Austria kinda creeps me out.
Rest assured, I have no reason to be so out-creeped—it is not my area of study, I’ve never visited, I used to enjoy this bar/restaurant in Minneapolis that served Austrian food, and I have fond memories of my time in The Sound of Music—but somethin’ about the place sets me off.
Hitler! You might say: It’s Hitler!
Ehhhh, maaaaybeee—except I’m not creeped out by Germany. Yes, der Futur Führer was born and grew up in what is now Austria, but he was just a whiny loser as he mooned about Vienna: he did his real damage while based in the country to his north.
Still, there may be something about German efforts to come to terms with its past which contrasts favorably to Austria, which, famously, has not.
Ah: the creep may come from a sense of all kinds of nasty shit fermenting away below the surface.
Remember that guy who kidnapped and raped his own daughter and kept her and her kids in his basement? Not surprised that this happened in Austria.
Now, I repeat: this is completely unfair to Austria, especially given the recent escape by three women from years-long imprisonment from a house in Cleveland. There are psychopaths and serial criminals—not to mention unmentioned crimes of the state—in every country, so it’s unfair to single out Austria.
But I’m still singling out Austria.
All of this is a very long way to a very short point: the recent “discovery” of a village bell dedicated to Adolph Hitler is yet another crack in the Austrian-victim-of-Anschluss excuse for history, and as such, ought to be celebrated.
I get the point of Raimund Fastenbauer that the bell could become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis and thus should be “disappeared”, but given how much mid-century Austrian history has been disappeared, I think getting rid of the bell is the exact wrong approach.
Let it ring out, literally and metaphorically. Let it be seen, and heard. Let it be talked about.
After 80 years, let it finally be talked about.
AbsurdBeats 