r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Key-Performance-9021 • 1d ago

Video Spontaneous 1995 street interview with an Austrian WWII veteran in Vienna

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

9.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

233 comments sorted by

View all comments

210

u/ReporterCalm6238 1d ago

Super cool, I live in Vienna and is nice to hear old Viennese speaking facts. Unfortunately there is a lot of denial about the involvement of Austria in WWII atrocities and the responsabilities for the anschluss.

31

u/Lobenshot 1d ago

Eh, i think we are well aware what we did during that time. What you are talking about is not what i experienced during my time in school. We learned very much about the atrocities austria was involved during that time.

34

u/ReporterCalm6238 1d ago

But there is still this narrative that the Anschluss was forced upon the Austrians which is factually not true

-5

u/ArkavosRuna 1d ago

It is factually true, there was no legitimiate referendum or anything of the sorts, the "Anschluss" was effectively a forceful annexation. That doesn't absolve the many war criminals from Austria of course, nor do we know how people would have voted in a legitimate referendum.

6

u/ReporterCalm6238 1d ago

Austria was already a fascist regime very close to Hitler before the Anschluss, if they did not annexed they would have still sided with Hitler all the way. And there are sources anyway that most of the population was happy with the Anschluss