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Article: Moral Blindness--Some Austrian Instances.
- Article from:
- Midstream
- Article date:
- September 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Theodor Herzl Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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There are undoubtedly many decent, democratic, and unprejudiced Austrians, and it would be totally unfair to blame the country for having been the birthplace of Adolf Hitler. However, for those who heard many of Der Fuhrer's speeches in the thirties, one of the favorite phrases of that self-proclaimed Man of Destiny may still ring in the ears: "Es is kein Zufall...." ("It is no accident....")
It was no accident that Hitler was the product, to a significant extent, of a country in which some ten million German-speaking people exercised a rather precarious dominance over some 55 million people with different languages and ethnicities. It was no accident that, in ...