This book analyzes the influence of the Nazi past on postwar German and Austrian politics. Given the omnipresence of that past in both societies, and given the tomes that have already been written on the subject of historical memory in Germany in particular, this was from the start an audacious enterprise. My interviewees often told me as much, and many friends feared that nothing really new could be written about the subject. Yet from the early stages of my research, I became convinced that the connections between ideas about the Nazi past, political culture, and partisan competition in the two societies had barely been uncovered. Sometimes it is the influence of the 800-pound gorilla in the room that is most difficult to measure. When the gorilla takes the form of an idea, rather than a structural or institutional force, elucidating and measuring its effects become even more difficult. Yet, ideas clearly matter in politics. Shying away from phenomena as significant as interpretations of the rise of Nazism and the Final Solution in the successor societies of the Third Reich was no longer an option once my inquiry began, attractive as it seemed at times.

I never intended to write about public deliberation and debates, much less offer a framework for analyzing the ways in which they can transform politics. Yet, the deeper I delved into ideas about the Nazi past, the clearer it became that the engine of ideational change was elite-led public debates.