Closing proceedings

Marion Wiesinger

The Austrian judiciary and perpetrators of Nazi violent crime in the 1960s and 1970s

This article examines the activities of the Austrian judiciary during the prosecution of Nazi criminals in the 1960s and 1970s, based on the comprehensive bequests of Federal Minister Dr. Christian Broda. This written sources make it possible to trace the connection between judicial actions and political intentions in individual cases with an eye for detail that had not been possible before. Given the thousands of files that still presumably exist within the civil service any findings can only be regarded as preliminary.

No final conclusions regarding the involvement of Austrians in crimes against humanity and war crimes during the Second World War will be possible (including the reasons why hundreds of relevant proceedings were closed, especially in the 1970s) until the files pertaining to the estimated 6,000 war crimes prosecutions against Austrian citizens after 1955 are made available for historical research in archives.