The Austrian historian Rafael Kropiunigg, educated in England and the United States, has attempted to reconstruct the events surrounding the first antifascist victim of the Second Republic, fifty years after the demonstrations against Taras Borodajkewycz, a professor at the University of World Trade in Vienna, during which the sixty-seven-year-old retiree Ernst Kirchweger was beaten down by a pro-Boro protester and suffered fatal injuries as a result of the fall. The author analyzes the media debate as well as the events on the street, and interviews central actors from both areas—including the culprit, Günther Kümel, who provided a written statement. The value of this study is the reconstruction of the public sources as well as the interviews and statements of former key protagonists.

Unfortunately, the author does not manage to evaluate the respective self-portrayals nor to analyze the court process critically. Kümel is depicted as a victim, who had to defend himself against the sexagenarian, five-foot-four-inch Kirchweger. His statement in court paints this picture as well. This is also methodologically related to the fact that Kropiunigg remains too attached to a “reenactment” of the events in the lecture hall, in the media, and during the demonstrations, as well as to the reproduction of self-images and memories. He also hides important information in the footnotes regarding Ring of Freedom Student (RFS) activists, such as the eventual Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) chairman Norbert Steger (who did not belong to an explicit fraternity) and the former FPÖ defense minister Friedhelm Frischenschlager, who opened up the insular world of the RFS. The author succeeds best in classifying this debate, which ultimately ended in an attempt at drawing a line under the whole issue. It would at the very least be interesting to pose the hypothetical question of whether the SPÖ presidential candidate Franz Jonas would have won unexpectedly by roughly 60,000 votes, because this dispute would have led to a stronger mobilization of the SPÖ. The author's argument with regard to the historical classification of Taras Borodajkewycz misses the point entirely and accepts without question his own assessment that, as a Catholic national, he was almost shipped to a concentration camp (35). Here, the historian of son “Boros,” as his followers called him, is “led up the garden path.”

Repeatedly, it becomes clear that Kropiunigg understands himself primarily as a chronicler, and ultimately brings together many evaluations and some facts, but does not contribute anything entirely new to the background of the affair nor to its sequence—despite providing numerous details. Unfortunately, the author has not evaluated the court files—including the preliminary investigation—for this book, although it remains unclear whether he tried to access these files. He also mentions only through secondary literature the previous court case and conviction of the SPÖ club secretary Heinz Fischer, who used the lecture notes of the student Ferdinand Lacina. A comparative analysis of the court records would have made it possible to critically assess and concretely evaluate the justifying statements of both Kümmel and Borodajkewycz. Unfortunately, here, too, much important source material from the interviews has been hidden in the annotation and has not been contextualized.

On the other hand, the reconstruction of the Nazi pasts among the bourgeoisie and the socialist students is very successful, with the latter group having made a clear break from the National Socialist functionaries’ idea of washing their hands of the issue. Contemporary criticism that this debate would ultimately end up helping only the Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) is also included. By the way, “right-wing” socialist students, such as Hannes Androsch, did not want to have these debates about the Nazi past.

The author also places this discussion in the new political objective of the SPÖ, which aimed to engage more explicitly with universities. This ultimately resulted in the founding of a separate science ministry and a revolutionary university organizational law in 1970 that included the right to contribute for mid-level administrators, assistants, and students.

Overall, this work represents an interesting chronology with ambivalent materials, but an inadequate analysis of the justification strategies of the main actor and his supporters.