(by Stefano Giantin) (ANSA) - VIENNA - It took seven decades after the end of the Second World War and five years after the 'Rehabilitationsgesetz', who rehabilitated them permanently.

Yesterday, the deserters who refused to enrol in the Nazi army were finally commemorated and honoured in Vienna, by inaugurating a memorial devoted to them, the first in Austria. A gray monument on three levels and X-shaped, designed by Olaf Nicolai, that was unveiled in a solemn ceremony in Ballhausplatz, central Vienna, not far from the Heldenplatz, where Hitler in 1938 announced to a cheering crowd the "Anschluss" of Austria to the Third Reich. The ceremony was attended by Austria's President Heinz Fisher, Culture Minister Josef Ostermeyer and the city's highest authorities. Austrian public television ORF has specified that this memorial is intended to celebrate ''the resistance of individuals against the mass'' and to honour about 30,000 brave citizens who refused to enrol in the Wehrmacht and, therefore, were sentenced to death by Hitler's military courts. About 15,000 death sentences were carried out, and more than a thousand victims were Austrian. Viennese media reported that the monument represents a breakthrough after a long debate on the deserters' role, until 2009, when the votes of the People's Party, the Social Democrats and the Greens brought about an important change, reaching the highest point of the campaign to rehabilitate those who deserted from the Wehrmacht. One of them, Richard Wadani, 90 yo, attended the inauguration ceremony of the ''Denkmal fuer Verfolgte der NS-Militaerjustiz''. In Germany, there are thirty memorials to the deserters.(ANSA).