Accompanying production to scientific analysis – at 8:15 p.m
Vienna (OTS) – As part of the research project “The Police in Austria: Breaks and Continuities 1938–1945”, the archives of the Ministry of the Interior and the state police departments throughout Austria were opened to researchers for the first time. ORF III was part of this scientific analysis and is now making the results available to everyone in the form of a TV documentary on Saturday, March 23, 2024, at 8:15 p.m. Before that, as part of the “zeit.geschichte” evening, the new production “Always be vigilant – 60 years of documentary archives of the Austrian resistance” (7:25 p.m.) is dedicated to the history of the important institution.
About the content of “Hitler’s Executive – The Austrian Police and National Socialism”:
Even in the period before the so-called “Anschluss” in March 1938, Austrian National Socialists demonstrated openly in the streets, which put the executive under considerable pressure: On the one hand, police officers swore an oath to the Austrian state, and on the other hand, the National Socialists’ seizure of power became increasingly clear away. Through this, the Austrian police are also integrated into the government and terror apparatus. From now on, police officers are jointly responsible for oppression and persecution, support the deportations of Jews, and countless numbers become murderers in the course of the Eastern campaign. Without the active cooperation of the Austrian executive, the National Socialist system of rule in this country would not have been able to establish itself so quickly and last for so long.
Interior Minister Karner: “The basis for a modern and responsible police force”
“If you don’t deal with an organization’s past, you can’t make it fit for the tasks of the present and the future. I would like to thank the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance with Andreas Kranebitter, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute with Univ.-Prof. Barbara Stelzl-Marx and the Mauthausen Memorial with Barbara Glück for their cooperation in coming to terms with the history of the Austrian police under National Socialism. Dealing with one’s own police history forms the basis for a modern and responsible police force,” says Gerhard Karner, Federal Minister of the Interior.
Scientific project leader Stelzl-Marx: “Critical and informed approach to one’s own past”
“The project fulfills the democratic policy mandate of the Ministry of the Interior as a public institution to promote a critical and informed approach to one’s own past – not only in the training of police officers, but also to the general public,” emphasizes the scientific director of the research project, Barbara Stelzl Marx.
ORF III program manager Schöber: “Produced for a broad audience”
“It is a core task of ORF III as a public broadcaster to bring our audience closer to the recent history of our country. In recent years, in collaboration with the Austrian universities and their contemporary history research institutions, we have also been able to process dark sections of this past by opening up their archives and allowing an objective examination of this time. I am pleased that this chapter of history has been prepared for a broad audience in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior and with the participation of well-known historians,” said ORF III program manager Peter Schöber.
Details about the ORF III Culture and Information program are available at tv.ORF.at/orf3.