70 years after Anschluss, Austrians urged not to bury past

Austrian leaders urged their people on Wednesday not to dismiss the Nazi past as no longer relevant, 70 years after Hitler took over the country with popular support.

They spoke at a special session of parliament marking the 70th anniversary of the "Anschluss" annexation, to be followed after nightfall by a silent candle-lit vigil in a Vienna square, where huge crowds once cheered Hitler's return to his homeland at the head of Nazi legions.

Some 80,000 candles were to be lit in the regal Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square), representing each Austrian killed under Nazi tyranny - including 65,000 Jews.

Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and conservative leader Wilhelm Molterer separately Wednesday announced the establishment of a Vienna branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named after its late Nazi hunter founder. The Center has accused Austria and some other countries in the past of lacking political will to ferret out alleged war criminals on their soil.

Gusenbauer and President Heinz Fischer presided over a special parliamentary session for speeches about Hitler's annexation of Austria - a decidedly dark chapter in the nation's history.

It has been an occasion for discussion about the extent to which Austrians were victims of Nazism or willing accomplices. Most Austrians now agree they were deeply complicit in the Nazi machinery of war and genocide after decades of denial.

However, a poll released Tuesday showed 60 percent of Austrians were weary of talk about the past after six decades of democracy now anchored in the European Union.

Political leaders warned them against temptations to close the book on the Anschluss, when local Nazis, told Hitler's columns were about to cross the border, seized power overnight and immediately began purging foes and persecuting Jews.

"We cannot draw a line under the past because the events of 1938-45 retain resonance today," parliament president Barbara Prammer said, referring to polls in which a quarter of those aged 14-24 still yearned for a "strong leader."

The post-war position that Austrians were victims of Hitler had proven to be "a fiction of history", she said. But Austria only "belatedly acknowledged injustices" done in its name by agreeing a reparations fund for Jews within the past decade.

Home grown Nazi coup

The Anschluss, or link-up as part of a Greater Germany, happened early on March 12, 1938, when German Wehrmacht troops crossed into the country to ensure a smooth takeover.

It happened a few hours after Austria's then-chancellor, Kurt Schuschnigg, was pressured to give up his efforts to maintain Austria's independence. Three days later, Hitler basked in the adoration of hundreds of thousands of revelers who packed the downtown Vienna square.

Grainy black-and-white photographs of the scenes of jubilation that played out on that fateful day have haunted the nation ever since.

But Fischer reminded his countrymen Wednesday that even as the Nazi leader moved in, there were Austrians who fully realized that Hitler is war and others who already had been arrested or had fled in despair.

"We must examine the Anschluss from both sides," he told Austrian television.

"From the standpoint of international law, we were a victim of aggression," Fischer said. "But it was only made possible by a significant number of fanatical Nazis and Nazi sympathizers here."

Gusenbauer, who heads today's the coalition government, said constant feuding between his Social Democrats and their conservative partners was not good for democracy's image and called for unity.

"It would be a mistake to think the people are amused by this political dueling. We can see from the dark period of our history what the brutalization of political discourse can lead to," he told the gathering.

About 15 percent of Austrians back two far-right parties which critics say include admirers of Nazism and Holocaust deniers, a charge they deny.

	Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, right, and Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer ahead of a joint session of parliament Wednesday to mark the 70th anniversary of the Anschluss. (AP)