Introduction

This chapter analyzes the heated, and often violent, discussions which took place before the staging of Thomas Bernhard's Heldenplatz (Heroes’ Square), on November 4, 1988 in the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. In this play the Austrian playwright challenges Austria's chosen self-identity as the victim of Nazi Germany, and exposes the continuing proto-fascist elements in contemporary Austria. In a recent article Mihaela Mihai argues that we must understand Thomas Bernhard's play as a theatrical denunciation that assisted to “promote accountability and societal reflection over the past and its relation to the future” (Mihai 2014: 444). According to her, the public debate turned Austrians from passive onlookers into reflective spectators, “who can think politically and consider various forms of political redress” (Mihai 2014: 444).

I agree with her that the play generated a public discussion. However, such a discussion did not turn Austrians into people with the ability for self-reflective judgment on this topic, as Mihai seems to suggest. Rather, the discussions around the play exposed the defense mechanisms that were set in motion to ward off unconscious feelings of guilt about Austria's Nazi past. Since embodied self-reflective judgment necessitates the ability to adequately deal with feelings about one's past, the onlookers were also hindered in thinking critically about their past. In my analysis of the discussions around this play, in which I bring back psychoanalytic thought, and in particular Anna Freud's insights on defense mechanisms, I show that we find a cycle that starts out with various forms of denying responsibility of Austria's involvement in Nazi atrocities, followed by violent verbal (and even physical) attacks on those who threaten to expose Austria's involvement in Nazi crimes—in this case Bernhard, as well as the German theater director Claus Peymann—and finally a reversal of roles where the attacker becomes the victim.