Ruth-Wodak-

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History in the making/Themakingof historyThe German Wehrmacht'n collectiveand individual memories n AustriatRuth WodakUniversity of Lancaster

This paper considers arratives bout raurnaticpasts, sing nterviewswith visitorsof the wo exhibitions bout hewarcrimesof theGermanWehrmacht, hown n Germarry nd Austria 1995and 2002,asexamples.Numerousustificationand egitimizationstrategies re nvolved n publicand privatediscourses. hestudyclains that official genres, uchasschoolbooks or TV docurnentaries,till launchnarrativeswhich exculpateheGerman Wehrmacht s nstitution,although he evidence rovidedby his-toriansand the exhibitions s ovenn'helming.he opoi tsed suchasHoingone's uty';'all wars are he same'; nd so crrth)are o be foundin similardebatesn other countriesaswell. lence, his case tucly llustratespattenlsof argumentation hichoccurmuch moregenerallyhanonly n thespecificnational contexts tudied n detailhere.Ker,vords:Recontexualization;iscourse trategy;egitimizationstrategies;discourse fjustification; iscourse-historicalpproach;riangulation;opoi;context;German {ehrmacht; ictim-discourse;ar-crime; xhibition;interview

IntroductionOutlineof thepaperEvery ociety as o dealwith traumatic ventsn its past, e t wars, evolu-tions, torturing, masskillings, genocide, violence and rape, and so forth. Oftenenough, taboos surround such wents in the public sphere, or oflicial narratives

loumalof Language ndPolitit:s :r (zoo6). :5-r54.rssN .569-2 59 Fj-lssN 569-9862O John lcnjarninsPublishingCornpany@2006. ohn Benjamins Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved


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126 Ruth Wodak

.are onstructed hlch gitigate,.relativizS.gg.y*::19!jfy,!ltS-p,a*r,t-1p.gt!cg-Al.g.9{g!srrssrjs:uar-crimes-srp-th";-eise9."Sg$3:Ig"t'X:i::-*sgqslrtljl..p'od"9ig,ht9:glib:,_9:::*n::gg4:L*P^?g\*-Y"ei-eeu-.''l.l"gt---*t.#-f;- -^."d- i-"-- '- - '- - ' " "':s ol famrltesallc acrossgergtgliisq-lrgtqI|itt-.ginrhe-p"riv-aJs--'r-t:lsfilfinlJls--e}agro99-g-e"r.g3:'.9l:*Thir p"p.t provi


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History in the ntaking/The rnaking of bistory r27

the past:schoolbooks, ebatesn the Austrian parliamentand cabinet,andprint mediasuchasclocunentaryilmson'Stalingracll y means f con-trasting lifferent ublics school,mediaandpolitics) t is possibleo {bllowthe recontextualization f topoi andarguments, s well as nterpretations.Thecontradictionsetweennclividual ublicsaud within a singlenstitu-tion alsobecomevisible.Of course, oth in Germanyand Austria we arenot dealingwith linear continuitiesand homogeneousroupsor opinions.Debates lways ake place n public and privatediscursivespaces.Ihe in-vestigationof debates uggestshat specificpolitical interestsand there-fore specific deologiesmight be latent arrd brm subtexts.We thereforeattempted o detect he most rrrportant haracteristicsf the debates nthe Wehnnachtn Germany nd Austria.Recollection nd socialmemory are determinedboth individu?,lly ndcollectivelEThroughanadditionalanalysis f individual stories/narrativestold by visitors o the exhibitions, ield letters iom the EasternFront andthe anonyrnous eplies o aquestionnaire y former membersof the Wehr-macht, t waspossible o reconstructndividualexperiences,eliefsandobservationswhichwerecondenseclnto collectivenarratives r shroudedin silenceHeer2003;Benke ndWodak2003a, ).Finally,we alsopursued he questionof lrow (popular) art addresseshetopicof the Wehrmacht.or hisweused he multimodalanalysis f a Ger-man TV 'Scene-of-the-Crime'detectivestory which lvas situatedat theWehrmachtxhibition PollakandWodak2003).

optionsexist:siGcoffiiation and social debate.The choice of a optionta-f=Fn6ff fiG;ilTtrstrTQfindmainlycontext-dependent.

The cornplexity of this topic essentially equiresan inter-disciplinary approach,at both theoretical and methodological evels.Accordingly,the discourse-his-torical approach rvas. pplied, lvtritural

In manycountries,manycontinueo clemandhe'famous uling-off': vhykeep alking abouthistoryand storieshathappenedmore han 50years go?This seems ery strange, incehistory devotestself- rvithoutgetting ntoanydisagreenrents to facts, ources nd nterpretationshat nraybe thou-sandsof yearsold. The reluctances certainlymore related o other elementsin contemporary istory:maybe, ecauseuncomfortable'questions ould be

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128 Ruth Wodak

asked; ilences broken;and here s often alk of guilt,crimes,ustificationandreparations', nd hereboth the culpritsand their victims arestill alive (Thies-meyer2004).In his situation, ciences also nevitably rawn nto the ieldofgravity of 'thepoliticsof thepast'; t adoptsone position or anotherand thusparticipatesctivelyn thediscursiveonstruction fhegerrronic istoricalnr-ages. n my own vien',social sciences erve he reilection of socialprocesses,thus also of the abovementioned debates. he prastepeatedlyand necessar-ily also encroaches pon the presentand the future: in other words,withoutthe pastwe can neitherunderstand or plan he present nd he future.Ourown scholarlynterest onsists f questioningriticallywhathasnever r rarelybeenquestioned,f understarrdingt andmaybe lsoexplainingt. 'Critical_lyihowever, oesnot necessarily eanseeing omethingnegatively'(as soften-------a---understood n everyciayanguage), ut illurrrinating t in a diff'erentiateclvayand from many perspectives, iving new answers nd ultirrratelyalso askingnew and diftbrent questions.'lheAust:rianContextAustriansoldierswerepartof theGermanWehrmachfecause ustriawas n-corporatednto the GermanReich n March 12th,1938seesinder1966).'Ihemalepopulationwas orced o be part of the Germanarmy;there wasalmostno way o resist eing ecruited. herewerealso, f course, argenumberofvoltrnteers. he Wehrmachf nlisted18 million people including0.5 rnillionwomenandabout1.2million Austrians)hroughoutWWII.In thispaper, amclealingwith survivorsof the F,astern ront, he Angrtfs-kriegl(Warof Aggression) gainst he former SovietUnion, wheremillions ofWehrmachtoldierswerekilled,and alsomillions of Russian oldiers,morethan three million Russian risoners f I'ar (of a total of 5,7),and millionsof civilians.'Ihiswar wascalled he'Vernichtungskriegj(Warf Annihilation).The famousorder by the high-rankingarmy officerReichenau10.10.1941)askedor the "erbarmungsloseusrottung rtfremderHeimti.rckend Grausam-keit und damit die Sicherung es "ebens er deutschenWehrmachtn Ru!3land.Nur .sowerdenwir unserer eschichtlichenufgabe erecht, as deutscheVolkvon der asiatisch-jildischenefahrein iir allemalzu befreien.t"The exhibition"Yernichtungskrieg.erbrechener Wehrmacht 941bis 1944"was he first ex-hibitiorr, penedn 1995,o show n publicwarcrimes ommitted y theWehr-macht, ather hanby otherofficialNazigroups uchas he SSand heSA.Theexhibitioncaused umerous candalsn manyGermananclAustriancities ecanset destroyedhepost-warmythof the saubereWehrmacht'clean



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History iu the making/The rnaking of lristory rz9

Wehrmacht)Pollak2002).'Ihe housands f documents films,photosandletters) showed hat the institution of the Wehrmachtand many ol'its agentswere an inherentpart of the exterminationmachinery;ur example,ensofthousands f |ewsweredeportedor killed with the helpof Wehrntacht oldiers.In Austria,n particular,he myth wasalsopartof a argernarrative, hich al-lowedAustriaand Austrians o denyguilt andparticipation n anyof the crimesunder he NS-system. eferringo the Moscow )eclaration f 1943 Siegler1959),Austriaclaimed o be the firstvictim of Nazi Germany', ndwith regardto the Wehrmacht, ustria and Austriansstressedhe fact that soldierswereforciblyenlisted n the Wehrmacht nd hus only 'fulfilled their dutylNot surprisingly hen, formerAustrian(or German) soldiersof the Wehr-machtvisitinghe exhibition laimedhat heyhadbeeneither orced o com-mit crimesor that they had not seenor known anything seeWodaket al .1994;Heer1999;Manoschek 993;Beckerman 998;Naumann1998).Thus,theproblem:Who knewrqhat, awwhat,did what'became entral n the de-bates.Numerousustificationstrategies,ationalizations,quatingstrategiesanddenialswere he discursive onsequencesee elow).In general,he moral problemof the guilt and responsibility f Austria,and heparticipation f its peoplen the National-socialisttate, asstill rrotbeenadequatelyebateclseeaspers 946;Mitten 2000;Brainirr, igeti,Teicher1993), lthougha huge eflection rocesstartedwith the so-called'WaldheimAffair'in 1986 seeWodaket al.1990;Mitten 1992). hese uestions avebe-comepartof Austrianscholarly ebatesnd alsoof prolitical iscussionsBotzand Sprengnagel994).Ihe formerUN GeneralSecretary, urt Waldheim,had always efended imselfby clairning hat he had'bnly donehis duty'i 'Ihedenialof responsibilitytrr its part in the NS-crimes nd the foregroundingof being he 'firstvictim' is still a characteristicf Austrianpoliticalculture,and he fopos f 'justdoing onet duty' remains nrnipresent,n schoolbooks,speechesf presiderrtsnd n the media seeGruber1991;Reisigl 004).Thispaper ocuses n hon'individualsdealwith qugs.._t&$f31r:Larlg;g.

asponsibility.ln-interviewsnd morespecificallyn threecaseitudies, ndividu-als of eachof threegenerations f spectators re nvestigated:hosewho wereactively nvolved in the Wehrmacht;he sonsof the Wehrmacht eneration;and finally the nextgeneration,he grandchildren.What are he diflbrencesandcontinuitiesn thestories bout hepast oldby different enerations?seeErdheim1992)And how do the individualsposition hemselves her: heyareaskecl bout hesememoriesor their knowledgeof the Wehrmacht rimesin the contextof theexhibition Benke ndWodak2001,2003a,; Heer2003;Heeret al. 2003)



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13o Ruth Wodak

Theoretical considerationsto Reinhard Kosselleck, rises n the polar-ity n'exoeriential pace' n d'horizon of expectation' . xueriential uace

is taken to mean the "entire of the past" to which ahasaccess, (K.t*11..k 1997). 1*eolarityof the two modesofbeilLgdevj.loLs l-4 l-r"_"_4iZ*ed-i!lreli:Ln_p*r9qgntof a particularculture.The present,n this, sjb--.*:{f$t:{4grqgllrgggnt.pastand the immediate uture.Culture n this contextmeans a historicallyhanded ownsystem f meanings, ith the assistancef whichhumanbeingspass n, maintainand urtherdevelopheirknowledge f ife and heir attitudeto life (Geertz1987)Historical onsciogsnessq lrusgenelrnovernentwhich, ins from the horizon of atioro n t space f rienceand gainsmaterial rqmdeve ment of the t a s

importantly, we adopted the innovative model that lvas left incom-plete by Maurice Halbwachs under the title la m4moire collective,which waspublishednosthunrouslv rr 1950.The fact that one doesnot rememberalone-, but also uses he memories of others,arrcl hat one grows up surrounded byphenomena ancl gestures,sentences nd images,architectureand landscapesthat are full of strange pasts that preceded the subject, enabled Halbwachs tclaim t of a tollective me l s aviewpoint on the collective memor 967: 3l ) In this qrasi-collection oft thepaststorecln it, thereoccurssomethingsimilar to theway n which individualmemoryworks.As Halbwa-chsobserved,fin thefeels hat it has remained constant and becomes awareof the identitv that italwaysfreservedl' (Halbwach 1967:74)Many recent empirical investigations illustrate the f'unctions and function-ing of group memories of this nature. Angela Keppler, for exa.mple,has inves-tigatedcommunication withi! farrrilies:For families, t ernerges hat the samething holds true in a limited framework as s true for cultures in a much morecomprehensivespace:without their orvnpracticeof recollecting heir own pastfamilies could not guarantee any reliable version of their present."(Keppler1994, 001

In his researchproject on National Socialismand War in family conversa-tions, Harald Welzer demonstrated how through tumulative heroization' ofone's own family members, there arises a g

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History in tlre making/The rnaking of lristory r3r

I larr.ati\rehatclairns.ro-bec_n19d'ep-e+dentp_a$!!ql-gg!T-g_l31g$itilgrbgryb-licly disseminaled lcJq;-e*gf ationalsocialismand the participation of thecommunity n its crim;*tW.if;iOOi' Z) gannesHeer,usingsuchvariedmaterialas etters o the organizers ndentries Lyis!!-o-lslbooksn the exhibi-,..."--.-%_.:-tion 1995,was able o show horv somegroupsof former soldierseither uniteclru' rvv'' wasaDreo 5i9"y_l9lff9g9"gg:gx.l loillL:olgrgl!:lll"gl*y:llgl:fanatically -tcommunity_t-!!b'fh"ir^f"411."tr_.rd'q49"9.._er$"g"irtran comraqes or else qlsllnqulsneclthemsekd;i:"'aeienr-onesl":nsg*s*l-o*lE_gl}g"grvtey9lgrilr.-r-s,lhL9&ryI_q!![g!: the SS, he party bosses,hereiiogradeunits, he partisans,heAnglo-Americanerrorbombers ndso orth.(Heer1999: 85ff)Life stories, s analyzedn the abovementionedprojects, ut also else-where seeLinde 1993), re usually old in sucha way,g!_.!oresenthe nar-rutot ?t un nt.r{rgtq.l trd.@, thur dr;ing;;;;bGexpsriencesyhiEh iivanDijk 2000, an Dijk 19s4). he nterviewsn theexhibitionarepartial ifestoriesn confrontation ith thedocumentedrimes osted n the wallsof theexhibitionroorns,which suggest narrativediftbrent rom theone usually oldabout he past.Ppopleel lpersona

sL4&ig4_9l49tr_y_o_l_bgltgtlqtalggqt ve! m.e*l:prissaso ad-just them to their moral values,draw_onhg e_xpfigrl:e,g.ofan0ily ne"nhel$4Id t!!9glel9lb*_p in-tg-lhejr own story, whichjfqggl1Ls^lh"e11-y._et1-119$gryl_reaction o this contexi.'rr,"." riir?i.s?*;"tr;;try t;;ffffib;; ilm storiesofeither Holocaustsurvivorsor perpetrators,ecordedunderdifibrentcondi-tions seeSchiffrin2000,Rosenthal 997).In our interviews, he confrontationwith the bther, factual'narrativedoesnot takeplacen a sheltered pace;t takes lacen publicor at east emi-pub-Iic.Normsof thepublicdiscussionbout he NS-past ncl he shoaharepres-ent,andwith that adiscoursen whichdescription,xposition nd so on oftencannotbe easilydetachedrom evaluation nd personal ppraisalNeidharcltandBischo{, 000;EnsinkandSauer 003). hus, lrequestion fpersorral ndcollectiveguilt is a frequentexplicit and implicit topic. This is all the more-.the case ince he exhibitionstresseshat the Wehrmacht'asan institutional Ibodywasco-responsibleor the Holocaust,or the killing of rnillionsof Rus, IsianPOWsandJews, nd or otherwarcrimes. *)Drawirrgon Fairclough'sheory of intercliscursivitynd intertextuality(Fairclough 995), lvould ike to refer o whatwecliscernn publicdiscourseas olonializationlWe ind that he'victi

of the part. m"s, a c .p,?rti-cuJginstancesof_::fttt"g fot"grq.t"dgd i



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r32 Ruth Wodak

gverallsensitivity o the dualitv of perpetrators nd their specific ictirns, sof utmost mportance. n contrast,holqgygl,an almostunifi:rm cliscourse,r-. t"tpaatin" arf nt"*f uone arge'victimcate&ory'.pd n ryhich he Wehrmacht-soldierndAustrian/Germanciviliarr s THE prototypicalvictirnMitten2000).One story or two)- the story of the suft'ering oldierandcivilian- which in our idealpicture sa relativelymarginalone - becomes HE storv,which seemso form the he-.g.-oni.rrurrotirr"of THEfr iiirn-ianN-ipast@,dismissed,eniedor marqinalized. ranting tatesptace

tasking'who wasa vi

husha in two tellin st()rtexts in w

new storv' an d the con-so that one 'in this context.

we can this colonialization as a hybrid 'misfit' be-weendiscourses,iscourse ions. and?$" tt rya$gll of corlggPtl er. Wearethus confrontecl by interdiscursivity. 01 a theoretical level, t is to be expecteclthat for the generation of soldiers - b@nerations- 'k"o.l"dg.l b.li.ft umoresystems f beliefand understandingrg regue$tlv o-present. n theonehand, hepicturedrawn rom an ndividual's erspectivc',ith her/hisuer-sonal experienced r narrated)C{p_.qfe_er hand the bf{iqlal narreli@ irrscieuj.fclirerature*w*S!-I3t&gn-4"its-wayjs10+ublicmsdia-and-$h;h-o#ers-*n-e'xplanati"en*beyond he ndiviclual'srasrr.deolosical ilemnrashusmanifesthemselves.. #discursivEfirT uch exts Billiget al. 1988).

The second central concept is that of(iecontextualizatio$ (Iederna 1997,Muntigl et al. ZOOO):rgUlnsqts,ocha transmitted ro , from one genre to

ization is one of tof text uction life of i through clifferenthistortimes,genres, ontextsand_qq{g4gg

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conte.rts o thestory, i,e b'hebiteslis,sti^n ,\ndalsnhy s.lighf ha,ngfsn the'sgf*


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History in the making/The rnaking of history r33

ResearchquestionsGiven he general uestion f how hedifferent enerationsof men)dealtwiththeexhibition, ndwith the bther'narrative, swell aswith the projected o-tion of guiltlwhich s associateclith thisnarrative,he ollowing ssues reofrelevance:1. 'Ihe differentgenerations avedifferentaccesso the past.Knowledgeandnot-knowingare ntimatelyassociatedo specificactionsand guilt. Ihediscourse f 'knowinganclnot knowing' s thus,anong other hings,alsoinforrnativeof the ndividual'sperceptionof rvhatconstitutes rraction hat

oneshould eelguiltyabout andwhatdoesnotconstitute uchan action),i.e. t displaysnclirectlyheir present nclerstandingf whatconstituteswar crime and/ormorally repulsiveaction.Thus, he questions f 'how areknowledge/knowing nd not-knowingexpressedn thesenterviews?'and'what is (said o be) known andwhat snot known?'constitute he focusofthis analysis.2. The expression f guilt ancl esponsibility reanalyzeclhrough patternsofargumentation henconfronted ith thewarcrimes.As suggestedbove,justificationanclegitimization laya n:ajor ole n theseargtrnrents,ndtypical tapoi(like doing one's uty') areoften o be ound. In the concreteanalysis,he followingquestions re elevant:

a. What are hemacro- and micro topoi andstrategiesn the interviews?b. Which topoiate he same,which aredifferent or the different genera-tions?How are hey recontextualized?Finally, he ullowingcontroversialssue hould epointed o: he ntervieweesare ilrled and nterviewed y RuthBeckermar:.uthBeckermansan Austri-an-Jewishilm producer, econd eneration f Holocaust urvivors.Her styleof interviewing ometimesakes n accusatoryones, nd,on tlreotherhand,follows moredistanced orms of interviewing.The answers nd narrativesarethus co-constructedn the interview and context-dependentn the questionsand low of arguments.Ihe recontextualizationf the nterviewsnto herwide-ly acknowledgedilm "Eastof War" unfortunatelyhas o be neglected eredueto space estrictionsPollakandWoclak 003).

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r34 Ruth Wodak

Context and DiscourseModelThegeneraltheoret ical framework1brthispaperist@approach, hich was clevelopedo investigate istorical, rgq{zatlonalancllolitical toplcsE-ndexts seeWcrdak t al. 1990; eisigl ndWodak2001 or anextensiveiscussion).

thehistorical ourcesnd he nd of the social and politin whichdGcu 'events'are

rsive actions by the in which particular senres-+.....#grenlton aI dlscursrve actronsDy explorrng tne ways ln wnlcn aaflrgql3lgenlgq%of dis pyrs,e*g!qliggllg," 9**gtg-9h*4" (Kov6c and Wodak2003 Intfris process, he non-linguistic theoretical approachesare not only neededas'informationlbut deemed ecessaryo do justice o the complexphenomenaunderdiscussion.

,N:i'rft--"*lt6$:{g;n-Ug'-r. Tirgrasp he nterplayof the dif-and lror,r'itcould be conceivedof from a methodologicalperspective.

This model of the context akes nto accouffi; the first one ispurely i"g"i.ti., b*-d o"Th. choiceof a specifi.cheory of grammifG[ii6-;ffifilth-t*-i.vels arepart of relevantsoqia!-!hgg!!g!.,:fornderstanding nd.'[email protected] o makechoices boutparticularmiddle-rangeheorieso analyzethephenomenaocated t herespectiventerpretativeevel:

The irnrnediate, anguageor text internal [e'g' inguistic theoriesonintensification,predication, semanticverb classifications tc'1,tk_.1!lg$94$l lld !.1elii"g_fu"1s-iv_e..1"efgti-q.qs$t,!:yeettltterancegenres nddiscoursesdiscourseepresetrtationndallusionsr evoca-

. ' . . . ' + * F - - - . - . . - -t ons}l-eE-F'6ffi-a c theo y argumentation th eo y ,tlggl11:]iryg5lic so.ci-al.Ao,ciologicalariallesand nstitutional rameso{aspecificjontql! g&lly_4igt' (MiddleRangeTheories) e.g.psychology f. , : - -trauma],andthe broader socio-pgli$-gdjgblqlgggal -Sgplsxls-whichhe discursiveplaefeadiid e^Ueaaea n and related o; that is to say, he fieldsof actionand the history of the discursiveeventaswell as he history to which thediscursiveopicsare elateclsee lsoCicourel1992)'

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t n l

//i 4.\\,J


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History in the making/The rnaking of bistory 135

In briel this model locates he different heories as they are applied n theanalysis.In accorcianceith the discoursemodelpresentecln ReisiglanclWodak(2001),he activityoftaking part n an nterview onstitutes socialpractice,rvithin an affiliated'genrd telglg$v. This activity has a number of (lin-guistically elevant)properties:An interview s usuallya two-party corlversa-tion, in which onepersonasks/isn control, he other answers/responds,othparticipantsare co-presentand frequently in the contextof the exhibition- strangers swell.These eatures etermine he propertiesof the genre. lhe

interesting equencesor the ocus n thispaper oncernmemorizingtheNS-past'or nrorespecifically,memorizingthe Wehrmacht'(in ustria).Thisdiscoursesmanifestn a numberof difi-erentields f action e.g. ub-

lic addresses n daysof corrrmemoration, rivatestories, iterature, adio andTV documentaries nd the like; seeMartin andWodak2003).The nterviews- video-taped n the exhibition- makeexplicitreferenceo othermanifesta-tions of this discourse:o the exhibition,books,war moviesand plays, etters,private photos,conversations.Ihroughoutthe interviews,a number of topicswere ntroducedby the interviewees.n the conclusions,will comeback othese opicsand the associatediscourses ncldiscuss ow the intervieweesnegotiatedheirpast hrough heirspecific hoice f narratives, rguments nddiscursive trategies.

Methods of analysis,ustification strategies nd some llustrative examplesThe i of the nterviewswasperformed n four'!"_fg!r"(glglana

(see an Leeuwen1995).in lris widely acknowledgedbook, Dead Zones(1999),Hannes Heer pro-

vides a first typology of responses o the exhibition,z specifically to the claimthat the Wehrmacht was systematically involved in war crimes. In this paper,his typology is elaboratedand combined with the strategies fjustificatiorr andlegitimization discoursesexplicatecl n previous studies on anti-Semitic clis-courses n Austria (seeWodak et al. 1990;Benke and Woclak 2A03a,b; vanLeeuwen and Wodak 1999). HorverrerJ ne major differencemust be pointedto between the respective analyses: he letters analyzed by Heer were in somesense voluntary and uninterrupted monologues, whereas the interviews are



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136 Ruth Wcrdak

comprisedof dialogueswith a sometimesatheraggressivelyntervierving ilmmaker.The settingalsodiffersfrom the abovementioned studiesof anti-Se-mitic discoursen contemporary ustria for instance he study of the anti-Semitic ublicdiscourseuring heWaldheimAflair in I986) n wlrichpeoplejustifr and egitimize henrselvesn publicdiscoursevithout herebeinganyovert accusation. n those cases, imilar discursive trategies re o be found,yet the accusation eemso be nternalized.ln the analysis resented elow, ocuson th" "rttr" "f mgFor example, "r,ilg-1$lgi9g.is a ineuisticst re.!"t!*.gsvtf!lerysslbe"BlIpgs9{:r}$$lt's--919-!*qspresentingolesJnlilg pr-tSselfavo.rabl.lg-3tjg* eqc.e. rate iesare n tu n re*li"r"q*jLparticularigguistiq t*r[!,,&texaw]e, FxJriv.in&gl-?g_gy:lgyl"lj3#jg&L__srrseand lgng'3i"31;1nls*lys_:n*:*o*on.Avery,ilrpo4glg1sqnsi{-e{o2o"i*Lq*99.Tll9*3'g}gg$g!Fgg.k*9',which are ntended o make he audience r+.y_*"8_*flt_9-*3:_S::::(often byu.itrgu itto.y, ierrpointrr"tsgililt)l -

Diagram I depicts the array of discursive strategies (Benke and Wodak2003a:124).

The main distinction that is clrawn here is whether people orient them-selves o the context, whether they acknowledge hat tlrey are n an exhibitionabout the war crimes of the German arm)', anclwhether tlrey take a specificstance owards that fact (left side)- or not (right side):r---'{A. Ihe first hleeslrategiesnqgalp-thp,yery-qpntext,tleast t heexplicitlevel;- rytaledp-"glp.g*jig.* llt:*:.tyes with respecto theirb;{iefj+-Ihg.._e*iE-tenceof war crimes: ..

i l; refusalso dealwith the ssueat all;2i Clairning gnorance. eople sing his strategy laim hat theydon't/: didnt know anythingabout'whathappenecl';Claiming victim-hood for oneself; eople ollon'ing this strategyofferelaborate toriesabout errible hingsduring andafter he war, hereby

avoiding he issueof war crimesof the Wehrmacht.next strategy ifts the discussio",-9j-n9:_.*gg-lg13!:Kl. Usingthescientificn trategyof scientihc ationa lomepeopleaunchextensivenalysesof theNS-state, hicharemeant o explainhow National-Socialismameto be successfuln Austria, why peoplewere n fovor of the Nazis, and

r/1-f so fiorth.\ C i T:glg[gt_g _sl{.+tegl:f 'posf !ve selLp:esenrarionl.he intsryj_e*Wgs-Islls' 'stories whichportrayher/him ashaving{olg_gg1|a|l*rq$H[g:i


,0


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History n the making/The nakingof history 87

War crimesa.e act"" eilycljhe-actor claims n"jUO,b*{ t? Uu:, t*thegl!9alge-s-oo-t-menti.gnqqq r hls Jelatitrn.towar crimes at all), but tofi67eailed responsibly-ando be morallyfauitiess.'The following strategies cknowledgehe claimsof the exhibitionat somelevels:?r' tv:tg ggdg$e4.

t/ fot the most part, however, eop-19_do ot confroll !!.lut!,_3-11f1.*rg-*eral strategieso justify or deny he war crimes:,D nd"tttlZfqPeople using hiJ strategywill stirt to enumerate rimes- ofother nations, r use lichshat relativizehe past,as n a generali-lA sation ike"everywar s horrible"."QJ -Twostrategieseek oJ5pJrlgelB-s*eg-d9_.)lltionalcausal"Iplullljf -.fo-r hg gJar-c$r1gs.,he irst one simply providesan undisguised on-tinuinguseof NS-ideology,r NS-propaganda,hich was ntroduced

at the time to argue n favor of the war. "If we hadnt fought them,'theRussianwould beat the Atlantic today".Similarll', he secondonesfemsrom theNS-period, ut at eastmplicitlyacknowleclgeshat hemoral status s questionable:Others orcedusl' ("If therehadn'tbeenpartisans,we wouldnt have ouglrta partisan-war".WenneskeinePartisanen egebenhft4 hdtt'sauchkeinenPartisanenkriegegeben.")Thenextstrategy cknorvledgeshat crimes ndeedhappened, nd hatthe anny may be held responsiffionsibilityto someoneg!r-":pg-?.lt-b._lylthin the army: di o;ty aid my d;q/'. W;-locate his strategy'betwJenwe did' and'not wel as h6-irilei'uieweedoesnot takea stance nwhether'the nny'was nvolyed n crimes, rwhether othergroupsare o be helcl esponsible. s with positivesellconstruction,some) ictim-stories nclknowledgemanagement,he

/\ irrtervieweeoregrounds er/himselfas ndividualand backgroundsl \11,\ her/hisassociationith the army.VJ Not'we'but 'them'.This strt@the SS,he sD.'rhe-wettimachtitselfas otinvolved, r only the oneor other'misguided'unit.mes ha In doing so, people

shown in the exhibition) was unthinkable.These liscursive strategies espond to the specific context. People might

employ a number of strateqies hroughout an interview, but their discourse- - + " - ' 9


,.rqt


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r38 Ruth Wodak

crinresexist, but

Stratiies ealillg with the context no-contextualization

Acc4ltance _ Tryiug to uoderstsdoI wat crl4lcs dd comc to tclm$DositiveOonstructior ofsell

Olher$ se ro better(Clich6, "war is rvar')

w did - because

,... . . ' ' V ict imdoing one'sdut), ""

Other uritsq'sDL--- "-" ' . .Not we

dqialoi / (ildividualizatioocr i rnes t & general izat i r r r)

\ corrnt"r-*k n",Good stories (rvc)8ad stories (the others)

Diagramr, strategies f rernemberi'r, "'u'"'

can usually_bgdivided nto parts each of which servesprimarily one of these_functions. Some strategiese-xclude ach other in the intervielv of one person,@ng*e*[email protected] be a ogical onsequence,ut asBillig et al. (1988)havepointed out, logic or logical consistencys not necessarily revalent n dis-course.

In the following I briefly presentsomeexamples f the abovementionedstrategies seeBenke and Wodak 2003a for an extensiveanalysisof thesesequences):r . 'C la imingv ic t im-hood ' :3The irstvictim-storyclaims ictim-statusor a groupof prisonersthat s thegroup of the speaker), nd clearlynames he perpetrators.

M: "Yes,have een oldierrom he25th fAugust 9until hesumrnerf46. nitially ol


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History in the making/The making of lristory r39

weresold to the French,and we were put in a punishurentcampof theforeign egion. f one could not takeoffhis wedding ring, this fingerrvascut offrvith scissors. nd the young men, hey were madebendover,andtheyweresexuallyabused y the Moroccans, ne hasseen hat."

'Ihe victims are realized as the overall passiveobjects, albeit foregrounded inthe subjectposition. The perpetrators (Jews,Canadian, irenchmen, and Mo-roccans)are explicitly named but back-grounded.The strategyof victim-per-petrator reversalprevails.

This is different in the secondvictim-story, in ivhich the narrator clisplayshirnself as he victim in the form of an'I'narrative - although the story makesclear that he is also a member of a whole group of prisoners. In this story, inwhich the victim suffers nalnutrition, there is not a single explicit perpetrator.'Ihe narrator foregrounds that he was a victim, and that the actual perpetratorsare ofno consequence or his story.

M: "I was n . ..xxx t was,yeah, mprisoned wasby the irench. havexxxxthe Svr'iss ed Cross,and x:or said to the people here: IIow are you?''Thanksyou,very welli 'Thankyou, very well' - then I raisedmy handand I said: Pleasemakeanoteof the address f my mother and my wifelHe says:Why?'I say:'Whenyou leave, nd I am slain hat one knowswhere was slainl He did so.Then say: Pleaseput everyonehere on ascale,hen y'ou vill knou' rnore, n hereno one dares o sayanything.'Hewent awayand afteran hour or trvo he camewith a scale ike the onesusedby coal-sellers.was he only oneheput on the scale: had 40 kgi'

C)verall, his victim story is at the sametime a positive story of the 'self',inwhich the narrator preser:ts inrself as uniquely) courageous n a di{ficult situ-ation. This is not an incidental occurrence:GabrieleRclsenthal nd others clis-cuss the lact that Holocaust survivors sometimes use the strategy of focusingon stories of courageous esistance olvards their oppressors vhen narratingtheir deeply humiliating experiencesn ghettos or concentration catrrps. t isgenerally too threatening to solely recount a deeply humiliating experience, toadmit total helplessnessand the loss of agency.Thus, one could speculate thatsuch narratives generally present the victim as a person who still retained somecontrol over the situation. n contrast, n stories n which the'I' is included in a'we',such additional face-preserving strategiesare not necessary.

The third victim-account, finally, is an argument at a fairly abstract level,that none of the soldiers who were but there' started the war, but they were'forced to be there' 'by historical events', .e. through the course of history.



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r4o Ruth Wodak

M: "We did not haveany ime for that. Look, I was n a fighting unit andtherewedid not haveany ime for that. But well, f a civilian wasshootingus, then rvekillecl him. Of course.That s an issueof self-defence. ndnow I will tell you. n the end,war s a struggle or survival or eachof theinvolved nits.None of these oldiers ho are ighting herestarted hewar.No one.But thevwere orcedbv thehistoricalevents o be therel'

2.'Knowledge maintenance':Both, interviewees who 'saw' something and interviewees who claim not tohave seen something or arrything at all, extensively use mental processesofcognition (that is knowing, cloubtingand so on) and perception (seeing,hear-ing), with 'I' as the sensor to support their perspective. 'We' (did not knorv,could not know) appearsonly seldoln,other agentsare absent.

Interviewer: 'As you canseehere[in the exhibitionl there area lot of otherthings he Welvmacht nfortunatelyhad o do as vell,otherwisethewholewar of annihilationwouldnot havebeenpossible.

Interviewee:Well, I'm verydoubtiul,you know.Interviewer: 17,000ewishSerbs,ewswereshot only in Serbia, illed in dit'-fercntrvays.Interviewee: dorit know about hat. In Serbia,or instance didn t seeany.

Moreover,one can hesepeople/you shouldnot fcrrget,hat rve$'ereyoungmen of 18, 19or 20years.Do you thirrk that wesalva differencebetween descendent f Turks, a )ew,or a Dalma-tian? think, in that meltingpot you cant discriminatebetweenpeople.

Interviewer:But n Pinsk hat wasobvious?Interviewee: es,hatwas.First hatwasknown,we weresignalledhat hese

werepeople.Especially ne hing was elling: heyall spokeGer-man. And of course hey weremore ntelligent han most of theothers, vho ve bund n othervillages."

Especially he second nrove * "I dont know because didnt see (myself)"locates he whole processof knowing in the past - one can only knon' whatone saw; the interviewee rejects the whole exhibition as it does not providefirst-hand experience.

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History in the nraking/The rnaking of l:istory r4r

3. Positive self-construction:M: "I alsohada second xperiencen this roop.At thatpoint was militaryrank], and that very day was on patrolduty and the officergave ne anorder.The ollowing thing happened:heyhad aken an escapedRussianPOW a youngman of around20, prisoner n the forest,he was still inuniform, anelhe gaveme the order, shouldgo into the forest and hnishthe thingand returnwithout he man. thensaid o tl,e of{icer: an onpatrolduty.According o thebook I arn not allor,redo leavemy position.He seemed ngryandsaid: his is:finished.dont knotv vhether egave

anorder o someone lse, nd what happenedo the RussianPOW I dontknow Nothing happened o me at alll'

In this account, the narrator setshimself off fronr "this troop' (as opposed toiny troopl 'we',used at some point by most interyiewees), "the oflicer'l "they"('the troop ) constructing himself as a singular hero, 'Il who is the recipient oforders.The soldier resisted did not shoot the POW; i.e."finish the thing") and"nothing happened'l

Three generations: A case studyThe three menThree interviewees are chosen - one male interviewee of each getreration -as examples for different strategic modes of discursive involvement in copingwith the Nazi past.

The interviewee of the'Wehrmacht'generation is a forrrrer Wehrmaclrtf-ficer. In the course of the interview, it turns out that his whole fanrily has atradition over many generationsof malesbecoming professionalsoldiers.Herelates a nurnber of stories and provides long arguments explaining why theWehrmacht acted in one or another way. He completely identifies with theplanning staff of the Wehrmacht (indicated through frequent use of 'we',what'we had to do',while describing how different events forced' the Wehrmacht toattackSerbia.)

The second nterview (M2), with a member of the thilciren'.s eneration',scomparatively short, and we do not learn nruch about the person himself. Theinterview can be divided into two parts - a first part in which the intervieweeprovideshis evaluationof the exhibition, and the seconci ar t in rvhich he tellsa story about his father (what his father did - or rather - did not do). Afterthat, he leaves.



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142 Ruth Wodak

The third interview with a student,and a member of the grandchildren'sgeneration, tartswith a engthyevaluation f theexhibition,conductedwith anumberof arguments.t goeson with a reflectionabout he war crimes whatis t thatshockshe most.After ashort sectionof family history,a engthyargu-ment that disputes he crimes crllows,.e.dicl everybodyknow/carry out thecriminal orders,arekillings of partisans eallya crime?

In analyzing he topicsof eachof the nterviews,a classification f eachut-terancewasproflosed, eterminingwhether t belongedo one of the ollowingfour dimensions:- talkingabout he'pastiaboutwhathappenedn the'Wehrmacht'- negotiating he relation o the intervierver- talking about he exhibition- bringing in other (generally nown) belief's, ssumptions,nowledgeIf one nvestigateshe three nterviewsalong heseines,one inds aremarkabledifference etween he first andthe other two generations. heofficerhimselfaddresseslmostexclusively nly two ditrrensions: e talks about his experi-ences, nd he negotiateshe relationship o the interviewer.All referencesothe exhibitionarebrought n by the nterviewer, ndarenever akenup.This sall themorenotable, s he other wo generations,ith no clirect xperiencefthewar,comment trongly ndcritically n theexhibition.n bothother nter-views, he exhibition s itself an mportant topic.While theyproblematizeheexhibition, heofficerseemso seehe exhibitionasastatetnent bout'his'past,and he s makinga statement bout t)hispast, o counter he former. n all ofthis, heexhibition anbeseen samere ehicleo transmitsome ontent'Thequestions not: s t right andgood o Presenthis o thepublic,but ratherarethe clailrrsrueor not?

The nterviewwith theperson f thesecond enerationhenceforthM2) isquitedifferent.Incontrasto theofficer,who talksa ot of 'thepastl ellinghisversionof the story,M2 evades oing nto 'mediasres', nd opts for interper-sonalstaternents swell asvery general,positiveand unproblematic emarksabout the exhibition. this is also nitially supportedby the interviewer,whoaskshim what he thinks about the exhibition.When the interviewersubse-quently presses im to talk abouthis family history,he providesa short story,interspersedwith negationsand 'belittlements'.After that he abruptly statesthat he would like to end theinterview.The overallstrategy f this interview s a thoroughpersonalization,Irwhich the total subjectivityput forward backgroundshe ssueof (moral)eval-uationandpersonal tance.nstead,he ssue tstake n this nterview s what



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History in the making/The rnaking of history 43

M2 knew(about hecrimes)and did not know,andwhat he has earntand seennow (in the exhibition).The nterviewwith themanof the hird generationhenceftrrth 3) is yetagain ompletely lifferent. venmore han n the secondnterview, nlyshortpassagesfone or two subsequenttterancesccur eferring o the past.Thebulk of thediscourses comprised f statementsbout he exhibition, heper-sonal nteractionwith the ntervieweraswell asof othercontexts eingbroughtin. The personal nteractionwith the interviewer s also different han in theother wo interviews.Whereasensions etweenhe officerand he nterviewerin the first interviewwereapparent,he desire o be iked and accepted y theinterviewern the second nterview s obvious. he hird interviewee eemsto presupposehe mutual acceptance etween he interviewer (who also ex-pressesdmiration f his knorvledge)ndhimself. hiscanbe noticed hroughthe useof a number of solidaritystrategies;.e. he showsconcern hat peoplelesseducatedabout this past (than he and the interviewer)might be misledby the exhibition,and orl anotheroccasion e commentshat a particularat-titudewouldnot be ustifiedf oneconsideredheNazi-victirns|ews).n otherwords, n his nterviewhe constructs n mplicit we'by pointing o third par-ties hat both of themwould supposedlye concerned bout.

lustifuing trivializing and relativizing hepastr. 'I neversawanything!'Thisqgumeg[lll_lopo.s is the most mportant one(seeabove).Thearsumentmeanshat heremighthave een rimes ut hat heperson imselfwasneverpresent r involvedwhen hey happened. he ntervieweesere nnocentbe-causehey had not evenseenanything,not to rlention any possibleparticipa-tion. The war, so former soldiersclaim, was so exhausting nd strenuous hatthey had to survive,and could neverhave nvolved hemselveswith deporta-tions or extermination f Iews,Russian iviliansor other groupsof victims.Theyhadonly heardaboutall this after he war or throughrumours;only othergroups,ike the SSor SA,hadbeenperpetrators.

O: "I dont consider he Wehrmachf scriminals.Theybehavedike all othersoldiers. sually etter han he others. s for theJen's if you ask ne,I didn'tseeany.Iheonly tirne when sarv elvs,t wasa latrourcolumn,and they came from the concentrationcamp and unloaded wood atthe station.

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r44 Ruth Wodak

I: Wherewas hat?O: ThatwasnearGomel(?) Gomel,Bobrisk,sornewheren the centralsec-

tion. So that was he only time. Yes,God, no, Pinsk ?) - that was al-mosta completelyewish own.We rvent herebecause e were o breakthrough he Priebitz(?). nd theremy people ad. herewereso manywatchrnakers orking here.Somehad heir watches epaired. Laughter)They wereable o finish t more or less n a singlenight. r\nd then wemovedon the nextday.

I: So, he Jewsverestill there?O: Yes.They were there,when rvearrived and whi-lewe were there ancl

when we left there. But adrnittedlywe were only in the place br aboutl2 hours.I: Butyou wereanofficer,didn'tyou also. .youcan eadhereholv manyor-

ders herewere. lhat LheWehrrnachfhouldhave ransporlavailable,hatthe Wehnnachfwasgiven he ob of taking part in the shootingof ]ervs.

O: No.I: TheLassmann?),Reichenaurderbehindyou...O: Look, mean, didnt seeany order rom Reichenau.hat s ....Besides

that was not the businesshat n'e wereconcernedwith. I mean,u/ewereconcernedwith carrying out the deployrnentorder, and we did carry itout. Wewerenot interestedn anythingelse, ecause e didrt't have imefor it. That's taskthat...l'

The intervier.r'erstates hat the exhibition showsmany crimes cornmitted by tlreWehrmacht.The immediate rsponseby the olficer is to reject this staternentalthough he is standing in front of the photographs depicting war crimes. Heusesa mental verb "(I) regard" which stresseshis own point of view and con-tinues stating that the Wehrmacht was not criminal. He thus rejects the mainclaim of the exhibition as such. He continues by comparing the Wehrmachtwith other armies: lhe Wehrmachf was the sameas all other armies, errenbetter.He touches on the sensitive opic of 'iewsl and the topos'I never saw arry' ol -lows immediately, embedcled n two justification strategies: he army was notcriminal; other armies are similar.Then he relatesa short story, he only timehe actually DID see ews,which contradicts his previous general staternent,butwhich - as ndividual positive stories alwaysdo - functions as an exception:|ews had brought wood, they came from a concentration camp and he even re-members the name of the village. He continues by depicting a peaceful pictureof felvswho worked as watchmakersarrd vho lived in anothervillage.



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History n the making/The nakingoflristory 4i

The interviewer tries to confront hirn with the war crimes, asking himabout heorders n Ihe Wehrmachto shootor exterminateews.Theofficer e-peatshe opos f notknowing'; ehadnever een r heardof these ommandsandorders.Moreoyer,and hat sthe second mportant fopos, he soldiersweremuchtoo involved n fighting, hey had no time, heywerenot interestednanything else han survival. He concedes aving seen ews,but this uniquestory servesas positiveself-presentation nd as an exception.Otherwise,hehad not seenany ews exceptor the second tory,wherehewasnot involved).'Ihe truesoldier hus'performed is dutyiandhis duty consisted f fighting.

z. 'l am not guilty (do not feel guilty) because XX wason the other side'M2 (second eneration)I: May I askyou something?M2: Yes.I: What kind of impressions o you have?M2: I certainlyknewsomeof it, but I neverknew everything. t is shatteriug,

informative.More shattering would say.I: What did you find particularly . inpressive?M2: I mean, alreadyheardabout t betbre this nvolvement, hat theWehr-

macht was nvolvecl n it to a considerable xtent, which I didnt cluiteknon'to which extent, hat was he essentialhing there.I mean,everl'thing,one could say, nehasalreadyseenmanythings,butthese onnections requitewell documented,think.

I: Did you hear rom your - you ^'ereoo young did you hear rom youruncles, our ather...

M2: This s a bit dificult, perhaps'm the wrongvisitor here. mean, vell, 'mrnoreaflected n theotherside.I: In what sense lTected?M2: xxxx. My father wasnot drafted,but he was n prison.I: Why?M2: Preparation or high treason.I: What did he do?

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146 Ruth Wodak

M2: What great hingscouldhe havedone?My Cod, he waswith the"Ilalr-nensthwiinzler" nothingelse rightwingpararnilitarygroupl.He wasnta hero.Not that. But he's he was uckT o come hrough.I: And thewhole imehe was n prison?M2: No, no.Thenhe was aken n - was upposedo be aken n, and henhewent xxro(underground or the ast 2 years.I: How ongwashe n prison?M2: 16monthsor so.I: OKM2: I'd ike to gonowI: Thankyou!M2: Bye.

'Ihe sonof avictim of the Nazi regime,a member of the Christian Socialistpar-ty, usesanotherjustification strategy: he fact that his father wasput into prisonfor two yearsunder the Nazi regimeservesasobvious egitimization (usingthetoposaf authority);becauseofhis father,he is not a{filiated o the perpetrators,he belongs to the side who suffered.Although he avoids speaking explicitlyabout any victirrrs of war crimes (seeabove), his reference o authority (hisfather) exculpates him (his family) once and for all from any responsibility.'Ihe interviewer tries to press him for some opinions, but apart from saylngthat he is"betrofen" (moved) and that all this is"erschiittenrd" (disturbing),he doesnot talk about details of the exhibition, but switches o his legitimiza-tion strategy. However, the story about his father is not a story about a hero.He obviously experiencesan'lbivalence nd remarks that one dicl not have todo much to be put into prison, as vell as he fact that his f'atherhad not beenahero, which irnplies that he was not a member of the resistatrce.The man leavesthe intervierv quite abruptly and rejects any further questions.

3. And afterwards everything was -'halt' (= simply) - a bit different'The member of the young generation, a student, usesa meta-discourse,ar-gunentations ancl fopoi which are characteristic of academic discourse. Tlvostrategies re nvolved: the relativization of the exhibition by claimirrg that it isone-sicled,hat there are mistakesand that it is biasedby referring to selectedauthorities (scholars,books). And secondly,by using the particle 'halt' that



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evokes the image that the event being described was destined to come aboutthis way by necessity see examplesbelow). Nothing could have beerr doneagainst t happening, he young studenthimselfwas spared his fatebecause ervasborn after the war. Both strategiescan be seenas trivializing the claims ofthe exhibition.

I: "Did you discoveranythingnew or did you know it all already?M2: No, that is to say..

Certainly didnt particularly getl thepicture hrough this exhibition .Ilut through this discussion bout he \lehrmacht can say, ahvays adthe pictureof the rntarnished4/ehnnacht,nd of course 've had o revisethat,yeah,but I wouldhave iked a liftle more objectivitl', nd particu-larly, his doesnt it in at all,I think, this thilrgat the end about he Aus-trian dailynewspapers,here imply his* the culturaldiscussion ithScholten the then Austrian Minister of Education]and so on is broughtinto it, actually hat'sgot nothing to do with it' I think. The ssue s thecrimes of the Wehrmacht whether hey happened r not * and whathappened nd so on and t's ncredibly mportant,but to use his subjectfor the clearparty-political referencefthe directorofthe exhibitionssimply- for the victims too - I think - out of order"'

In this sequence,he states that he woulcl have wished fcr greater objectivity.And he then brings an example rom the exhibition that has nothing to clowiththe photographs and yideos, but with newspaperclippings about the debate nAustria on the exhibition. He thus rejectssomeof the claimsthrough invokingother evidence that doesnot touch the point - an augmentative urove of 'shift-ing the evidence and blamel'Ihe next question by the interviewer "what impressed him most", "whatwas new", then triggers a longer responsewhere the young man draws an anal-ogy with young men of his ageduring the war and then uses he fopos of 'fate';what is implied * if one continues the analogy * is that maybe he himselfrvould havedone similar things; had he lived during WWII.4 The particle'halt'indicates hat in the end, this young generationmight alsohavebeen a victim,a victim of this time and fate.His generation was lucky ("we are doing fine, butthen, things werc'halt'a little bit different"). The interview continues and aftera question about his grandfather:, he young man replies with a long sequence:

I: "Where vas e?M2: IIe was n Franceand n Russia oo.But theyve all got critical captions,thephotos . but t'sveryclilficult, think,becausehereare, herearesomany sectionsand it doesrlt - exactly, wanted o say hat too - that

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r48 Ruth Wodak

doesn comeout hereat all. It rvas uchat'rigmachinerie, he Wbhrmacht,with so marrysectionsand armiesand God knows what else,and it wasnot the case hat everyorder waspassedon. A commissar'.srder, forexample,hat has eallybeenprovedhistorically hat t wasnot passeclnto et'erygroup - shall n'esay by everyofficer.Thathappenedoo...and if you say hey were all like that, that'salways t'rong, hat carit betrue. Of course, reviouslyheonly truth was he wholeof the Wehrmachtis untarnishcrd that can'tbe rue either big, big sections f them werevery involved n all the crimes, hat'scertainly rue, yeah,but if just theopposite s claimed,you becomeunbelievatrle,thinkl'Here, he rejects a generalization that was never suggested by the exhibition.Nowhere rvas t claimed that all soldiershad been criminal; what was claimedwas that the institution of the Wehrmacht had been involved in war crimes.thus, this young man employs the frequently used rhetorical strawman device,tlpical of justilication discourse. He implies that the exhibition is seeking tostate that all soldiers were perpetrators, ancl this would be "unglaubwiirdigj'(not believable).

In all three interviews, multiple justification stratelgies re apparent.How-ever, hey are significarrtly different, anci his is most certainly related to thespecificexperiencesof the men interviewed, to their generation and to theirown biography and family history. All of them employ avoidanceand justifica-tion strategies of various kinds: in the first case, he concept of 'normal war'predominates and serves as an argument to trivialize any war crimes exceptfor war crimes concerning the ]ews.However, he intervieweeen:phasizes hathe as ndividual was not involved in any activities againstJews. n the secorrdcase, he fact that the interviewee'sather was in prison is argument enoughto spare the interviewee any further questiorrs or tlroughts. in the thircl case,the academicgenre is used to restrict war crimes to certain actions only andto shift the discussion to another level. The different quality of relativizing andtrivializing strategies s also related to the differing personal involyement in thewhole subject rrratter. The officer was personally present, the 'son experiencedhis father's ate at first hand, and the young man has heard storiesbut is alreadyfar removed from the en:otional upheavalsof the other t$'o persons.

Conclusions'Ihe interviews are all part of the larger discourseof coming to terms with Aus-triat NS-past. n the interviews, a number of topics, opoi and argumentative



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History n tlremaking/The nakingof history r49

strategieswhich are typical in the debateabout the past are apparent. 'Ihe top-ics arepartly the same,partly different ftrr the interviewees:

Each nterviewee startsby talking about his family. n the caseof M2 this isinitiated by the interviewet but neverthelessM2 coulcl haverejectecl r evadedthe question. In two of the interviews (the officer and the young man), thecrimes against so-called partisans are treated as intrinsic phenomena of 'hownormal wars are', gnoring and denying the evidence brought forward in theexhibition, that the so-called partisans'weremostly not resistanceighters butcivilians - including women, children and |ervs. n both cases,ews are clearlysetoffas either not being killed or humiliated by the Wehrmacht,or more im-plicitly asbeing a cliffererrtssue' contrasting hem with the partisans),some-thing which should not be brought up in this context (of the exhibition).

The one narrative, n which neither |ews nor partisans appear at all, is atthe same time the only interview of the three in which interdiscursivity to the(so u'ell documented) discourseof victim-hood'is manifested(seeabove). nthis interview, the father, who was a party member of the fascist Austrian party,which governed Austria before the Anschluss, urns up as a victirn - as hewas put into prison by the Nazis after the Anschluss. n the end, then, none ofthe three interviewees olcl 'victim stories'(or mentioned victims), in whichvictims of the crimes of the Wehrnrachtareclearly acknowledgedas such. ewsare something 'separate'(anclnot to be talked about, silenceprevails;Wcrdak2A04),partisansand their'handling'the product of a irormal war'.In what istold, families and family stories turn up as an irnplicit sub-text - obviously50 years did not make this a remote past which is easy to coprewith. Instead,this past s as close o home as can be. Not surprisingly then, ustification andlegitimization strategies re presnt n all texts.

Two particular strategiesand.topoiweremost frequently employed n theseinteiviews: problematizing 'knowledgd (one"s wn, or other people'sknowl-edge),and disputing the concept of 'war crime' (i.e.killing of partisans s nota crime but a'normal'part of war). Sometimesboth strategies oincide, illus-trating the difficulty of coming to terms with this past - for every generation- very clearly.

The exhibition not only confronted collective and individual memorieswith historical facts,but also- as was shown by press eports, the interviewsof Ruth Beckerman, he TV thriller Bildersturm- it exposed his legitimizingand justificatory discourse n public (seeHeer et al. 2003).5Since it dici thisnot only r.r'ith exts but also through images the locationsof crimes togetherwith the criminals), it let loose a f'ear which possibly already implied its end.The public rejected the narrative suggestedby the exhibition 1995; however,

O 2006. ohn BenjaminsPublishing CompanyAll rights reserved


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r5o Ruth Wodak

the newnationalnarrative anneverbe the sameasbefore.Thepresentationof the revisecl xhibition n Vienna n 2002againstartedvigorouscontroversyandmanydebatesUhl 2003).Thus, he topic- not surprisingly remainsexplosive nd open.

Notes* 'Ihis paper s part o[t]re li nished and now publishedresearch rojcct "History in t]rc Mak-ing. Confrontation with a 'I'aboci'of the Wittgenstein Research lenter: I)iscourse, Politics,Identity, at the Austrian Acadernyof Science nd the University of Vienna (principal investi-gators:Ruth Wodak and Walter Manoschek,seehttp://rlwwunivie.ac.at/discourse-politics-identity). This research vasmade possibleby the Wittgenstein Prize grantedto Ruth Wodak1996by the "Fondszur Fdrderungder wissenschafiIichenorschuttgi'FWF), which is herebygraciously acknowledged.This paper s an elalroratedpaper of a short presentationof RuthWodak and Gertraud Benke at the IPRA conference2000, BudapestJuly l lth. (Benke andWodak 2001, 2003a,b). Needless o say, his paperwould neverhave beenpossiblewithoutGertraud Benl


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History n the making/Themaking of lristory r5r

of argumentation/lcgitirnization and ustilical"ionmatch the discursivepatternsdescribed nthis paper,although, of course, he context s different in so many ways.Our general point,however, s well illustrated: societieshave remendous difliculties in dealing with traumaticpastswhich do not match their overall official dernocratic valuesand their national mythsand narratives.

ReferencesBeckerman,R. 1998.Jenseits es Krieges: hemaligeWehrmachtssoldatenrinnern sich.Yi-

enna:Lricker.Renke, G. and Wodal


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Heet H. 1999.Tot:e anen. Die deutscheWehrmachtan der Ostfront,Hamburg: HamburgerFldition HIS.

Hecr, H. 2003.Das Haupt der Medusa. n: H. Heer, W. Manoschek,A. Pollak and R. Wodak(eds).Wie Ceschichte emachtwird. Zur Konstruktion von Erinnerungenan WehrmachtunclZ.weitenWeltkrieg,Vienna: Czernin Verlag, 245-268,

Heer, I, Manoschek,W., Pollak, A. and Wodak, R. (eds).2003. Wie Geschichteemachtwird.Zur Konstruktion von Erinnerungen an Wehrmachtund Zweiten Weltkrieg.Vientra:Czernio Verlag.

lederna,R. 1997. nteractionalDynamicsancl SocialChange:PlanningasMorphogenesls. n-publisheddoctoral hesis,Universityof Sydney, ustralia.

Jaspers, . 194611979. ie Schuldfrage. iir Viilkermordgibt eskeine VerjcihrungMiinchen:Piper.Keppler, A, 1994. Tischgespriiche. ber Formen komnnmikativer Vergemeinschafiungm

Beispielder Konversation n Familien.Frankfurt arn Main: Suhrkamp.Keppler,A, 2001. SozialeFonnen individuellen F,rinnerns. )ie konrrnunikative Tradierung

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Naumanr, K. l99tl. Der Krieg als'Ibxt. Das Jafu 1945 m kulturellen Gedtichtnisder Presse.Hamburg: Hamburger F,dition HIS.Neidhardt, L and Bischof,W. (eds.).2000.Wir sind die Guten.Antisemitismus n der radika-

len Linken. Mtinster: Unrast.Pollak, A. 20Q2.Die Weltrmachtslegenden Osterreich.DnsBild der Welrmacht im Spiegel er

iisterreichischen resse ach .1945. ienna: Brihlau.Pollak,A, and Wodak R. 2003. Tatort'Wehrma chtsausst ellungin: H. Heer et al. (eds),

Wie Geschichte emachtwird. Zur Konstruktion von erinnerungenan Wehrmacht undZweit:enWeltkrieg.Vienna: Czernin Yerlag,225 244.

Reisigl,M. 2004.WieMnn eine Nation herbeiredet. inediskursttnalytischeUntersuchung ursprachlichenKonstruktion der iisterreichischen ation u,xd isterreichischendentitiit inpolitischenFest-und Gedenkreden, npublished I)issertation.University of Vienna.

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Wodak, R., Menz, F., Mitten, R., and Stern,Ofentli chesGeclenkenn iisterreichischenSuhrkamp.

Wodak, R., and van Diik, T. A. (eds).2000. Racismat the Top.Parliarnentary Discourses nEthnic lssuesn Sk European States. lagenfurt: Drava.

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Author\ addressRuth WodakDepartment of Linguistics and English LanguageLancasterUniversityLAl4YTUnited KingdomEmail: [email protected]

About heauthorRuth Wodak is Professorof DiscourseStudiesat LancasterUniversify.Besides arious otherprizes, she was awarded the Wittgensteiu Prize for Elite Researchersn 1996 and is alsohead of the Wittgenstein ResearchCenter "Discourse,Politics, Identity" at the Univer$ityo{'Vienna. Her research nterests ocuson discourseanalysis;gender stuclies;anguageand/in politics; prejudice and discrimination; and on ethnographic methods of linguistic fieldwork. She s member of the editorial board of a rangeof linguistic journals and co-eclitorcf the journals Discourse& Society,Critical DiscourseStudies, and Languageand Politics.Shehas held visiting professorships n Uppsala,Stanford University, University Minnesota,University of East Anglia and GeorgetownUniversity. Seehttp://www.ling.lancs.ac.ulVstaff/rvodak/index.htm and http:i/wwwunivie.ac.at/discourse-politics-identity for more infbr-mation on on-going researchprojectsand recentpublicirtions.


F. 1994. Die Sprachender Vergangenheiten.und deutschenMedien. Frankfurt am Main:

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