Austria, West Germany, and the Limits of Reparations for Austrian Nazi Victims: Shared Guilt, Divided Burden

Austrians played the same role as Germans in the robbery and murder of Jews in the years 1938 to 1945. After defeat, neither country accepted responsibility for compensating Austrian victims. Under the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement, West Germany paid compensation to any individual who belonged to the sphere of German language and culture. It expressly excluded Austrian Jews. This article traces the complex and protracted negotiations on compensation for former Austrians in the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on previously unexplored archives, it argues that the limited success of compensation efforts stemmed less from economic incapacity than from competing memories of the years 1938 to 1945 and a contested allocation of responsibility between Austrians and Germans. Moreover, compensation for Austrian Jews was secured only when Jewish demands were reinforced by sustained pressure from foreign states and after West German intervention. The result was the allocation of modest, one-time payments to former Austrians. An examination of the political forces behind the stark disparity in reparations offered by the two countries for similar crimes contributes to a deeper understanding of the instrumentalization of historical memory and the limitations of postwar justice.