warsaw, Treaty of 6 Wehrmacht 6–7 Weigel, Hans 74–5 Wendt, Alexander 66 Wertsch, James V. 26–7 West Germany (see also Germany) international relations in the post-WWII decade 5–8, 42–8, 54, 63–4 trial of Adolf Eichmann, response to official 68–9, 75–7, 80–1 public and media 68, 70–2, 75 Middle East conflict, response to 91–4, 104–8 Six Day War, response to

163

official 92, 107t, 108–11 public and media 92, 94–103 Yom Kippur War, response to 92, 107t, 108, 111–14 guilt narrative 45, 50–5, 67–8, 71–2, 85–6, 92–3 Austria, relationship with 83–4 Israel, relationship with and reparations 47–55, 80–1, 106, 111–13, 118 Western European Union (WEU) 54 Wiedergutmachung 48, 50–1, 53–4, 76–7, 100–1, 131 Wiesinger, Joseph 81–3 World War II, post-war decade 42–7 Wucher, Albert 80–1 Yom Kippur War 91, 105 Austria’s response to 92, 104–8, 107t, 108, 116–18 West Germany’s response to 92, 104–8, 107t, 108, 111–14 Zarakol, Ayse 27