Method and rules of evidence

Only what a verifiable source establishes is included. The chronicle contains no speculation and no value judgments.

Levels of evidence

A

At least one primary source: court judgment, government investigation report, report of an independent commission or church document.

B

At least two scholarly sources (academic literature, reference works) from different publishers. Mainly for more distant periods.

Press articles and Wikipedia serve only as pointers during research, never as evidence.

Verbatim quotations

Every statement names its location in the source and quotes the source in the original language. Before publication, a program checks that every quotation appears word for word in the stored original document. Figures are taken over exactly as the source gives them; estimates are marked as estimates.

Translation

The site was written in German. The English texts are translations of the German entries. Quotations remain in the original language, because only the original can be checked against the document. Where a longer excerpt is not in English, an unofficial translation follows it. Entries appear in English only once they are fully translated; all other entries are available in German.

Persons

Living or possibly living persons are named only if they have been convicted by a final judgment (including in church criminal proceedings) or are named in a government report. Otherwise only the institution is named.

Language and judgments

The texts describe what happened, without judgments of their own. Assessments such as "cruel" or "cover-up" appear only where a source makes them, and then stating who makes that judgment. Legal terms such as "crime against humanity" are used only where a court has ruled so.

Responsibility

Acts and death tolls are attributed only to those to whom the sources attribute them. Where secular courts, the state or other churches were involved, this is stated. Where the sources mention circumstances that exonerate a person or complete the picture, they are included as well.

Figures

The investigations use different methods (counting of files, hearings, population surveys). Their figures are therefore not added up or offset against each other.

Timeline

A bar shows the period that a source investigates or establishes. A dot marks the publication of the report. Pale bands in the background (pontificates, councils) serve only as orientation in time.

Corrections and right of reply

The entries reflect what the cited sources state; the date of the last change at the end of each entry shows how current it is. Reports of errors are checked. Corrections backed by evidence are adopted and recorded in the change log of the entry.

Anyone affected by a statement of fact in an entry can demand a reply under section 9 of the Austrian Media Act: using the form (type "Gegendarstellung", reply) or by e-mail to tom@rzen.at. Requests are handled with priority and within the statutory deadlines.

Images

Only images in the public domain or under a free licence (CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA) are used. Author and licence are shown under each image.