Abstract: This paper analyses the Iranian-Austrian author Hamid Sadr’s novel ‚Der Gedächtnissekretär‘ (2005), which deals with the end of the Second World War in Vienna. It does so by giving an alternative perspective on events that is not least due to the transcultural constellation in the novel. The first-person narrator, Ardi, is a student from Iran who is not familiar with Austrian war and post-war history. His cultural background becomes the starting point of a detailed coming to terms both with the final days of the Second World War in Vienna and with Austria’s role in National Socialism. The present paper discusses the question to what extent the novel’s transcultural setting leads to a transcultural discussion of the historical events and it does so with reference to Maurice Halbwachs’ memory of objects and Leslie A. Adelson’s concept of touching tales.

Keywords: Hamid Sadr – transculturality – historiography – memory – touching tales