Memorial for the Victims of the NS Military Justice System

The memorial for the victims of the NS military justice system at the Ballhausplatz, also known as the "Deserters' Memorial," was inaugurated on October 24, 2014. The sculpture by artist Olaf Nicolai is dedicated to deserters and other individuals persecuted by the military courts of the NS state throughout Europe. Military courts of the German armed forces imposed more than 30,000 death sentences on their own soldiers and Allied prisoners of war, as well as on civilians in the countries of Europe occupied by the Wehrmacht. A large portion of these death sentences targeted deserters and "Wehrkraftzersetzer" (those undermining military strength). Thousands of other soldiers died after being sentenced in so-called rehabilitation units at the front. In the Second Republic, many of those executed and the survivors of the persecution were not recognized for a long time as victims of National Socialism. Only from the turn of the millennium did the realization take hold that the German military justice system had unconditionally placed itself at the service of a criminal war effort. In 2009, the National Council rehabilitated all those sentenced and persecuted. Olaf Nicolai's concrete sculpture depicts a three-tiered, lying X. The inscription "all alone" is embedded in the topmost tier. Olaf Nicolai explained his idea as follows: "This memorial pays respect to those who make their own decisions, resist foreign determination, and stand up against the existing system through their independent actions. The significance of the personal decision to be dissenting, this active moment, that is what I see as the relevance. From this perspective, I have designed the oversized, lying X with an inscription on the topmost level. What happens to the person who climbs the three-tiered base to read the inscription? (…) The inscription shows—in the truest sense of the word—the suggested tension between the individual and the community. It is about the relationship to oneself, the 'alone,' the willingness to stand up for something on one's own. The text in English, which goes beyond the national framework and is understandable for all, is now read at a place where one is surrounded by state institutions. The question of one's own position is thus always recurring, immediately and concretely experienced." The establishment of the memorial by the city of Vienna goes back to a long-standing demand by the "Personenkomitee Gerechtigkeit für die Opfer der NS-Militärjustiz" ("Committee for Justice for the Victims of NS Military Justice").