English summary: 4 March 1968, Vienna Ministry of Schooling: Thomas Bernhard is awarded the Austrian national award for novels. His unconventional acceptance speech evokes the minister's displeasure, whereupon Bernhard feels snubbed by the reaction and a newspaper runs the title: "This is how a national award laureate expresses his 'thanks': By berating Austria " This incident went down in literary history as a national award scandal. But what really happened? How did things transpire and on what grounds is Bernhard's reputation as a scandalous author based? Olaf Lahayne studied the sources,...