Introduction

That Austria, despite its being a perpetrator nation, still lacks a museum not only in Vienna but throughout the nation, to display, commemorate and debate its Nazi crimes, indeed needs discussion. However, one encounters in Austria, since the end of the Nazi regime, a series of attempts to establish a so-called “Haus der Geschichte (house of history)” that also engages with Austria's Nazi past. In 1964 the Staatskanzler Karl Renner attempted to open a house of history, which was never realized. Attempts to open a house of history re-emerged in the 1990s when the topic of Austrians as Nazi perpetrators emerged with the heated discussions around Kurt Waldheim's candidacy for president. However, Austrians managed to successfully derail such a project. Since then, more than five governments promised a house of history in their program; however, these promises were quickly forgotten (DÖW Schnittarchiv).

While one encounters in present-day Austria heated debates about whether such a museum is even needed, Germany established such museums thirty years ago and other nations followed suit. Such a state of affairs in Austria, together with the fact that various attempts to establish a house of history have all failed, underlines the continuing attempts of Austrians to fend off repressed feelings of guilt. However, there is also a return of the repressed—renewed plans for a house of history re-emerged in January 2015 when the minister of culture, Josef Ostermayer (SPÖ), commissioned Oliver Rathkolb, a professor at the Institute for Recent History at the University of Vienna, together with an international team of thirty-one experts, to develop a new concept for a “Haus der Geschichte Österreichs (HGÖ) (house of history of Austria)” that would focus on recent Austrian history since 1918 (DÖW Schnittarchiv).

However, as in the past, such an undertaking proved to be an explosive minefield in Austria, with aggressive attempts from politicians, scientists and media across the political spectrum to hinder its establishment, and up until September 2016 it was not clear if it would be opened at all.