Deserters Memorial

That oversized concrete X on Ballhausplatz is Austria's memorial to deserters. It honors men who refused to fight for Hitler and paid for it.

Over 30,000 death sentences. That's how many Nazi military courts handed down during World War II. Most went to deserters and so-called subverters of military morale. Thousands more died in punishment units at the front.

The ones who survived came home to discrimination. Richard Wadani deserted in 1944 near Aachen and joined the British forces. When he returned to his employment office in 1946 wearing his British army uniform, they turned him away. How could you dare serve in a foreign army, they told him.

For decades, Austria saw these men as cowards and traitors. It wasn't until 2009 that parliament finally rehabilitated them. Five years later, this memorial went up, directly across from the Federal Chancellery and the President's office.

The inscription embedded in the top step reads all alone. You can only read it from above. It references a Scottish poem about individual resistance against the masses. Wadani, who fought for this memorial for years, spoke at the opening in 2014. He was 92.