Some remarks from an Austrian's view: The problems to discuss this part of our past are not much different from Germany, but definetely not so extreme. (We are a catholic country, we confess our sins and God forgives us.
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We should not be fooled by the fact that there is so much review about the 'Third Reich'. The older people have a hard time to discuss this all and very often refuse to do. But you should understand that we know our fathers and grandfathers who voted for the nazis, took part at their assemblies and legitimized the killing of millions of innocent people, we can't understand them and we are shocked about the way they acted. So we can't speak freely without blaming our relatives of the most malicious crimes of mankind. It's not so much a feeling of guilt than shame and embarrassment.
A word on
haku's remarks about war crimes of the others. I refuse to compare with the things the nazis did. Killing millions of Jews and Gypsies has nothing to do with war. The nazis announced that they will rub them out from the surface of earth and millions of german and austrian people cheered, supported them and thus 'legitimized' the genocide. That's completely different to atrocities during, and the ethnic cleanings after the war.
Maybe the media coverage of those times goes too far, but it may be necessary. Much of the identity of the german people, the 'german virtues' are not born during the times after the war, but during nazi time. Discussions about that time lead automatically to questioning the moral values and self understanding of a complete nation, not so much an intellectual problem but an emotional.
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Originally Posted by freddie
The sheer fact that nazi symbolism is forbidden in any shape or form shows some kind of paranoia
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It is, indeed. Recent example: A member of the 'Green Party' is facing a trial for wearing a button with a crossed out swastica with the slogan 'Nazis, no thank you!'
You can see, there is way to much sensibility about this in Germany (well, not very different to Austria)!