Austria’s Nazis

* Re “Austria’s ‘Heirless’ Heirlooms,” Oct. 26:

I don’t think that any honest, informed Austrian will deny that Austria did in fact produce many senior Nazi leaders and was a willing servant of the Third Reich. But what the article neglected to point out was that the cause, and thus some of the blame, for Austria’s slowness in coming to terms with its Nazi past--the somewhat misguided claim that the nation had been the Nazis’ first victim--did not originate in Austria but with the Allies in the so-called Moscow Declaration in 1943, a claim that Austrians--most of whom had indeed been victims--”gratefully” acknowledged in their darkest hour.

ERICH WAGNER II

Rowland Heights