1947: The Prohibition Act (“Verbotsgesetz“)

The Prohibition Act (Verbotsgesetz), together with the War Criminals Act (Kriegsverbrechergesetz), formed the most important basis for the process of denazification carried out in Austria after the Second World War. The Act prohibits any form of Nazi activity, bans the Nazi Party and any of its affiliated organisations or associations, and sets out its own provisions in criminal law.

It stipulated compulsory registration for former members of the Nazi Party and its organisations and divided them into “major offenders” (c. 40,000 people) and “lesser offenders” (c. 490,000 people). These categories came with different legal consequences (Sühnepflichten, or “atonement obligations”), for example a professional ban, payment of a fine as an “atonement levy”, or the loss of passive or active voting rights. Special People’s Courts (Volksgerichte) were set up to carry out the proceedings. After 1955, cases were heard in the regular courts.

The full title of the law dated 6 February 1947 is the Federal Constitutional Law on the Treatment of National Socialists (Bundesverfassungsgesetz über die Behandlung der Nationalsozialisten, BGBl. Nr. 25/1947) . It was originally passed on 8 May 1945 by the provisional government. In 1947 it was comprehensively revised and expanded, and renamed the “1947 Prohibition Act” in the process. Its impact was soon considerably curtailed when, shortly after the end of the period of Allied occupation, the 1957 Amnesty Act was passed. To this day, the Prohibition Act remains the basis on which cases of neo-Nazi activity are prosecuted.