austria 2002-3

 

Although there was only one serious violent incident in 2002/first half of 2003, there was a noticeable increase in virulence of anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda, perceived as ‘anti-Zionism’ by both the extreme right and the extreme left. The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) was so ridden by in-fighting in 2002 that it almost split the party.

 

the jewish community

Austria has a Jewish population of 10,000 out of a total population of 8 million. The present community, most of whom live in Vienna, is made up of several groups, the most numerous being returnee Austrians and their families, as well as former refugees from Eastern Europe. A Jewish primary school and high school, as well as several Jewish publications, serve the needs of the community. In April 2002 the 4th international Herzl Symposium was held in Vienna, attended by President Thomas Klestil and Vienna mayor Michael Haeupel.

            Following the visit of Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner to Israel in July 2003, it was announced that Israel and Austria would resume full diplomatic relations. Israel had recalled its ambassador in February 2002 after Jörg Haider and his FPÖ (see below) joined the Austrian government.

 

political organizations and extra-parliamentary groups

Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ)

The year 2002 witnessed severe infighting between the relatively pragmatic, neo-liberal wing of party leader and vice-chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer and the fundamentalist social-national wing led by Carinthian governor Jörg Haider, which almost split the party. Following the loss of delegate support at a meeting in Knittelfeld in September 2002, Riess-Passer resigned from her positions, as did Karl-Heinz Grasser (federal minister of financial affairs) and parliamentary fraction leader Peter Westenthaler. In a second wave of resignations, more high-ranking party members (including MP Peter Sichrovsky and Gerhard Hager, now a member of the European Parliament), followed their example. ÖVP, the senior coalition partner, reacted by terminating the coalition, which no longer had the backing of the majority of FPÖ parliamentary members.

After opinion poll results showed that the upcoming November 2002 elections would be disastrous for the FPÖ, Haider decided not to take over the party, declaring once again that he would henceforth stay away from federal politics. At an extraordinary meeting of delegates held on 21 September 2002 a compromise candidate, Federal Minister for Infrastructure Mathias Reichhold, was elected party chairman, soon to be replaced by Herbert Haupt, who like Reichhold, was seen by most as an interim candidate who would gladly step aside to let Haider take over again.

The general elections held on 24 November 2002 resulted in a crushing defeat for the FPÖ, which received only 10 percent of the vote (-16.9 percent). In contrast, support for the conservative ÖVP escalated to 42.3 percent (+15.4 percent). In sum, the right-wing majority in the Austrian parliament was reduced by 7 seats compared to its representation in 2000.

Due to the general chaos in the party the resignation, on 14 February 2003, of Jewish FPÖ MP and general secretary Peter Sichrovsky went virtually unnoticed. Although the immediate cause for Sichrovsky’s resignation was what he termed the “right-wing extremist revolution” in Knittelfeld, it came as no surprise. Sichrovsky had suffered a series of public humiliations by Haider and his fraction, such as Haider’s meeting with leading Vlaams Bloc (see Belgium) representatives in July 2002 and his statement to journalists that he was considering a joint electoral platform with the Flemish nationalists, after Sichrovsky had declared that the party had no intention of collaborating with the European extreme right.

In May 2002 the two FPÖ wings were locked in a public argument over whether the defeat of the German Wehrmacht in May 1945 had meant liberation or foreign occupation for Austria. On 8 May the extremist core of the party, led by Dr. Ewald Stadler, held a commemoration ceremony at which Stadler called the date an “anniversary of total defeat.” Sichrovsky and Riess-Passer, however, pointed out the criminal nature of the Nazi regime. Riess-Passer even expressed her gratitude to the Allied troops whom she referred to as liberators – a stance diametrically opposed to that of Haider and right-wing hardliners in the FPÖ. A month later, in a solstice speech delivered at the Sonnenwendfeier (summer festival) organized by leading FPÖ member Barbara Rosenkranz and her husband right-wing activist Horst Jakob, Stadler compared the Nazi era to the years of Allied occupation, 1945–55.

Sichrovsky says he had joined the FPÖ in the early 1990s to “influence Haider and open the party to the political center.” However, he claimed, Haider apparent failure to come to terms with his parent’s Nazi past had led him to return to antisemitic rhetoric. “The same man who had stressed the importance of restitution suddenly suggested diverting the money intended for Jewish Nazi victims to Germans evicted from Czechoslovakia in 1945–46,” said Sichrovsky. “I got the impression that this was meant as a punishment for Jewish organizations which had not trusted him earlier on when he tried to apologize for some of his problematic statements about the Nazi era. This is also the main source of his anger about Gianfranco Fini (see Italy) who has had more success and has even been invited to Israel. Haider accuses him of ‘humiliating himself in front of the Jews’ – which he says he himself would never do.”

Although the FPÖ had been reduced to its extremist core, the ÖVP chose to continue the coalition with it after the elections, and, in contrast to 2000 when there were at least a few liberals in the party, there was no public outcry.

A highlight of Haider’s agenda in 2002 was a series of visits to Arabian despots, notably Mu`amar Qaddafi and Saddam Husayn. In February 2002, he brought the Iraqi dictator “greetings of solidarity from the Austrian people” and discussed the possibility of closer ties between the FPÖ and the Iraqi Ba`ath Party, which appear to share some common ideological notions such as that of an Israeli/American conspiracy. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told Haider that Saddam’s government was quite pleased to see nationalism and right-wing extremism on the rise in Europe in general and specifically in Austria.

 

Militant Right-Wing Extremism and Neo-Nazism

Austria’s neo-Nazis appear to have become more self-confident. For the first time since 1991 a neo-Nazi parade took place in Vienna. Following a demonstration against the Wehrmachtsausstellung (Wehrmacht exhibition documenting atrocities committed by regular German soldiers during WWII) organized by Kameradschaft Germania (KSG) and by members of different Burschenschaften (Fraternities), about 80 skinheads marched unhindered on 13 March 2002 through the city, shouting Nazi slogans such as “Sieg Heil.” Representatives of the neo-Nazi Deutsches Kolleg (Würzburg) also distributed leaflets containing Nazi apologetics. The KSG had planned another demonstration in Salzburg for early August, but it was forbidden by the authorities.

In August 2002, the police discovered in Vienna a neo-Nazi group called SS-Kampfgemeinschaft Prinz Eugen. Weapons and Nazi propaganda material were confiscated during raids in Vienna, Niederösterreich and the Steiermark.

Suspected neo-Nazis have found ways of operating legally. Since the early 1990s, for example, they have become members of Die Initiative Autofahrer (Drivers’ Right Initiative – DIAR). This modus operandi was proposed in 1991 in a publication which appeared in Germany, entitled “A Movement under Arms?” (Eine Bewegung in Waffen), aimed at destabilizing the political system. Head of the DIAR, George Grasser, who died in June 2002, was suspected of involvement in the extreme right-wing SS-Kampfgemeinschaft, in the National-Konservativen Union (NAKU) of Wilhelm Ehemayers, and in the Europaburschenschaft Tafelrunde zu Wien, and of links to militant neo-Nazis such as Frank Swoboda and leading Austrian Holocaust denier Wolfgang Fröhlich. Membership cards for the Ku Klux Klan were found during anti-terror police raids. According to his lawyer, Grasser was a member of the FPÖ until 2000.

Frank Swoboda is operator of the extreme right-wing webpage Ostara, which publishes militant antisemitic appeals and propaganda. After his site was banned by the local provider in August 2002, he moved to the server of Garry Lauck, leader of the NSDAP/AO.

            The 26th guest week of the extreme right Deutsche Kulturgemeinschaft (DKG) was held at a secret location from 1 to 6 November 2002 under the slogan “Psychological strategies for the disorientation of the German People.” Leading German and Austrian rightists and neo-Nazis scheduled to appear were Wolfram Narath, Herbert Schweiger and Andreas Thierry.

DKG’s 20-year-old organ Huttenbrief publishes antisemitic propaganda of right-wing extremists such as editor Lisbeth Grolitsch and Swiss neo-Nazi Gerd Zikeli. In autumn 2002 the DKG published antisemitic and NS-apologetic essays, speeches and writings of Lisbeth Grolitsch (former leader of the Nazi youth organization Bund Deutscher Mädchen – Union of German Girls) under the title Notwende (Necessary Change), which is under official investigation.

Contacts and networking between German and Austrian neo-Nazis intensified in 2002. In August 2002 the so-called summer university of the German NPD took place in Saarbrücken and Völklingen. According to the NDP party organ Deutsche Stimme in October 2002, several Austrians participated. Deutsche Stimme also reported in the same issue that Haider’s friend Andreas Mölzer was a leading force behind the European conference organised by the NPD in August and attended by representatives of the British National Party, the Belgian Mouvement Pour la Nation and others. Mölzer presented a position paper outlining the basis for extreme right-wing European cooperation, which he had drafted in July 2002 for a meeting of European right-wing parties (including the FPÖ, Vlaams Blok and the Lega Nord) in Klagenfurt.

            In October 2002 Mölzer announced his and Haider's plans for Europe in a lecture given at the extreme right-wing organization Gesellschaft für Freie Publizistik (GfP). Franz Schönhuber, former head of the German far right party Die Republikaner was to be his co-sponsor.

            Neo-Nazi Stefan Topitz was seriously injured on 12 August 2002 while he was constructing an explosive device. Topitz had links to the NSDAP/AO and to the National Alliance in the US.

 

Music

On 30 March 2002 a skinhead concert took place in Vorarlberg with many Germany fans attending. According to comments on the forum of the neo-Nazi Wikinger Versand website, a mass brawl broke out among participants.

On 12 October 2002 the biggest ever skinhead concert in Austria took place in Hohenems, on private property. Approximately 1000 neo-Nazis from all over Europe heard groups such as Max Resist, Extreme Hatred and Radikahl. The local police did not intervene although neo-Nazi material was confiscated at the border. Since many neo-Nazi concerts are banned by the German police, they take place in Austrian Vorarlberg, where they police have become more vigilant. Although a demonstration planned for the 14 December 2002 by the Skinheads Vorarlberg (section of the international network Blood &Honour) in Begrenz was forbidden, 150 skinheads organized a concert that day which was broken up by the police.

 

Internet

In 2002 Austrian neo-Nazis and skinheads continued to disseminate their propaganda through the Internet via domestic servers. Internet activities are closely linked to the attempt to create Freie Kameradschaften, groupings of neo-Nazi sympathizers without visible organizational structure. Under the slogan “White Pride Worldwide,” for example, a webpage called h&society is linked to international neo-Nazi sites. Quotes and photos of FPÖ members often appear on far right sites. A Vienna-based site of the Kameradschaft Volkstreue Jugend (Nationalist Loyalist Youth – KSVJ) which appeared in 2002 seeks to forge relations with German and European comrades. The Kameradschaft Germania, which in late March distributed a Holocaust-denying article, “The Birth Pangs of a New Gas Chamber,” through its forum, is the most active neo-Nazi site in Austria.

Antisemitic postings increasingly flooded the electronic discussion forums of mainstream media sites in 2002. Three-quarters of the postings on the sites of Der Standard and Die Presse, for instance, could be defined as antisemitic and anti-Israel. As most of the postings are anonymous, it is difficult to bring charges against their authors. However, during the year a 43-year old sender of antisemitic hate messages was de-masked, brought to justice and given a three months suspended sentence for incitement.

 

ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITY

While the only serious antisemitic incident in 2002/first half of 2003 was the beating and verbal abuse of the assistant principal of the Habad school in Vienna as he was leaving the synagogue in May 2003 by a group of skinheads, there was a noticeable increase in virulence of anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda, perceived as ‘anti-Zionism’ by both the extreme right and left.

 

Extreme Right Propaganda

In February 2002 Dr. Friedrich Romig, a Catholic conservative, published an article in the FPÖ weekly Zur Zeit in which he asked, “Who really rules Austria?” Romig’s answer is the US, which in turn is controlled by “the Jewish people.” In November 2002 Otto Habsburg, son of the last Austro-Hungarian emperor, claimed in an interview in Zur Zeit that “the Pentagon is now a Jewish institution as all key positions are occupied by Jews.” He labelled Russian president Vladimir Putin a “National Socialist,” and accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of planning a genocide against all Arabs.

In March 2002 Zur Zeit commissioned an article by Richard Melisch on the Middle East conflict which according to Melisch has already been won by the Arabs. In the future, he sees no place for Jews (“a people that claims special rights based on their self-proclaimed chosenness”) in the region and foresees “a new exodus, this time in the other direction [which] should not pose a problem since most Israelis have more than one passport anyway.”

Melisch also wrote a pamphlet, “Krisengebiet Nahost,” published by the right-wing extremist Arbeitsgemeinschaft für demokratische Politik (AFP) and distributed by the local FPÖ subdivision in Kaumberg, Lower Austria. In it Melisch postulates the existence of three parties in the Middle East conflict, two of them exogenous: Zionism, organized globally and which acted both politically and economically, and the US. He claimed that “historical Palestine was inhabited by hard-working Muslims and Christians” while Jews were living in New York at the beginning of World War 1 because that is where “the big banks and credit houses, and the powerful stock exchange bosses” were located. While he avoids the word “Jews,” he uses euphemisms such as “Zionists” or “typical” Jewish family names as well as labels of his own invention such as “Masters of Credit and Interest.” The rest of the pamphlet contains classical antisemitic argumentation, such as the claim that the Jews (or “Zionists”) instigated and profited from wars between powerful nations.

In interviews on the Middle East in the media (Zur Zeit, al-Jazira, the Austrian weekly Profil) in 2002, Haider referred to “acts of state terrorism committed by Israel against the Palestinians” and accused Sharon and the Israeli army of “war crimes.” Helmut Müller, an Austrian contact of the German NPD, wrote in Zur Zeit “we know that… many [Palestinians were] humiliated and tortured and interned in concentration camp-style camps. So quickly have victims been turned into perpetrators. What a loss of prestige for the Jewish people, and a stimulus for latent antisemitism.” Müller also edits the extreme right journal Der Eckart (formerly, Der Eckartbote) where in January 2002 it was alleged that every time the Israeli army used tanks and heavy weapons against the Palestinian people, many German-bashing films were shown on German television. Like other antisemites Müller uses euphemisms, such as “those who secretly govern and try to manipulate us,” for Jews, or “the omnipotent “high finance,” for the US.

The topic “From Benes to Sharon. Sudeten Germans and Palestinians – Oppressed and Driven Out” was discussed by key figures of the Austrian extreme right such as John Gudenus, co-editor of Zur Zeit, and Palestinian activists Eva Barki and Dr. Georg Nicola, in April 2002. An advertisement for the event printed in Der Eckartbote, read, inter alia: “Both ethnic groups were deported, both are deprived of their right to a home country… The brutal and bloody strategy employed by the Israeli army borders on ethnic cleansing and genocide. Some say that the Israeli military works like the local SS aid divisions in Eastern Europe.”

Austrian Holocaust deniers such as former FPÖ functionary Wolfgang Fröhlich have contacts with Muslim fundamentalist circles such as Swiss neo-Nazi and Muslim activist Ahmed Huber. Like Swiss revisionist Jürgen Graf, who fled to Iran, Fröhlich applied for political asylum at the Iranian embassy in Vienna to escape trial. In September 2003 he was sentenced to three years imprisonment. Although he is hiding from the Austrian authorities, in spring 2002 he produced a leaflet that included statements such as: “When will the Muslim world understand that Jewish land robbery in the Middle East and their barbaric genocide against the Palestinians are always excused with the lie about gas chambers and the Holocaust?”

In late 2002, Fröhlich sent a letter to Austrian teachers threatening to collect and publicize on the Internet personal data on those who “consciously lie to their students as well as headmasters who incite teachers to bring their students to Mauthausen where they are shown phoney placebo gas chambers installed after the war.” “We have already told you many times that the so-called Holocaust of the European Jews in gas chambers is a propaganda lie testified by Talmudic Jewish liars in the postwar trials…”

Another acquaintance of Ahmed Huber, Gerhoch Reisegger took part in an international neo-Nazi conference (“Global Problems of World History”) in Moscow on 26–27 January 2002. The conference was organized by Russian revisionist Oleg Platonov, co-editor of the Journal for Historical Review. Reisegger spoke about the repercussions of 09/11 on international stock markets. He implored “Christians, Muslims, and Russian Orthodox” to unite against “the common threat [the Jews].”

In June 2002, Reisegger wrote an article on globalization for Fakten (edited by Horst Jakob Rosenkranz). He wrote: “The ancient dream of the cosmopolites – to rule the whole world by financial means as they were commanded in the Bible – seems to be at hand because of globalization.” In his book We Are Shamelessly Deceived! From 09/11 to the Iraq War, Reisegger claims that the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were carried out by the American secret services and not by al-Qa`ida.

Gerd Honsik who fled Austria to Spain in 1992 produced a new issue of his periodical Halt in which he writes about “our politicians’ inclination… to incite anti-Islamic sentiment and to display the Holy War as terrorism.” He accuses “the Empire” of destroying traditional German-Arab friendship. To strengthen his theme of German-Arab friendship versus the common enemy, Honsik published a translation of a book by Rami, To Casablanca First in order “to help all Germans of good-will remain steadfast in their friendship with Islam – a peaceful and virtuous fortress of humanity against materialism and the rule of money.” The edition is dedicated to Otto-Ernst Remer, a Nazi activist who died in Spanish exile in 1997. In the foreword, Honsik describes “Israeli settlement policy in Palestine” as “a racist policy of ethnic cleansing and annexation,” and compares it to the deportation of 15 million ethnic Germans after 1945.

In March 2002, the extreme right website Wiener Nachrichten Online featured a text entitled “German Wehrmacht and Intifada” in which the right-wing campaign against the Wehrmachtsausstellung (documentary exhibition about atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht) is linked to the Palestinian conflict with Israel. “The criminalization of our past as exemplified and indeed begun by the Wehrmachtsausstellung serves to justify the Israeli army’s atrocities or at least to draw public attention away from them. The fight for the liberation of Palestine and the fight for the dignity of Austrians and Germans are one,” the text read. The article calls for two demonstrations: one for a sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital – and the second against the Wehrmachtsausstellung. (“Against today’s war criminals! Against those who invent history today! Support the Intifada! Defend the WW2 generation!”).

 

Leftist Propaganda

The AIK (Anti-Imperialist Coordination), in particular, is involved in anti-Israel and anti-American propaganda activities and collaborates with Muslim extremists. During a “solidarity trip” to the Palestinian refugee camp Baka near Amman, leading AIK activist Wilhelm Langthaler asserted that the destruction of Zionism and the so-called state of Israel was “the only way to achieve justice” in the Middle East. He branded Israel “an apartheid regime worse than the one that existed in South Africa.” Before and during the US-led campaign in Iraq, the AIK together with other extremist left-wing and Muslim organizations organized pro-Ba`ath demonstrations against the US. In AIK publications, the murder of Israeli citizens (“occupants”) is supported. The AIK’s views appeal to sympathizers among right wing extremists.

The AIK is not isolated within the political left. After the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (DÖW) published an article about the AIK’s aggressive antisemitism, a committee of 65 people – mainly Communist Party and pro-Palestinian activists but also including ‘Middle East expert’ Dr. John Bunzl – published an open letter of complaint

 

RESPONSES TO ANTISEMITISM

On 31 January 2002, Jorg Haider apologized for making offensive remarks about Ariel Muzicant and ridiculing him. Muzicant, leader of Vienna's Jewish community, sued Haider on 14 counts of antisemitism. An out-of-court settlement ended the legal proceedings.

In December 2002 legal proceedings against the the founder of the National Democratic Party of Austria (NPÖ), Gregor Maierhofer, were abandoned. The latter had been accused of NS-revival by citing Rudolf Hess on the party’s homepage.

Holocaust denier Walter Ochensberger began an 8-month jail sentence in April 2002 after having been convicted in January 2002 of denying the Holocaust in his pamphlets Phoenix and Top Secret (see ASW 2001/2). His lawyer, the extreme right-winger Herbert Schaller, claimed his client was a victim of a Jewish conspiracy. Ochsenberger continued to incite from prison against Jews, Israel and the US, referring to the secret government of the Zionists, the ‘terrorist’ state of Israel and the blackmail of Jewish organizations.