Postwar Austria (historical and cultural background)

The article presents the historical and cultural background of postwar Austria, giving the opportunity to conceive the creative work of Vienna actionists through the prism of an expiatory sacrifice. Namely the Vienna actionists chose the trauma of the postwar reality, the presumptuousness towards people as the main theme of their work. The attitude of the former Nazis and the country as a whole towards their past after the war is another difficult aspect of this theme. Uncomfortable remembrance of great guilt, with which the whole society was burdened and which it wanted to forget, were forced out from the memory. Nazi policy in addition to the terrible tragedy of millions of people and the huge guilt that lay on the Germans in Germany and Austria was a consequence of terrible losses in the field of culture.