After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Austria transformed itself from an empire to a small Central European country. Formerly an important player in international affairs, the new republic was quickly sidelined by the European concert of powers. The enormous losses of territory and population in Austria’s post-Habsburg state of existence, however, did not result in a political, economic, cultural, and intellectual black hole.

The breakup of the Habsburg Dual Monarchy and the redrawing of the political map of East Central Europe constituted a major experiment in “destroying the old, and creating the new” (O. Hwaletz). Historians are more inclined to study the rise of empires than their demise and aftermath.

The eighteen essays in this volume offer fresh perspective and innovative scholarship on the difficult transition from empire to republic for the small state of Austria, newly created by the Allied peacemakers in Paris in 1919. These essays also deal with complex challenges of nation building after a major war as well as the ambiguity inherent in the creation of new institutions in politics, economics, social life and culture.

Featuring essays by Peter Gerlich, Fritz Plasser/Peter Ulram, Heinrich Neisser, Reinhard Heinisch, Heinrich Niesser, Johannes Ditz, Josef Leidenfrost, Anton Pelinka et al., as well as a FORUM on the “disturbing creativity” of Austrian artists, book reviews and the review of Austrian politics.

For more than a generation after World War II, official government doctrine and many Austrians insisted they had been victims of Nazi aggression in 1938 and, therefore, bore no responsibility for German war crimes. During the past twenty years this myth has been revised to include a more complex past, one with both Austrian perpetrators and victims.

Part one describes soldiers from Austria who fought in the German Wehrmacht, a history only recently unearthed. Richard Germann covers units and theaters Austrian fought in, while Thomas Grischany demonstrates how well they fought. Ela Hornung looks at case studies of denunciation of fellow soldiers, while Barbara Stelzl-Marx analyzes Austrian soldiers who were active in resistance at the end of the war.

Topical Essays

• Introduction

• Oliver Rathkolb                     
  The Changing Austrian Voters: A Historical Typology

• Wolfgang C. Müller:              
  Elections and Party System Dynamics

Sexuality in Austria reflects the broad variety of such recent research. David Luft introduces the volume with an essay on sexuality and gender in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Scott Spector traces the emergence of homosexuality in tabloids at the same time.

This volume covers foreign policy in the 20th century and offers an up-to-date status report of the study of Austria’s foreign policy trajectories and diplomatic options both in the historical and political sciences. Eva Nowotny, the current Austrian Ambassador to the U.S., introduces the volume with an analysis of the art and practice of Austrian diplomacy in historical perspective. Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch analyses recent Balkans diplomacy from his personal perspective as an EU-emissary in the Bosnian and Kosovo crises.

Like most European countries, Austria does not have a strict separation between state and church. Since the counter-reformation, it has been considered a country strongly influenced by Catholicism. Austrian attitudes towards religion derive from the Habsburg experience, when emperors and the Catholic Church acted in complete unison. This new volume in the Contemporary Austrian Studies series reevaluates this age-old tradition.