Wir waren nie Antifaschisten? (We Have Never Been Antifascists?)

Austria built its postwar identity on the myth that it was the first victim of Nazi aggression, a nation occupied rather than complicit. This worked politically—denazification was light, continuities ran deep, and resistance fighters became inconvenient reminders of a story that didn’t fit. And yet, there were antifascists in Austria: partisans, communist and social democratic resistance networks, Jewish exiles who returned. Did anyone ever hear them? Did antifascism ever really catch on as a broadly held public disposition? And what are its prospects today, in a time when the far right has returned to the center of power?

Ruth Beckermann is a documentary filmmaker and author. Her films include The Paper Bridge (1987), East of War (1996), The Waldheim Walz (2018), Favoriten (2024), and Wax & Gold (2026). Beckermann has received numerous awards, most recently the Europäischer Dokumentarfilmpreis.

Heimo Halbrainer is a historian whose chief areas of interest are the impact and aftermath of Nazism in Graz and Styria. Since 1996, he has been head of CLIO, an organization dedicated to historical research and education. Halbrainer is the author and editor of numerous publications.

Erich Klein is a journalist and translator. His publications include Die Russen in Wien: Die Befreiung Österreichs (Falter Verlag, 1995), Jewgenij Chaldej: Fotograf der Befreiung (coedited with Markus Patka; Jüdisches Museum Wien, 2021), and he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Literary Criticism in 2013.