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It is a masterful scandal, in the Austrian style. It crossed theatre and politics and broke out in the autumn of 1988, with the creation of a new play by Thomas Bernhard. It was commissioned by the writer on behalf of the director Claus Peymann, director of the Burgtheater in Vienna – the equivalent of the Comédie-Française – which is celebrating its centenary. Only its title is known: Heroes’ Square (Helden Squarein the original version), named after the square in Vienna where, on 15 March 1938, an enthusiastic crowd gathered to cheer Hitler after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany.
Thomas Bernhard and Claus Peymann want the content of Helden Square The play will remain a secret until the premiere, scheduled for October 14, the day of the jubilee. The production team is asked to remain extremely discreet. In vain. In Vienna, theatre is part of everyday life and the newspapers are on the lookout. They announced that four actors from the Burgtheater had refused to perform the play, from which excerpts have finally appeared: “Austria is a cesspool without spirit or culture.”
The Austrians? “Six and a half million delusional idiots.” The president? “A liar.” The chancellor? “A securities trader.” Antisemitism? “Hatred of Jews is the purest nature of the Austrians (…). There are more Nazis in Vienna now than in 1938. They are coming back. (…). They come out of all the holes (…)They are just waiting for the signal to be able to act openly against the Jews.
These extracts set fire to the dust. They rekindle a still open wound: the Waldheim affair. Born in 1918, Kurt Waldheim developed a diplomatic career that earned him recognition at the highest level: from 1972 to 1981 he was Secretary General of the United Nations. In 1986, he campaigned to be elected president of his country when the press revealed his involvements with the Nazi regime. Conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1941, Waldheim was sent to the Eastern Front, where he was wounded and then treated in Vienna. In his autobiography, In the eye of the storm (Ed. Alain Moreau, 1985), writes that he did not return to the front, but remained in Vienna where he continued his law studies until the end of the war.
Country gagged by Catholic hypocrisy
Documents published by newspapers contradict this. Kurt Waldheim served from 1942 to 1945, his unit was under the command of Alexander Löhr, “the Butcher of the Balkans”, who committed atrocities in Bosnia, and he witnessed the mass deportation of Jews from Cordoba and Salonika. These revelations outrage the international community and inflame Austria. Kurt Waldheim defends himself by claiming that, like all “good” Austrians of his generation, he did not “than his duty”. He was finally elected on 8 June 1986 with almost 54% of the vote, but Austria had to confront for the first time its carefully buried anti-Semitic past.
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