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“As a former National Socialist … I suffered most severely.” How National Socialists’ Atonement Work Became a Reconstruction Myth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2025

Martin Tschiggerl Open the ORCID record for Martin Tschiggerl [Opens in a new window] ,
Lea von der Hude  and
Patricia Seifner
Martin Tschiggerl*
Affiliation:
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Lea von der Hude
Affiliation:
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Patricia Seifner
Affiliation:
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
*
Corresponding author: Martin Tschiggerl; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Due to severe shortages of volunteer labor for repairing the damage immediately after World War II, the provisional Austrian federal government decided in September 1945 to make work compulsory, primarily for former National Socialists. As a result, these individuals were forced to perform a wide variety of reconstruction work over a period of two years. These workers subsequently sued the Republic of Austria for compensation payments and received a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court in 1951. The work of these conscripted former National Socialists was increasingly forgotten as the years went on, and, therefore, toward the end of the twentieth century, a form of “Trümmerfrauen” myth emerged in Austria. According to this myth, the immediate repair of war damage was mainly carried out by volunteer women. This article examines for the first time the people that worked in the removal of rubble in 1945 and 1946, how they described their work afterward, and how this compulsory labor gave rise to a positive reconstruction myth of voluntary women’s work.

Keywords

AustriaTrümmerfrauenpostwarNazi pastreconstructioncollective memory
Type
Article
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , First View , pp. 1 - 18
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Regents of the University of Minnesota

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Footnotes

This article was funded by the Austrian Research Fund: 10.55776/P34911

References

1 The Austrian Declaration of Independence of 27 April 1945, states this practically verbatim: StGBl. Nr. 1/1945. All translations below are from the authors.

2 See, in particular, the speech by Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky on Austria’s shared responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi era in the parliamentary session of 8 July 1991: https://www.mediathek.at/atom/20BB945C-08A-00058-00004F3C-20BB261D.

3 Scholarship on the Austrian victim myth is so extensive that a mere list would go beyond the scope of this introduction. An overview is provided by Bischof, Günter and Pelinka, Anton, Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity (London, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pirker, Peter, “The Victim Myth Revisited: The Politics of History in Austria Up Until the Waldheim Affair,” Contemporary Austrian Studies 29 (2020): 151–72Google Scholar; Tschiggerl, Martin, “Significant Otherness: Nation‐building and Identity in Postwar Austria,” Nations and Nationalism 27, no. 3 (2021): 782–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Uhl, Heidemarie, “Of Heroes and Victims: World War II in Austrian Memory,” Austrian History Yearbook 42 (2011): 185–200 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 On Trümmerfrauen in Germany, see Treber, Leonie, Mythos Trümmerfrauen: von der Trümmerbeseitigung in der Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit und der Entstehung eines deutschen Erinnerungsortes (Essen, 2014)Google Scholar.

5 On this thesis, see Tschiggerl, Martin and Walach, Thomas, “Die erfundene ‘Trümmerfrau,’” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 70, no. 2 (2022): 299–326 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The only systematic study to date of the “Arbeitpflcht” of former National Socialists is a pioneering study by Berg, Matthew P., “Arbeitspflicht in Postwar Vienna: Punishing Nazis vs. Expediting Reconstruction, 1945–48,” Austrian History Yearbook 37 (2006): 181–207 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 On the visual discourse of the Austrian Trümmerfrauen, see the online exhibition “War of Pictures.” https://warofpictures.univie.ac.at/.

8 See, for example, Bachlechner, Benedik, et al., Bausteine: Geschichte, Sozialkunde, politische Bildung. 4, Begleitband für Lehrerinnen und Lehrer (Vienna, 2018), 84 Google Scholar. The picture, which is supposed to show Austrian Trümmerfrauen, actually shows women from Berlin and originates from GDR propaganda. One of the women is Johanna Grotewohl, the second wife of GDR Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl.

9 See, for example, Zierler, Theresia, ed., …und trotzdem gab es Hoffnung! “Trümmerfrauen” aus Österreich berichten (Vienna, 2006), 56 Google Scholar.

10 Staatsgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich Nr. 32 vom 1.9.1945, 177 f.: Verfassungsgesetz vom 24.8.1945 “über die Durchführung von Notstandsarbeiten im Gebiete der Stadt Wien.”

11 Berg, “Arbeitspflicht in Postwar Vienna,” 186.

12 Staatsgesetzblatt 1945.

13 Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv Serie 1.3.2.202.A3 - Aufräumungs- und Bergungstrupps | 1945–1946

14 OGH Urteil vom 20.02.1951, Geschäftszahlen: 4Ob21/51; 3Ob237/53; 4Ob231/53; 4Ob88/54; 4Ob180/53; 4Ob106/53; 4Ob161/53.

15 Tschiggerl, “Significant Otherness,” 787–90; Dieter Stiefel, Entnazifizierung in Österreich (Vienna, 1981).

16 On denazification in Austria, see Göllner, Siegfried, “‘Da waren die Nazi ja noch humaner’ – Sichtweisen ehemaliger NationalsozialistInnen auf die Entnazifizierung in Österreich 1945–1957,” zeitgeschichte 47, no. 3 (2020): 387–409, here 387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv Serie (WSLA) 1.3.2.202.A2 - Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953.

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21 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 202 2Z 920/52, quoted from a letter by the city school board dated 6 November 1952.

22 Berg, “Arbeitspflicht,” 189.

23 See Löhne, Gehälter und Masseneinkommen in Österreich 1950–1957, Monatsberichte des Österreichischen Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung (Vienna, 1958), 4.

24 The collection of the “NS-Registrierungslisten” contains handwritten questionnaires from the immediate postwar period in which individuals provided information about their membership in the various National Socialist organizations. Additionally, the so called “Gauakten” contain personal files of members of the “Austrian Legion” and around 200,000 documents and personal files of the individual local groups and the districts of the NS-Gau Vienna, supplemented by material found from the years 1945 to 1955.

25 The data regarding the proportion of occupational groups within the NSDAP was taken from Gerhard Botz. See Botz, Gerhard, “Die österreichischen NSDAP-Mitglieder: Probleme einer quantitativen Analyse aufgrund der NSDAP-Zentralkartei im Berlin Document Center,” in Die Nationalsozialisten: Analysen faschistischer Bewegungen, ed. Mann, Reinhard (Stuttgart, 1980), 123 Google Scholar.

26 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 2B 1129/51, quoted from the application letter for remuneration by Max B. dated 6 June 1945.

27 The Prohibition Act of 8 May 1945, passed by the provisional state government, banned the NSDAP and all its branches, made it compulsory to register all persons who had been members of the NSDAP, SA, SS, or the party’s motorist and air corps during the period from 1933 to 1945, and determined that special commissions were to be set up to investigate these cases and, among other things, to issue dismissals and occupational bans. It also initially distinguished National Socialists into “illegals” (persons who had joined the NSDAP during the period of prohibition in Austria between 1 July 1933 and 13 March 1938) and “others”; see Staatsgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich, Jahrgang 1945, Verfassungsgesetz vom 8. Mai 1945 über das Verbot der NSDAP (Verbotsgesetz), 6 June 1945.

28 Botz, Gerhard, Nationalsozialismus in Wien. Machtübernahme, Herrschaftssicherung, Radikalisierung, Kriegsvorbereitung 1938/39 (Vienna, 2018), 306 Google Scholar.

29 In the National Socialist understanding, the community of the German “Volksgemeinschaft” was composed of “Volksgenossen.” The term was used propagandistically primarily to appeal to the service of each individual for the “Volksgemeinschaft” and to describe the supposed abolition of all social and class differences in the Volksgemeinschaft. Who was considered a Volksgenosse was determined primarily by “racial aspects.” The NSDAP’s 1920 party program stated, “Only those who are ‘Volksgenossen’ can be citizens. Only those of German blood can be ‘Volksgenossen,’ without regard to confession. No Jew, therefore, can be a ‘Volksgenosse,’” quoted in Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 2007), 662.

30 Wenzel, Mario, “Die NSDAP, ihre Gliederungen und angeschlossenen Verbände,” in Wie wurde man Parteigenosse? The NSDAP and its Members, ed. Benz, Wolfgang (Frankfurt am Main, 2009), 19–38, here 20Google Scholar.

31 See Schröder, Wilhelm Heinz, “Kollektivbiographie: Spurensuche, Gegenstand, Forschungsstrategie,” Historical Social Research/HSR. Supplement, no. 23 (2011): 74–152 Google Scholar.

32 It is not possible to give a definite number of those who held positions: regarding the number of functionaries, it must be assumed that this is unreported. Only in a few cases does the source material itself indicate that they were office holders. The information comes from registration and registration cards contained in the files, which were issued by the Allies or the Nazi registration offices and which have been preserved in only some of the cases. Very few of the former “Trümmerarbeiter” stated that they had held a position of their own accord, so a significantly larger number of lower-ranking public officials can be assumed here. An individual examination of all 7,095 biographies could not be carried out within the project.

33 See Reibel, Carl Wilhelm, Das Fundament der Diktatur: Die NSDAP-Ortsgruppen 1932–1945 (Munich, 2002)Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., 12.

35 Cited in Philipp Wegehaupt, “Funktionäre und Funktionseliten der NSDAP,” in Wie wurde man Parteigenosse, ed. Benz, 39–59, here 42.

36 Quoted from Wegehaupt, 43.

37 WStLA, A1 – ‘Gauakten’ 2.7.1.4

38 Quoted from Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, 437.

39 Quoted from Steinbacher, Sibylle, ed., Volksgenossinnen. Frauen in der NS-Volksgemeinschaft ( Göttingen, 2007), 23 Google Scholar.

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41 Cited in Susanne Heim, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland, vol. 2, Deutsches Reich 1938–August 1939, ed. Susanne Heim et al., (Munich, 2009), 591.

42 Radonic, Die friedfertige Antisemitin, 129.

43 In Austria, “Alte Kämpfer” were those NSDAP members who had joined the party before it was banned in Austria on 19 June 1933; in the so-called Altreich, they were members who had a membership number below 300,000, see Falter, Jürgen W., Junge Kämpfer, alte Opportunisten. Die Mitglieder der NSDAP 1919–1945. (Frankfurt am Main, 2016)Google Scholar.

44 According to Gauleiter Arthur Greiser, after the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, the Warthegau was to become a kind of “Model Gau,” that was to be used as a blueprint for the rest of the German Reich and its occupied territories. For further information on the Warthegau, see Catherine Epstein, Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland (Oxford, 2010), 134–59.

45 State Archive in Łódź, https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/zespol/-/zespol/72155, accessed 2 November 2023.

46 German Federal Archives, https://www.bundesarchiv.de/zwangsarbeit/haftstaetten/index.php?action=2.2&tab=7&id=100001111, accessed 2 November 2023.

47 WStLA, M. Dept. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, 2H 2808/51.

48 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 2F 1621/51.

49 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 202 2P 1343/51.

50 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 202 2S 1121/51.

51 Adorno, Theodor W., Guilt and Defense. On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany, trans. and ed. Olick, Jeffrey K. and Perrin, Andrew J. (Cambridge, 2010), 87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 See Boberach, Heinz, ed., Meldungen aus dem Reich: 1938–1945. Die geheimen Lageberichte des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS (Herrsching, 1984)Google Scholar.

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55 Ibid., 126.

56 Ibid., 126.

57 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 - Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 202 2M 172/53.

58 Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, 681.

59 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 202 2R 163/52.

60 Quoted from Wenzel, “Die NSDAP, ihre Gliederungen und angeschlossenen Verbände,” 33.

61 WStLA, M. Abt. 202, A2 – Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953, Mag. Abt. 202 2W 1319/51.

62 Adorno, Guilt and Defense, 182–83.

63 A keyword search under the keyword “Notstandsarbeiten” in ANNO for the years 1874 to 1937 yielded 5,325 hits.

64 After the “Anschluss” of Austria to the German Reich, the National Socialists used this term in particular for propagandistic advertising of housing programs costing millions; after the beginning of the war, the term was also used for investment programs of the armaments industry of the German Reich, Salzburger Zeitung, 1 November 1943, https://anno.onb.ac.at/, accessed 29 August 2023.

65 To examine press coverage of rubble clearance in the postwar period, a keyword search was conducted in the digitized holdings of the Austrian National Library’s newspaper archive ANNO. For the search, term names were used that were used in the immediate postwar period on items like registration cards and work tickets. These cards were issued by the occupying powers or the employment offices for National Socialists or the municipal employment offices and are largely to be found in the aforementioned source collection ‘M. Abt. 202, A2 - Notstandsarbeiten | 1951–1953’ in the Vienna City and Province Archives. Additionally, terms were used for the search that the former workers most frequently chose for this work in their applications for compensation from 1951 to 1953 to the Municipal Department 2. The keyword search was limited to instances published in Vienna from 13 April 1945 (end of hostilities in Vienna) to 31 December 1946, as well as from 20 February 1951 (Supreme Court ruling on compensation for former “Trümmerarbeiter”) to 31 December 1952 (the statute of limitations for applying for compensation was 30 September 1952).

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70 See also, Berg, “Arbeitspflicht,” 189.

71 Ibid., 189.

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73 Wiener Kurier, 26 July 1950, https://anno.onb.ac.at/, accessed 20 October 2023.

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78 Karl Ziak, Wiedergeburt einer Weltstadt. Wien 1945–1965 (Vienna, 1965), 16.

79 Martin Tschiggerl and Thomas Walach, “Die erfundene ‘Trümmerfrau,’” 319–21.

80 Bandhauer-Schöffmann, Irene and Hornung, Ela, “Von Mythen und Trümmern: Frauen im Wien der Nachkriegszeit,” in ‘Von der Trümmerfrau auf der Erbse.’ Ernährungssicherung und Überlebensarbeit in der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit in Wien, ed. Bandhauer-Schöffmann, Irene and Hornung, Ela (Vienna, 1991)Google Scholar; Bandhauer-Schöffmann, Irene and Hornung, Ela, “Women of the Ruins: Daily Life of Viennese Women After the Second World War,” Women’s Studies International Forum 17, no. 2–3 (1994): 203–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Stenographisches Protokoll der 95. Sitzung des Nationalrates der Republik Österreich, 1.3.1989, 42: http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XVII/NRSITZ/NRSITZ_00095/imfname_160816.pdf.

82 Frauenleben 1945. Kriegsende in Wien. 205. Sonderausstellung des Historischen Museums der Stadt Wien 21 Sept.–19 Nov.1995 (Vienna, 1995).

83 Zierler, Theresia, ed., …und trotzdem gab es Hoffnung! “Trümmerfrauen” aus Österreich berichten (Vienna, 2006)Google Scholar.

84 Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich, Teil I, 10.8.2005, 1 f.

85 Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich.

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87 Martin Tschiggerl, “Who owns the ‘Trümmerfrauen?’” Public History Weekly 7, no. 17 (2019) public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/7-2019-17/trummerfrauen/.

88 See Reiterer, Die Ehemaligen.

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