Political restoration and de-nazification policy in Upper Austria

Walter Schuster

As the  ÖVP and SPÖ were not able to agree on a provincial government that reflected the balance of power of 1934 the US military government installed a “government of civil servants” after the war under the head civil servant of the Nazi provincial administration Adolf Eigl. At his suggestion the cabinet included several former Nazi party members and numerous top representatives of the so called "Ständestaat”. As a result, this initial government was not able to credibly pursue the necessary measures for political renewal. Rather it got increasingly embroiled in US de-nazification itself, culminating in the arrest of the provincial governor.

In contrast to the region south of the Danube, in the Mühlviertel, which was occupied by the Soviets, a political “provincial government” was formed in 1945, which was to carry out de-nazification based on Austrian law. The decision makers in the ÖVP and SPÖ in Upper Austria agreed to keep the process of de-nazification as short and the number of people affected by the purge as small as possible. The result was that while most former Nazi party supporters at least publicly turned away from national socialism, they largely rejected critical reflection of their own actions.