1 00:00:01,640 --> 00:00:07,100 Yes, good afternoon, welcome, everybody. I often say, 2 00:00:07,100 --> 00:00:15,830 and it's a it's a genuine sense that it's always a delight to have someone from within Oxford come and share their work related to Israel with us. 3 00:00:15,830 --> 00:00:27,470 And today, we're lucky to have Dr. Catherine Lightener, who is the IKEA Foundation research fellow in international relations at Lady Margaret Hall. 4 00:00:27,470 --> 00:00:35,330 Catherine wrote her Deverill here at the University of Oxford dealing with the diplomatic relations between Israel, Germany and Austria. 5 00:00:35,330 --> 00:00:42,860 Her research focuses on collective memory and values within international relations, mainly how Woodwell I'm sorry, 6 00:00:42,860 --> 00:00:49,070 mainly how the Second World War and the memory of the Holocaust affected interstate relations. 7 00:00:49,070 --> 00:00:53,910 And she is the author of the book recently published by Oxford University Press. 8 00:00:53,910 --> 00:00:59,510 So congratulations, Catherine, for this titled Collective Memory in International Relations. 9 00:00:59,510 --> 00:01:05,420 And the title of her talk today is A Road towards Atonement. 10 00:01:05,420 --> 00:01:12,320 Questionmark, Why Only West Germany came to atone for the Nazi Crimes. 11 00:01:12,320 --> 00:01:19,340 The recording doesn't see my fingers doing the quotes. Thank you for coming and thank you for that lecture. 12 00:01:19,340 --> 00:01:21,110 Thanks very much. I hope. 13 00:01:21,110 --> 00:01:31,460 So perhaps I can start by, you know, placing the question that I'm dealing today with in the broader kind of subject that I work in. 14 00:01:31,460 --> 00:01:39,650 So as Ya'akov already said, I work on memory within the discipline of international relations and political science. 15 00:01:39,650 --> 00:01:47,000 That means I mainly focus on how countries remember a tragic and often shameful past. 16 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:58,640 So I'm interested in who the memory actors are, which version of the past becomes dominant and why its specific points in time, 17 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:06,530 and what consequences this all has for societies and our national identities and their values. 18 00:02:06,530 --> 00:02:16,910 So I got interested in this topic because I was raised in Austria, a country that voluntarily became part of the German age in 1938. 19 00:02:16,910 --> 00:02:23,330 Yet it has for a long time told a very different story about its Nazi past. 20 00:02:23,330 --> 00:02:31,880 And particularly the stark contrast to West Germany's approach towards that same past has always puzzled me. 21 00:02:31,880 --> 00:02:38,900 So take, for instance, these two pictures from the post-war period. 22 00:02:38,900 --> 00:02:44,480 So the first picture on the left was taken in Vienna in 1955. 23 00:02:44,480 --> 00:02:50,930 It shows the Austrian foreign minister, together with his colleagues from the four allied powers, 24 00:02:50,930 --> 00:02:57,860 they are waving to the cheering crowds because they are celebrating the Austrian state treaty, which they had just signed. 25 00:02:57,860 --> 00:03:07,100 So this is a happy scene where people are celebrating. On the right hand side, you see a very different picture that made diplomatic history. 26 00:03:07,100 --> 00:03:14,150 It was taken in December of 1970 at the monument dedicated to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 27 00:03:14,150 --> 00:03:21,890 You can see Willy Brandt kneeling in silence while lost in the sort of millions of murder people. 28 00:03:21,890 --> 00:03:24,890 So two very different pictures. 29 00:03:24,890 --> 00:03:36,590 Yet these two acts have in common that they were both performed by politicians leading to former Nazi perpetrators states, Austria and West Germany. 30 00:03:36,590 --> 00:03:41,060 But apart from that, these scenes could not have been more different. 31 00:03:41,060 --> 00:03:48,110 So one statesman gives a picture of his country's innocence and liberation from undeserved victimhood, 32 00:03:48,110 --> 00:03:58,020 whereas the other statesman betrays his country as a guilty, morally responsible and remorseful perpetrator. 33 00:03:58,020 --> 00:04:01,500 So from these two act alone, 34 00:04:01,500 --> 00:04:11,040 it therefore becomes clear that the ways in which the Nazi legacy was officially remembered in West Germany and in Austria differed fundamentally. 35 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:17,610 And this, of course, begs the obvious question as to why these is turned out so differently. 36 00:04:17,610 --> 00:04:22,170 And to get an answer. I went back to the archival of documents. 37 00:04:22,170 --> 00:04:32,880 So particularly I looked at the diplomatic exchanges between Israelis, Austrians and West German diplomats in the 1950s, as you know, 38 00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:42,660 in 1950 to West Germany and Israel signed the so-called Luxembourg agreement about reparations, 39 00:04:42,660 --> 00:04:52,020 which laid, as I argue in this presentation, the basis for what I call the German atonement approach. 40 00:04:52,020 --> 00:05:00,750 So what is meant by an atonement approach? And obviously this is a symbolic official political approach. 41 00:05:00,750 --> 00:05:07,830 Of course, there can be no real atonement for the Nazi crimes. 42 00:05:07,830 --> 00:05:17,230 Yet today, and broadly speaking, the duty to remember the Holocaust, the profession of responsibility for the atrocities committed, 43 00:05:17,230 --> 00:05:22,350 the admission of guilt and shame on part of all Germans, 44 00:05:22,350 --> 00:05:33,840 as well as the ensuing effort to make good again can be said to form the cornerstone of Germany's national memory approach. 45 00:05:33,840 --> 00:05:37,260 And here again, I mean the official memory approach. 46 00:05:37,260 --> 00:05:46,650 Of course, in any society, at any given point in time, there are many competing memories out there in the public. 47 00:05:46,650 --> 00:05:57,260 Yet this official approach in West Germany was one of atonement since the Luxembourg agreement of 1952. 48 00:05:57,260 --> 00:06:07,400 But even so, then how did they really get there and this question nowadays is not only of historical interest, 49 00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:16,850 but also of renewed importance to a emerging field on scholars and practitioners who work in transitional justice. 50 00:06:16,850 --> 00:06:28,940 Wherever states and the international community want to deliver some form of restitution to victims of war crimes, they often invoke the Truman model. 51 00:06:28,940 --> 00:06:38,450 So from Serbia to Turkey to Japan to Chile, the recommendation is always the same when it comes to dealing with your shameful past. 52 00:06:38,450 --> 00:06:43,220 Just do what the Germans did, however, what did they really do? 53 00:06:43,220 --> 00:06:49,820 And that's the central question that I want to pursue in this presentation. 54 00:06:49,820 --> 00:07:01,340 And, you know, just as a disclaimer before I start, I mean, I don't mean to imply with all of this that I'm that the German atonement approach, 55 00:07:01,340 --> 00:07:09,290 you know, is desirable from a political or a moral point of view in other perpetrator states. 56 00:07:09,290 --> 00:07:15,470 Nor do I tend to say that the German approach was perfect. 57 00:07:15,470 --> 00:07:23,690 Now, as we all know, you know, there were many problems in West Germany as well, including issues of delayed justice, 58 00:07:23,690 --> 00:07:33,620 superficial apologies, rising anti-Semitic sentiments, and, of course, the emergence of the far right movement. 59 00:07:33,620 --> 00:07:44,750 Therefore, if we can call the German approach as a model, then only insofar as it is still rare in comparison to other cases. 60 00:07:44,750 --> 00:07:55,900 And this returns us to the central question as to why did the Germans begin to walk down this unusual route? 61 00:07:55,900 --> 00:08:08,950 And now if if we look into the literature, so the literature gives us the following answer as to how a country's official memory approach comes about, 62 00:08:08,950 --> 00:08:17,410 it emerges from within the country, from the interaction between the government and its society. 63 00:08:17,410 --> 00:08:24,850 In fact, there exists a large body of work that describes this domestic political struggle with memory, 64 00:08:24,850 --> 00:08:33,690 usually in some form of instrumentalise session of the past by powerful actors to gain political legitimacy. 65 00:08:33,690 --> 00:08:45,420 And when we approached you for forms as a political tool to win over a domestic national audience and to achieve domestic political goals, 66 00:08:45,420 --> 00:08:59,230 so the memory of atonement must have been employed by political actors to win political legitimacy amongst the West German public. 67 00:08:59,230 --> 00:09:06,790 Well, this in West Germany was certainly not the case in the aftermath of World War Two. 68 00:09:06,790 --> 00:09:14,050 In fact, the first German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, won the first free elections in 1949, 69 00:09:14,050 --> 00:09:23,830 not least because he promoted an agenda of westernisation and democratisation at the explicit expense of memory. 70 00:09:23,830 --> 00:09:32,920 In the aftermath of World War Two, the West German public memory landscape was one of silence about the past. 71 00:09:32,920 --> 00:09:44,650 If anything, the memory was one of victimisation by the war, by the Nazi regime, by the Soviet occupation, the allied bombings, 72 00:09:44,650 --> 00:09:55,730 the expulsions from the east but certainly not one of the country and its people is atoning and therefore guilty perpetrators. 73 00:09:55,730 --> 00:10:07,760 So the assumptions of the traditional politics of memory literature, therefore, do not seem to apply in the aftermath of a war, 74 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:19,310 it seems highly unlikely that politicians instrumentalise memory for political gain, particularly not in the form of atonement for past crimes. 75 00:10:19,310 --> 00:10:31,970 So the route that is suggested in the politics of memory literature doesn't seem to have led to the official TRAMAINE Atonement for. 76 00:10:31,970 --> 00:10:37,010 So perhaps not the domestic incentives led to this tournament, 77 00:10:37,010 --> 00:10:45,950 but instead the international incentive structures provided by the environment of the 1950s. 78 00:10:45,950 --> 00:10:52,040 In other words, did the international community and as was often claimed retrospectively, 79 00:10:52,040 --> 00:11:00,310 the United States of America pushed Germany onto the road towards atonement? 80 00:11:00,310 --> 00:11:08,560 So on the post-war international stage, Germany, unsurprisingly, was the pariah, 81 00:11:08,560 --> 00:11:16,390 especially Israeli diplomats actively worked against Germany's restoration within the international community. 82 00:11:16,390 --> 00:11:22,810 They fiercely opposed any participation for Germany in international organisations and meetings, 83 00:11:22,810 --> 00:11:28,210 and all direct contacts between Israelis and Germans were forbidden. 84 00:11:28,210 --> 00:11:36,190 Any remaining necessary diplomatic exchanges were conducted only through the occupying powers. 85 00:11:36,190 --> 00:11:43,660 So Israel in the beginning years had made it crystal clear that it wanted nothing to do with Germany. 86 00:11:43,660 --> 00:11:52,750 At the same time, however, the allied powers began to reconstitute their relationship with one another, 87 00:11:52,750 --> 00:12:00,610 which by nature entailed forming a new image for the Federal Republic of Germany, 88 00:12:00,610 --> 00:12:12,560 and to that end, the Western allies, particularly the US, aimed at developing West Germany's Democratic character. 89 00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:19,560 The American high commissioner for Germany, John McCloy, for instance, expressed in 1949, 90 00:12:19,560 --> 00:12:30,520 the way the Germans will behave towards the Jews will constitute the crucial test for German democracy. 91 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:39,100 Notably with this, however, McLaurin Naida referred to Israel more to the option of atonement. 92 00:12:39,100 --> 00:12:49,220 Instead, he focussed on the domestic divisions and the potential to test the nascent democracy internally. 93 00:12:49,220 --> 00:12:55,100 More over there, like a closer look into the exchanges happening in the in the diplomatic back 94 00:12:55,100 --> 00:13:00,410 channels at the time immediately call into question that the allied powers, 95 00:13:00,410 --> 00:13:08,480 especially the U.S., were crucial in pushing Germany towards paying reparations to Israel. 96 00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:19,550 By 1951, the allied powers had twice explicitly rejected Israeli appeals to pressure the FARC into reparation payments. 97 00:13:19,550 --> 00:13:26,960 Whilst there there's also a, quote, world, while the Soviet Union had not even replied to the Israeli appeal, 98 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:31,160 the U.S. saw no legal basis for such a move, 99 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:41,930 pointing to the fact that neither the state of Israel nor the federal republic had existed at the time when the crimes were committed. 100 00:13:41,930 --> 00:13:47,990 Only when pressed further by Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe with his US counterpart, 101 00:13:47,990 --> 00:13:56,810 who was Dean Atkinson at the time, revealed that financial concerns played a role in this American refusal. 102 00:13:56,810 --> 00:14:13,230 So with the war with West Germany entirely dependent on US aid, the US simply feared that it would end up paying reparations for Germany themselves. 103 00:14:13,230 --> 00:14:23,340 However, at least the US would not oppose reparations on the condition that the Germans actually pay them themselves. 104 00:14:23,340 --> 00:14:28,420 And by the way, a similar Uninterest endorsement came from the British and the French, 105 00:14:28,420 --> 00:14:37,740 so the Israelis may go ahead and find a solution directly with Germany, but only without their direct involvement. 106 00:14:37,740 --> 00:14:46,650 So what distances the Western allies might have been sympathetic from a moral point of view, 107 00:14:46,650 --> 00:14:56,220 however, they were entirely uncooperative from a real political point of view. 108 00:14:56,220 --> 00:14:57,990 For the U.S. in particular, 109 00:14:57,990 --> 00:15:09,750 the beginning Cold War made West Germany's rearmament and its placement within the wider Western world community a priority, 110 00:15:09,750 --> 00:15:19,760 the country's financial and moral punishment through reparations was not regarded as helpful to that end. 111 00:15:19,760 --> 00:15:27,860 So following this logic, in the end, it's very interesting, Akesson, as early as in 1950, 112 00:15:27,860 --> 00:15:40,780 recommended to Israel to establish normal diplomatic relations with the Bundesrat Republic with no preconditions attached. 113 00:15:40,780 --> 00:15:47,080 So. We see from this, and unlike what is often claimed retrospectively, 114 00:15:47,080 --> 00:15:55,440 that allied powers and the United States cannot be credited to instigate the Truman vote towards atonement. 115 00:15:55,440 --> 00:16:04,620 They neither explicitly requested reparations, nor did they render them or nor did they render their efforts, 116 00:16:04,620 --> 00:16:14,200 his reintegration into the Western world community conditional upon them. 117 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:22,210 Furthermore, when you screen the broader international zeitgeist or the mindset of the time in the 1950s, 118 00:16:22,210 --> 00:16:33,550 we find no direct hints that atonement would be regarded as a useful political strategy. 119 00:16:33,550 --> 00:16:39,610 There was no international legal basis for reparations. If anything, then internationally, 120 00:16:39,610 --> 00:16:45,760 the contours of this idea emerged only slowly and unintentionally in the wake of 121 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:53,890 the Nuremberg trials and in the wake of a nascent discourse about human rights. 122 00:16:53,890 --> 00:17:06,600 However, there are links to remembrance and atonement were made mainly retrospectively and did not have much political salience at the time. 123 00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:08,310 So as such, 124 00:17:08,310 --> 00:17:17,850 the international incentive structures and the zeitgeist of the post-war years were at best fruitful for atonement but nowhere directly generated, 125 00:17:17,850 --> 00:17:24,390 atonement is an explicit option or strategy for the effort to. 126 00:17:24,390 --> 00:17:33,920 So what then was it that sparked this atonement approach and one could enquire about Israel? 127 00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:38,930 Did Israel push West Germany towards a tournament? 128 00:17:38,930 --> 00:17:48,410 Well, in Israel in the beginning years, as you well know, the public memory landscape was also one of silence. 129 00:17:48,410 --> 00:17:49,460 If anything, 130 00:17:49,460 --> 00:18:03,980 the notion of victimhood was widely discredited as a shameful identity for a nascent nation by both survivors and the new Israeli pioneers, 131 00:18:03,980 --> 00:18:14,110 Israeli political leaders. First and foremost, David Ben-Gurion stood for a new Israel which looked forward rather than backward. 132 00:18:14,110 --> 00:18:27,070 Yet the economic necessities of the Israeli state in a hostile environment soon gave way towards a more pragmatic approach, 133 00:18:27,070 --> 00:18:36,010 at least on the side of the Israeli politicians, particularly the president of the Jewish World Congress, 134 00:18:36,010 --> 00:18:44,140 Norm Coleman, here, they played a crucial role when he began to insist that pursuing reparations, 135 00:18:44,140 --> 00:18:56,320 in addition to individual claims, would be an essential contribution to resettling the large amounts of displaced in Israel. 136 00:18:56,320 --> 00:19:08,410 So following these pragmatic considerations, the total rejection of Germany was already weakened by 1950, 137 00:19:08,410 --> 00:19:22,330 and Foreign Minister Moshtarak had put out at least the perspective for contacts conditional upon a form of restitution. 138 00:19:22,330 --> 00:19:28,300 So importantly, what is the political end on the political level in Kenya? 139 00:19:28,300 --> 00:19:37,420 Israel had signalled that it was willing to take up its painful victim status, at least internationally. 140 00:19:37,420 --> 00:19:43,510 And why? Because it promised to lead to strategic gains. 141 00:19:43,510 --> 00:19:52,810 And with this, they had accepted atonement as a political, pragmatic pathway from normative point of view. 142 00:19:52,810 --> 00:19:57,320 And this remains a tenor throughout the reparation negotiations. 143 00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:04,300 No money in the world, of course, could ever wipe out the trauma and guilt. 144 00:20:04,300 --> 00:20:11,770 Now, at the same time in West Germany, Konrad Adenauer faced the volume predicament. 145 00:20:11,770 --> 00:20:13,540 As I've mentioned to you earlier. 146 00:20:13,540 --> 00:20:23,980 Domestically, he had won the election by promoting democracy and westernisation at the expense of silencing the Nazi past. 147 00:20:23,980 --> 00:20:31,120 However, internationally now West Germany was ostracised as a pariah because of this past, 148 00:20:31,120 --> 00:20:38,260 and the recovery of its status would therefore imply a confrontation with the atrocious legacy, 149 00:20:38,260 --> 00:20:44,380 especially now that Israeli diplomats had started to drop hints for an eventual 150 00:20:44,380 --> 00:20:52,090 rapprochement through reparation payments and fitting the pieces of this puzzle together, 151 00:20:52,090 --> 00:21:00,370 Adenauer issued the following statement within the first days he took office. 152 00:21:00,370 --> 00:21:08,230 So he said in so far as it is possible, in the aftermath of the annihilation of millions of people beyond, 153 00:21:08,230 --> 00:21:18,580 for the German people are willing to make good the injustice committed against the Jews in Germany by a criminal regime, 154 00:21:18,580 --> 00:21:24,550 we consider restitution a good moral is our duty. 155 00:21:24,550 --> 00:21:32,350 The federal the federal government is committed to initiating appropriate action. 156 00:21:32,350 --> 00:21:40,630 So crucially, with this statement out an hour now to signalled that he was willing to participate in the 157 00:21:40,630 --> 00:21:48,610 political project that is atonement and that his country would take on the role of the guilty, 158 00:21:48,610 --> 00:21:53,770 atoning perpetrator internationally. 159 00:21:53,770 --> 00:22:04,660 But and as was the case with the Israelis, this painful role was only taken up because it promised strategic gains internationally. 160 00:22:04,660 --> 00:22:12,850 In other words, I don't know. I had grasped the option of seeking status for his country with atonement, 161 00:22:12,850 --> 00:22:21,210 despite his awareness that the Nazi crimes can never be made good again in a moral sense. 162 00:22:21,210 --> 00:22:28,770 So I argue in my research that both sides had begun to view atonement as a pragmatic 163 00:22:28,770 --> 00:22:35,130 political solution in a situation where normative absolution is impossible. 164 00:22:35,130 --> 00:22:44,490 So atonement was born as a political strategy, and it is this thinking that was translated into concrete next steps, 165 00:22:44,490 --> 00:22:52,640 which in the end led up to the 1952 Luxenberg agreement. 166 00:22:52,640 --> 00:23:01,830 So. What's crucial for such a strategy to be born is this willingness on this on 167 00:23:01,830 --> 00:23:09,960 both sides to present and construct themselves into perpetrators and victims. 168 00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,380 Now, how did this happen? 169 00:23:13,380 --> 00:23:21,990 Well, the Israeli officials and for those of you who were interested in the historical details, they were called David Horovitz and Morris Fischer. 170 00:23:21,990 --> 00:23:26,850 They were crucial here by upon meeting Adenauer in Paris. 171 00:23:26,850 --> 00:23:36,810 And obviously, this meeting was fully secret. They made it clear from the very start that their cooperation would be contingent 172 00:23:36,810 --> 00:23:44,970 upon a public condemnation of the Nazi crimes by the German chancellor. 173 00:23:44,970 --> 00:23:45,630 And with this, 174 00:23:45,630 --> 00:23:58,980 they requested nothing less from Ardino than to publicly portray his country as a guilty perpetrator and his decision for reparation as atonement. 175 00:23:58,980 --> 00:24:02,490 That is a skilled payment. 176 00:24:02,490 --> 00:24:10,410 And importantly, with this move, Israeli diplomats had made the rules of this bargain clear that the federal republic is the guilty, 177 00:24:10,410 --> 00:24:19,620 atoning perpetrator and they are accepting reparations only on the basis that they call themselves as such. 178 00:24:19,620 --> 00:24:25,440 And this, crucially, did not happen in the Austrian Israeli case and by the way, 179 00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:33,190 also not in other examples that could be comparable like in Japan or between Japan and China. 180 00:24:33,190 --> 00:24:37,620 I'll talk about these cases a little later. 181 00:24:37,620 --> 00:24:50,820 So for now, back to the West German case for I don't know, of course, this Israeli request created a predicament in his meetings with the Israelis. 182 00:24:50,820 --> 00:25:00,930 He had understood that his public condemnation of the Nazi crimes was necessary to begin this road towards atonement. 183 00:25:00,930 --> 00:25:10,350 However, while on the one hand such a public condemnation was now desirable, to realise an international goal, 184 00:25:10,350 --> 00:25:18,450 on the other hand, is ran entirely counter to aid in our domestic strategy with the Nazi past. 185 00:25:18,450 --> 00:25:25,890 So the crucial test for the German democracy that McCloy had talked about came when Adenauer 186 00:25:25,890 --> 00:25:35,540 brought this issue of reparations before the German Bundestag in September of 1951. 187 00:25:35,540 --> 00:25:46,460 Now, I'm not reading out this entire document to you, but I'm talking you through it and I'm highlighting the the most important bits. 188 00:25:46,460 --> 00:25:55,040 So in this speech, I know for the first time publicly acknowledged and and that's quote now the overwhelming suffering 189 00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:04,320 that the time of National Socialism has inflicted upon the Jews in Germany and the occupied countries. 190 00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:11,490 Now, this was the acknowledge, the acknowledgement that the Israelis had decided, however, 191 00:26:11,490 --> 00:26:21,330 domestic issues were now listening mainly to this speech to render his view acceptable to the broader German public. 192 00:26:21,330 --> 00:26:34,230 Adenauer, Sarsae stuck to a passive voice when referring to the suffering of the Jewish people so as not to accidentally identify the perpetrators. 193 00:26:34,230 --> 00:26:36,570 So he cautiously underlined that. 194 00:26:36,570 --> 00:26:46,320 And that's now also, quote, Even if a significant part of the German population did not personally participate in the crimes against the Jews, 195 00:26:46,320 --> 00:27:03,140 unspeakable atrocities were nevertheless committed in Germany and that alone obligated them to a moral and material compensation. 196 00:27:03,140 --> 00:27:16,670 Now, from this word, and you already see that Adenwala speech represents a tightrope between two memory audiences. 197 00:27:16,670 --> 00:27:17,630 To the outside, 198 00:27:17,630 --> 00:27:29,690 he delivered a remarkable early statement that signal to the world that it signalled a West German commitment to a tournament to the world. 199 00:27:29,690 --> 00:27:34,730 All the building blocks that I described to you earlier were already dear. 200 00:27:34,730 --> 00:27:44,840 He acknowledged of wrongdoings in the German name expressed guilt, shame and remorse, as well as the will for the good moral. 201 00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:54,110 However, inside the country, there was no incentive structure for a tournament as such internally, 202 00:27:54,110 --> 00:28:02,240 a tournament only only stood this test of democracy because of the now troubling circumlocutions, 203 00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:12,800 which exculpated the majority of the Germans from the guilt. 204 00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:17,450 OK, so to draw conclusions in the West German case, 205 00:28:17,450 --> 00:28:27,140 the international incentive structures and the zeitgeist provided at most an indirect push towards atonement. 206 00:28:27,140 --> 00:28:35,120 Instead, what was crucial was the evolving negotiation between West Germans and Israelis and their 207 00:28:35,120 --> 00:28:41,990 mutual acknowledgement of one another in their respective perpetrator and victim roles, 208 00:28:41,990 --> 00:28:50,770 even though these roles were entirely unpopular, if not rejected domestically. 209 00:28:50,770 --> 00:28:55,210 So this was the story that led West Germans towards atonement. 210 00:28:55,210 --> 00:29:09,080 And now let's look to Austria. Why did they not come onto the road towards atonement? 211 00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:14,810 So all the building blocks that I've just outlined to you for not on that 212 00:29:14,810 --> 00:29:23,240 strategy were not in place between the Austrians and the Israelis to begin with, 213 00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:32,210 the Israeli efforts to ostracise Germany internationally were never extended onto Austria. 214 00:29:32,210 --> 00:29:38,120 Bilateral relations between Austria and Israel started as early as 1950. 215 00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:45,500 And despite domestic protests in Israel, Israel never turned Austria an enemy state. 216 00:29:45,500 --> 00:29:51,020 Israeli diplomats instead opted for a normalisation with Austria. 217 00:29:51,020 --> 00:29:59,750 And here you can read a quote from the first Israeli council in Vienna, Austria. 218 00:29:59,750 --> 00:30:08,030 So here he says, I've become convinced that we have to make a decision between the following two possibilities. 219 00:30:08,030 --> 00:30:17,870 Either we continue with the current conflict. That is a bit of recognition, a bit of anger, and then we exploit our special position in order to, 220 00:30:17,870 --> 00:30:22,940 as we did with Germany, claim reparation payments from Austria. 221 00:30:22,940 --> 00:30:27,500 Or we stop carrying on with this strategy because we've already missed the right point 222 00:30:27,500 --> 00:30:39,560 in time and we promote a full normalisation of the relationship in our own interest. 223 00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:54,620 So this advice from the You Once More reveals a certain degree of an active agency and choice of the victim to press for atonement or not, 224 00:30:54,620 --> 00:31:03,230 and while in 1951 the official Israeli strategy apparently still manoeuvred somewhere in between, 225 00:31:03,230 --> 00:31:11,780 the decision soon tilted towards normalisation and the Israelis and Austrians began to negotiate a 226 00:31:11,780 --> 00:31:21,040 bilateral credit agreement at the same time when reparations were negotiated with the restaurant. 227 00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:28,510 Now, a credit, of course, is a business agreement between two equals, 228 00:31:28,510 --> 00:31:39,310 and it's very different by nature to a reparation agreement between a former victim and its perpetrator. 229 00:31:39,310 --> 00:31:44,530 Interestingly, in the very beginning of these negotiations, 230 00:31:44,530 --> 00:31:52,150 Israeli diplomats attempted to use the credit agreement to pressure Austria into 231 00:31:52,150 --> 00:32:00,010 what they had euphemistically called an accompanying French friendship declaration. 232 00:32:00,010 --> 00:32:07,290 And Israeli diplomats envisioned this friendship declaration as something similar to Ardino, 233 00:32:07,290 --> 00:32:18,170 a speech that is they wanted an active acknowledgement of the Nazi crimes against the Austrian Jews. 234 00:32:18,170 --> 00:32:26,930 Yet in the Austrian case, Israeli diplomats only recommended this, but did not insist on such a statement. 235 00:32:26,930 --> 00:32:41,720 Now the Austrians were entirely opposed. And as internal documents reveal, completely outraged about what they portrayed as an absurd Israeli request. 236 00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:47,810 However, in reality, they understood this Israeli attempt as an attack. 237 00:32:47,810 --> 00:32:51,030 And now this is a quote from an archival document, 238 00:32:51,030 --> 00:32:58,370 a way to present Austria with the bill of the Nazi past through the back door of a credit agreement. 239 00:32:58,370 --> 00:33:10,760 And then in a remarkable early statement of Austria's victimhood narrative, Austrian diplomats replied to the Israelis with this, quote, 240 00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:20,210 So the Republic of Austria, which had itself been violently occupied, occupied by Nazi Germany, had nothing to do with these things. 241 00:33:20,210 --> 00:33:30,060 And therefore, Austria sees no reason to explicitly stated in the friendship declaration. 242 00:33:30,060 --> 00:33:40,020 In the end, a neutral formulation customary in normal business agreements between two friendly countries was signed off. 243 00:33:40,020 --> 00:33:48,630 And here you can see this formulation, the Republic of Austria and Israel aiming at strengthening the existing bond of peace 244 00:33:48,630 --> 00:33:54,000 between them by a contract that fostered the amicable exchange between the territories, 245 00:33:54,000 --> 00:34:02,540 reflecting the intellectual, cultural, economic and business aims of their peoples have decided to. 246 00:34:02,540 --> 00:34:09,120 So. By accepting such a credit agreement, 247 00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:19,200 Israel had acknowledged that Austria had acknowledged Austria in its role as a victim rather than as a perpetrator, 248 00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:23,460 and the two countries begin mutually beneficial economic relations. 249 00:34:23,460 --> 00:34:34,650 At the same time, when guilt payments were pursued from the FARC and on his way to the signing ceremony in Luxembourg, 250 00:34:34,650 --> 00:34:43,830 Foreign Minister Charrette underlined this difference once more and announced Israel will not demand reparations from Austria. 251 00:34:43,830 --> 00:34:50,070 Israel accepts the supposition that Germany is responsible for the acts committed 252 00:34:50,070 --> 00:34:56,760 against the Austrian Jews since they took place only after the Anschluss. 253 00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:03,150 Now, retrospectively, the question naturally arises as to why Israel had done so. 254 00:35:03,150 --> 00:35:13,260 And historians up until this day try to understand its decisiveness in this matter. 255 00:35:13,260 --> 00:35:23,850 I'd argue that, as was the case with regards to West Germany, the international environment had played a crucial role in the allied powers, 256 00:35:23,850 --> 00:35:31,440 had designated Austria as the first victim of Nazi Germany as early as 1943. 257 00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:43,920 And this, of course, was a wartime calculation. However, it was picked up by Austria's anti Nazi elite who began to form the Second Republic. 258 00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:51,100 And for Austria, particularly when looking outwards to international incentive structures, 259 00:35:51,100 --> 00:35:59,820 a story of victimhood under Nazi Germany had immense political expediency, 260 00:35:59,820 --> 00:36:09,880 not least because it opened the possibility for a swift departure of the occupying powers and the country's independence. 261 00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:16,510 As such, and as was the case in West Germany, albeit now towards a different road, 262 00:36:16,510 --> 00:36:27,050 the international community indirectly allowed Austria to build its memory of innocence and victim. 263 00:36:27,050 --> 00:36:32,090 At the backdrop of the beginning, competition between East and West, 264 00:36:32,090 --> 00:36:45,290 the Soviet Union and the U.S. were interested in absorbing Austria from its past by placing it as a neutral buffer between between them, 265 00:36:45,290 --> 00:36:52,430 rather than dividing it up as they did with guilty Germany and especially the U.S. was 266 00:36:52,430 --> 00:37:00,020 willing to play along with Austria's fabricated victimhood to secure it from Soviet claims. 267 00:37:00,020 --> 00:37:10,260 And this probably also forced the Israelis into the direction of accepting a different status for Austria and Germany. 268 00:37:10,260 --> 00:37:16,320 And as a result of all of this, Austria by 1955 was independent, however, 269 00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:26,100 its independence and neutrality came at the expense of blocking its road towards a tolerant. 270 00:37:26,100 --> 00:37:32,760 OK, conclusions about how to look ahead. 271 00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:41,100 Um, I hope to have shown you in this presentation that in the case of West Germany. 272 00:37:41,100 --> 00:37:54,600 The country's official atonement approach originated certainly not domestically, but rather in its international interactions and incentives. 273 00:37:54,600 --> 00:38:04,050 However, while the international environment, including its most powerful actors and the broader mindset of the time, 274 00:38:04,050 --> 00:38:08,250 provided at most an indirect push towards atonement, 275 00:38:08,250 --> 00:38:18,890 what was crucial was this evolving reciprocity between West Germany is designated perpetrator in Israel as its victim. 276 00:38:18,890 --> 00:38:28,670 So counter to the conventional view, the allies, especially the US, had not deliberately pushed the FARC into operations. 277 00:38:28,670 --> 00:38:31,770 In fact, they had refused Israeli requests twice. 278 00:38:31,770 --> 00:38:44,150 However, this refusal perhaps had the unintended consequence of forcing both sides into direct negotiations with one another, 279 00:38:44,150 --> 00:38:51,020 a step that essentially paved a pathway towards settlement. 280 00:38:51,020 --> 00:39:05,140 And notably, and again, somewhat counter to widespread beliefs, whether the FRC and Israel were normative allies with the idea of atonement, 281 00:39:05,140 --> 00:39:13,850 they are domestic struggles, in fact, suggested they were not had little weight in the discussion about reparations. 282 00:39:13,850 --> 00:39:20,870 What mattered was that both sides accepted to translate their normative atonement means 283 00:39:20,870 --> 00:39:30,310 into strategic international aid and strategic ends could only be constructed together. 284 00:39:30,310 --> 00:39:40,300 So atonement is an active political project, albeit couched in this normative language, it needs to unfold. 285 00:39:40,300 --> 00:39:49,000 Therefore, it is a deliberate roleplay between the perpetrator and its victim. 286 00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:57,460 And crucially, this didn't happen in the Austrian case and it also did not happen in the case of another one of World War Two perpetrators, 287 00:39:57,460 --> 00:40:07,990 states, Japan, like in Austria, in Japan, reciprocity of the victims was wholly absent from the picture. 288 00:40:07,990 --> 00:40:17,650 And now, obviously, I'm not an expert in East Asia, but the People's Republic of China, which would have been the target of Japanese reparations, 289 00:40:17,650 --> 00:40:31,840 unlike Israel, never reciprocated early attempts and prefer to forgo war reparations in return for political recognition in the post-war environment. 290 00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:42,190 And the United States, too, had provided no incentives for Japan again and against the looming Cold War, 291 00:40:42,190 --> 00:40:56,520 the U.S. had an interest in protecting Japan's old place and stopped us with in East Asia rather than ostracising Japan as the East Asian pariah. 292 00:40:56,520 --> 00:41:06,600 So as a result, the popular internal narrative of Japan as a victim was unlike and in the West German case and like in the Austrian case, 293 00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:14,430 internationally accepted in the post-war years. Now and I'm ending here. 294 00:41:14,430 --> 00:41:20,220 What does all of this mean to those with a normative agenda who want to 295 00:41:20,220 --> 00:41:26,910 encourage atonement approaches for other perpetrator countries around the world? 296 00:41:26,910 --> 00:41:36,300 Well, I'd suggest to look closely at the international relations of potential donors and victims, 297 00:41:36,300 --> 00:41:46,410 but also the international community and its powerful actors that may infuse atonement with the recognition of starters. 298 00:41:46,410 --> 00:41:56,140 And they may this time around deliberately to facilitate direct negotiations between the concerned states. 299 00:41:56,140 --> 00:42:00,280 The changed normative environment that we live in the 21st century, 300 00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:07,720 so the age of apology as it was taught by some scholars, can only help with this effort. 301 00:42:07,720 --> 00:42:11,860 However, as I hope to have shown, 302 00:42:11,860 --> 00:42:18,530 your moral complicity in this normative idea surrounding atonement was neither 303 00:42:18,530 --> 00:42:24,730 given nor an essential part of the deal between the Israelis and the Germans. 304 00:42:24,730 --> 00:42:30,820 What, however, did change the equation on both sides was the understanding of atonement as 305 00:42:30,820 --> 00:42:37,540 a pragmatic political tool to leverage political advantage internationally. 306 00:42:37,540 --> 00:42:45,760 So it was this insight that incentivised strategic compliance with atonement without 307 00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:52,600 having to rely on a normative alignment with the spirit of atonement itself. 308 00:42:52,600 --> 00:43:00,401 Thanks very much.