As a ‘site of memory’ the First World War was overlaid by the remembrance of the Second World War and the Holocaust in Austria, and in Germany too. In the cycle of years of celebration and remembrance the ‘8’ years (1918, 1938) always received more attention than the ‘lesser’ ‘4’ years (1914, 1934). In Austria’s historical memory the year 1918 marked less the end of the First World war than the end of the Monarchy, and this led to interminable discussions about the identity of the former world power which had become a small state as a result of the post-war treaties signed in the suburbs of Paris.
