Karl Pfeifer has written an insightful and penetrating essay for Z Word in which he dissects the unwillingness of Austrian social democrats to confront antisemitism - and their willingness to deploy it.

“From 1945 onwards,” Karl writes, “a central tenet of Austria’s distortion of its own past was the half-truth, originating in the Allies’ Moscow Declaration of November 1943, which designated the country as the ‘first victim of Nazi aggression.’ For the Austrian political establishment, the argument was a simple one: from 1938 to 1945 Austria did not even exist. Thus Austrians could not be held responsible for what happened to their Jewish compatriots and only the Germans were to blame for the Holocaust. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.”

From the dark days of the post-war era, through the Chancellorship of Bruno Kreisky and into the present day, Karl - whom many readers will know from his contributions to this blog - relates a depressing story of denial and shameful compromise.