De-nazification in Carinthia

Wilhelm Wadl

Carinthia was one of the few Austrian provinces where local people got rid of the Nazi administration before liberation by Allied troops. The new Carinthian provincial government met before the official end of the war in order to take measures to purge the Carinthian administration of former National Socialists. By February 1946, 67 % of legally trained civil servants in the service of the Carinthian regional government had been laid off. Simultaneously, however, the ÖVP and SPÖ in Carinthia worked towards a general amnesty of registered Nazis. This and the role of the de-nazification process international dealings (with Yugoslavia) gave the de-nazification process in Carinthia a distinctive flavour within the Austrian context.