Vienna -
Conflicting messages, one
pro-Nazi, the other pacifist, have been found in the base of Vienna's
largest war memorial following an investigation.
The discovery announced on
Thursday confirms rumours that sculptor Wilhelm Frass had hidden a
message praising Nazism in the statue of a soldier commemorating the
Austrian dead of World War I.
Historian Heidemarie Uhl said the
two messages were evidence of the ambivalence of the period in the
mid-1930s before Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany.
The one written by Frass, dated
April 8, 1935, refers to the “eternal strength of the German people” and
calls for unity “under the sign of the black sun.”
The second message, signed by
sculptor Alfons Riedel, thought to be an assistant of Frass, was
clearly written in haste, Uhl said.
“I wish
future generations will never again make it necessary for our people to
erect monuments to soldiers who fell in violent conflicts between
nations,” he wrote.
After analysis the two documents will be preserved in Vienna's military history museum.
The messages, placed in capsules,
were found during work on the crypt in Vienna's Heroes Square, with the
aim of removing all unwelcome historical references before Austria's
next national day on October 26.
Defence Minister Norbert Darabos,
who ordered the work, has also ordered the name of a Nazi war criminal,
Josef Vallaster, erased from a register of victims of World War II. -
Sapa-AFP
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