Barbara Stelzl-Marx

“We still have a lot to learn from history”

Stelzl-Marx is currently investigating which buildings in public ownership are contaminated by National Socialism. One example is the police station at Paulustor in Graz.

(Bild: HOFFMANN SABINE)

Barbara Stelzl-Marz from Graz is one of the most important and respected historians in Austria. How did she get into history? What else is there to learn about the Nazi era? And how does she analyze the return of communism? The "Steirerkrone" asked her for a big interview.

KRONE: Ms. Stelzl-Marx, when did history first enter your life?
Barbara Stelzl-Marx: There was one moment that was very formative: I had just started studying English and Russian and was in Moscow and Leningrad in August 1991 when the coup against Gorbachev began and the Soviet Union collapsed as a result. And I knew then that I was experiencing something that would go down in the history books.

You are now writing the history books yourself, how did that come about?
It was a chain of happy coincidences. When I came back from Russia, I met Professor Karner at the University of Graz, who had recently gained an insight into the Moscow archives. And because I spoke Russian and could therefore read the camp and personnel files, I started to work and study history. When the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on the Consequences of War was founded in 1994, I was involved right from the start and initially did research on Austrian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union and later on American prisoners of war in the former "Ostmark". This increased my interest in the Second World War and totalitarian systems.

Historian Barbara Stelzl-Marx teaches at the University of Graz and researches the occupation of Austria by the Soviets, among other things

(Bild: Christian Jauschowetz)

At the beginning of the 1990s, much of the Nazi era was still in the dark. Today there are documentaries and books galore. Is there really anything new to research?
Of course, a lot of research has already been done on the subject, but there are still a lot of gaps. One example: We have currently received a project from the Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft to investigate which buildings in their possession are contaminated by the Nazis. The police station at Paulustor in Graz is one of them. And how many people really know that this was once the Gestapo headquarters in Graz? At the moment, only a small information board indicates this.

To what extent is your task not only to research these things, but also to bring them to the people?
Communicating our research is one of our core tasks. After all, just because you can no longer see many traces of this dark time doesn't mean that they don't exist. Our task as historians is not only to find and research these traces, but also to make them visible - with books, exhibitions and conferences.

Barbara Stelzl-Marx is head of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on the Consequences of War in Graz and has written a publication on the children of occupying Allied soldiers in Austria.

(Bild: Christian Jauschowetz)

More and more people today are asking the question: What does this have to do with me? Can you understand that?
There is the problem that there are fewer and fewer contemporary witnesses available and therefore the immediacy of the topic is decreasing. At the same time, however, my impression is that the new challenges we are facing - the war in Ukraine, increasing anti-Semitism, etc. - are making many people realize how important it is to deal with the past in order to understand the present. And I have the feeling that those who are well equipped historically also tend to be more sensitive to the signs of the times.

But is this awareness still sufficiently present?
That is a difficult question. If you look at the current rise in anti-Semitic incidents, then you can only say that things are not developing ideally at the moment. I think it is very important to counteract this with education.

Barbara Stelzl-Marx

(Bild: Christian Jauschowetz)

Communism, a phenomenon that was thought to be long forgotten, is currently celebrating a comeback. How do you assess this from a historical perspective?
Both the KPÖ in Graz and in Salzburg scored points primarily with social aspects and many voters did not vote for communism per se, but for the package of social benefits and perhaps also a certain social chic. But if you look at the party manifestos, you can see that this cannot be played down. I lived through the Soviet Union in 1991 and I can remember how desperately many people wanted to get out of this communist system. Against this historical background, it is actually perplexing to see the election results we experienced in Graz and Salzburg.

The fringes are getting stronger and stronger - we already had this situation after 1918? Do you see any parallels?
Yes, and what played a major role back then was the economic crisis. Unemployment was growing, people had less and less money. And when the situation is like that, people grasp at any straw that might get them out of this personal hardship. This means that an economic crisis can lead to a political crisis and a drifting apart of society. That's why a broad-based middle class is essential.

When you look at the present as a historian, what do you see?
I am always interested in how "big history" affects the lives of "little people". And when I think about a project we are currently working on at the University of Graz, where we are interviewing Ukrainian refugees and recording their stories, I can see that we still have a lot to learn from history.