David Art. The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xii + 231 pp. $23.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-67324-2.

Reviewed by Michael Meng (Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Published on H-German (October, 2006)

Public Debate and Ideational Change in Contemporary Germany and Austria

The Christian Socialist Union party leader, Edmund Stoiber, once noted that any German politician who made an apologetic statement about the Nazi past would have to resign within fifteen minutes. That certainly would not be the case in Austria. As one German Green party official observed, "nearly everything goes" in Austria and the strong sensitivity to the Nazi past that shapes Germany's politicians simply does not exist there (p. 141). Indeed, anyone following the rise of Jörg Haider's Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), with its apologetic stance toward the Nazi past, knows well the fundamental difference between German and Austrian Vergangenheitsbewältigung. While the far Right in Austria is strong and integrated into the political establishment, it remains weak and marginalized in Germany, reflected in the poor showing of right-wing parties in national elections over the past twenty years. The average far Right vote for Germany from 1986 to 2002 was 1.4 percent, whereas for Austria it was 18.0 percent, which was the highest in Western Europe (p. 6).

How does one explain this stark difference between Austria and Germany? Why has the far Right proven so strong in Austria, while so weak in Germany? Why do nearly all German politicians recognize the importance of remembering the Holocaust, whereas many of their Austrian counterparts do not? David Art, a political scientist at the College of the Holy Cross, seeks to answer these questions in his book on the politics of the Nazi past in Germany and Austria during the 1980s and 1990s. He examines the dynamics between public debate and ideational change, arguing that intense public discussions have the power to shift elite opinion, often dramatically and rapidly. Played out in the mass media, this elite-driven debate often shapes, in turn, the broader attitudes, opinions, and ideas of the general population. Art suggests, therefore, that ideational change in democratic societies occurs largely from the top down: those who hold political power, whether politicians, intellectuals, or journalists, have the position, for better or for worse, to transform both elite and public opinion.[1]

Art's four empirical chapters concerning public debates about the Nazi past and the position of right-wing movements in Germany and Austria generally support this claim. Since public opinion is difficult for any scholar to analyze precisely, the notion that "elite debate profoundly influences mass attitudes" is probably accurate but nearly impossible to prove, even with the surfeit of polling data in mass media markets like Austria and Germany (p. 26). Art, however, is able to show how public discussions create "frames" that shape elite opinion and form new ways of discussing particular issues. He begins with the German case and with the rise of what he repeatedly terms "political correctness, German style." After briefly analyzing the central debates that took place in the 1980s about the Nazi past, including the controversy over Bitburg and the Historikerstreit, Art claims that a consensus of "contrition" emerged among Germany's political elites. German politicians, intellectuals, and journalists converged in their shared conviction that the Holocaust was a unique event that must be remembered. Any apologetic claims or any attempts to draw a line under the Nazi past (Schlußtrich) became almost universally marginalized. A kind of "political correctness" about the Nazi past that stressed remembrance and contrition took hold by the late 1980s and only grew stronger after German unification. In analyzing this development, Art makes a particularly important point about the role mass media played in this process, especially the tabloid newspaper Bild and the rest of Axel Springer's empire. Although Bild tends to be conservative, one of its main goals has been the achievement of reconciliation between Jews and Germans. In its terse, blunt, and short editorials, the tabloid has insisted upon a thorough confrontation with the Nazi past. And with a readership ten times that of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung or Die Zeit, its viewpoint carries significant weight and has the power to shape public opinion.

One of the most important results of Germany's "culture of contrition" has been a consistent marginalization of right-wing political movements by mainstream politicians, intellectuals and journalists, not least of all by the staff of Bild. Germany has one of the least successful right-wing movements in Europe, despite the presence of the underlying conditions that commentators usually claim stimulate the growth of rightist-nationalist movements: high unemployment and a fairly sizeable immigrant population. Art argues that Germany's elites, sensitive to the Nazi past, play a crucial role in opposing and marginalizing right-wing parties. As soon as they appear, politicians, journalists, and civic activists immediately react by combating them. Their strong awareness of the Nazi past means that they remain very cautious and overly concerned about even the slightest hint that right-wing parties might be gaining political strength.

In Austria, the situation could not be more different. Despite low unemployment and lower immigration numbers than in Germany, Austria has become home to one of the most successful right-wing movements in contemporary European history. In a chapter on Austrian Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Art claims that the success of Haider's party largely stems from the absence in Austria of the type of elite consensus about the Nazi past that developed in Germany. Although some civic leaders, intellectuals, and politicians have pleaded for a more thorough dealing with Austria's complicity during World War II, most cling to the narrative of victimization that has long shaped postwar Austrian politics and culture. The highly influential tabloid Kronen Zeitung (known as Krone ) has often played a critical role in reinforcing this traditional understanding of Austria's past. With more than 40 percent of Austrians reading Krone, it is the most widely read paper in the industrialized world in terms of readership per capita (p. 119). In important public debates about the Third Reich, Krone has adopted an apologetic stance toward the Nazi past and emphasized Austria's "victimization."

Art claims that the absence of a critical discussion about the Nazi past makes Austrian political elites much less likely to combat the rise of right-wing political movements. Rather than opposing and marginalizing them as their German counterparts did, they accommodated the right wing and made way for the FPÖ to enter a coalition government with the Austrian People's Party in early 2000. As Art concisely puts it, "whereas Germany's confrontation with the Nazi past rendered politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens enormously sensitive to right-wing political movements and historical revisionism, public debates over that past in Austria not only failed to discredit movements like Haider's but legitimated them" (p. 178).

Art has produced a useful study that explains the stark variation of right-wing support in Germany and Austria. His book will be most valuable to social scientists interested in the impact that public debates have on elite opinion. More broadly, the study provides important insights into the influence of mass media on ideational change. In this sense, the book opens up, though does not discuss, an intriguing question: Is the power political elites have to shape public opinion through mass media an inherent part of advanced, industrialized democracies? If one looks for a very brief moment east of the Federal Republic to the German Democratic Republic and the Polish People's Republic during the 1970s and 1980s, it is interesting to note that it was largely civic and religious groups and ordinary citizens who were pushing the political elites to confront the "dark pasts" of their respective societies more thoroughly. Their efforts were inspired in part by a desire to oppose the elite discourse about World War II and the Holocaust.

Does the idea of a free, democratic press inherently give legitimacy to tabloid papers such as Bild and Krone so that they have the influence to shape public opinion? Do elite debates that unfold in the mass media have an impact because they are believed to be free and representative expressions of a democratic society? If "elite debate profoundly influences mass attitudes" (p. 26), what is the consequence of this dynamic of power? Does such an imbalance of power actually exist between political elites and ordinary citizens? In the specific cases that Art discusses, my initial and tentative hunch is that the answer is both "yes" and "no." No, because in the Federal Republic civic and religious groups also emerged, even as early as the 1950s, that made efforts to rethink and critically examine Germany's past. But also yes, because, as Art shows convincingly in the Austrian case, the impact of such civic groups is marginal when put up against powerful media outlets such as Krone. Art only deals with Germany and Austria, but his stimulating book has wider implications for thinking about the benefits and dangers of the development and shaping of elite and public opinion in industrialized democracies.

Note

[1]. Here Art's definition of political elites, borrowing from Robert Putnam, is important to note: "those who in any society rank toward the top of the (presumably closely intercorrelated) dimensions of interest, involvement, and influence in politics" (p. 25; cited from Putnam, "Studying Elite Political Culture: The Case of 'Ideology'," American Political Science Review 65 [1971], p. 651).

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Citation: Michael Meng. Review of Art, David, The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12385

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