Central Vienna, Austria
Central Vienna, AustriaReuters

Austria's chancellor and other top government officials on Tuesday inaugurated a monument paying homage to the 1,200 victims sentenced to death and executed by Nazi courts in Vienna, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

The pyramid-shaped steel structure carries the German and English inscriptions "369 Weeks."

The inscription stands for the duration such courts held sway in Austria between 1938 and 1945.

Chancellor Werner Faymann said the monument is a witness to the injustice done the victims. In his comments at the ceremony, he urged Austrians to fight to protect democracy, adding, "Hatred, incitement and exclusion have no room in our society."

The monument stands in front of Vienna's Court of Criminal Justice — the same building where courts sentenced opponents of the Nazi regime and had them executed by guillotine, according to AP.

In 2013, the Austrian Academy of Sciences acknowledged that many of its scientists were members of the Nazi party and that some of its students served in the SS.

21 Jewish scientists were excluded from the Academy during World War II, including three Nobel laureates. Out of the 21 banished Jewish academics, nine were murdered by Nazis during the war.

Also in 2013,  it was revealed that Helmut Wobisch, a member of the Nazi party since 1933 when it was still illegal in Austria, was the managing director of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra between 1954 and 1968, even though he had been dismissed at the end of World War II because of his ties to the Nazi regime.