THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

Austria has a Jewish population of 10,000 out of a total population of 8 million, most of whom live in Vienna. Before the Anschluss in 1938 there were over 180,000 Jews in Austria of whom about 65,000 perished in the Holocaust. The present community in Austria is made up of several distinct groups, the most numerous being expatriate Austrians and their families, as well as former refugees from Eastern Europe. A sizable community of Caucasian and Iranian Jews has been present in Vienna since the 1970s. The Bundesverband der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinden (Union of Jewish Communities) is the umbrella organization of Ashkenazi Jews in Austria and the Sephardim have a separate federation. A Jewish primary school and high school, as well as several Jewish publications serve the needs of the community. The ultra-Orthodox operate an independent school system and other institutions.

POLITICAL PARTIES

The electoral success of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria – FPÖ) continued in 1999. In the spring, party chairman Jörg Haider was elected governor of the province of Carinthia, and in the October national elections the FPÖ won an unprecedented 27 percent of the vote, becoming the second largest party (see General Analysis, “The 1999 Electoral Success of Nationalist Populist Parties in Europe”). The increase in support for the FPÖ was especially notable among workers, formerly traditional Social Democratic voters. The FPÖ found much support among men and younger voters.

Xenophobic messages, such as “Stop asylum abuse!” and “Stop foreign infiltration [Überfremdung]!” dominated the FPÖ election campaign. Überfremdung, a term drawn from the Nazi lexicon, reappeared in the 1970s in the extreme right campaign against the “flood of foreigners” (Ausländerflut), as well as in anti-Semitic agitation. Although in its 1991 verdict rejecting the appeal of the Liste NEIN zur Ausländerflut (see below) on the validity of the 1991 national election, the Constitutional Court stated that their anti-foreigner agitation was modelled closely on that of the NSDAP, eight years later those Nazi slogans were present on every Vienna street corner. The unrestricted FPÖ onslaught against foreigners continued after the election, particularly by the Viennese branch. The main target of the FPÖ's campaign are asylum seekers from Africa, usually denounced as “drug-dealers,” or, in Haider’s words, “Our children's murderers.”

The integration of right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis into the FPÖ, which began in 1986, continued with the FPÖ’s entry into the government. For example, Rene Schimanek, brother of a leading activist of the neo-Nazi Volkstreue Ausserparlamentarische Opposition (VAPO), served briefly as personal secretary of FPÖ justice minister Michael Krüger. FPÖ Minister of Infrastructure Michael Schmid employs former neo-Nazi activist Gerhard Sailer as an assistant. The latter still writes for Fakten (Facts), an extreme right-wing monthly, issued by the Partei Kritische Demokraten (Party of Critical Democrats), which evolved out of the neo-Nazi Liste NEIN zur Ausländerflut (“NO to the Foreigner Flood” List).

Haider’s resignation as FPÖ chairman, on 1 May, was a tactical move. The new chairwoman, Susanne Riess-Passer, and all leading party officials have emphasized that Haider still makes the decisions in the FPÖ. Moreover, contrary to previous statements, Haider did not explicitly rule out returning as a candidate for the chancellorship in the next elections. He can now remain in an opposition role: while the FPÖ as a governmental party might have to break its electoral promises, Haider can present himself as the people’s advocate who fights the establishment, continuing his campaign against “bigwigs” and “bureaucrats.” In regard to the Nazi past, Haider remains equivocal. In fall 1999 he attempted to clarify his attitude toward National Socialism (NS). His speech, mentioning casually “some statements” in connection with NS that “were ascribed to him” and that were “insensitive and misleading,” was understood as a half-hearted attempt to distance himself from Nazi ideology. However, in an interview with the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, in February 2000, Haider stated that continual reference to the past was characteristic of the Germans. Austrians had a different mentality, he claimed: they felt that the past has been discussed enough.

EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS AND EXTREMIST ACTIVITY

The Burschenschaften, associations of ultra-right male students, are considered to be the cadre pool of the FPÖ. Two ministers (Martin Bartenstein, Austrian People’s Party [ÖVP], and Dieter Böhmdorfer, FPÖ) and an undersecretary (Reinhart Waneck, FPÖ) rose from this nationalistic German and anti-Semitic milieu. In a report for the year 1999, the Staatspolizei warned that “the agitation of these student associations reveals the attempt to indirectly pave the way for some acceptance of National Socialist ideas.” Revanchism and the vision of Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany) are still important components of their political outlook.

Organizations linked to the FPÖ include its graduates’ association, Freiheitlichen Akademikerverbände (FAV), which publishes the monthly Aula (see ASW 1998/9). In 1999 the magazine continued to print anti-Semitic articles and advertise Holocaust denial publications. The editor of Aula is Otto Scrinzi, one of the leading activists of Austrian right-wing extremism. He is a former NSDAP member and FPÖ politician. In addition, he acts as chairman of the Österreichisches Kulturwerk, which organizes an annual conference in Carinthia attended mostly by right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis. In 1999 vitriolic anti-Semitic statements were included in a lecture given under the auspices of Akademikerverband für Wien, Niederösterreich und Burgenland by the German Horst Mahler. Mahler, who was one of the founders of the extreme left terrorist group Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction) crossed the lines to the German extreme right.

In 1999 Horst Mahler expressed anti-Semitic views in the leading publication of the New Right, the weekly Zur Zeit (issue no. 46/99). Zur Zeit, which has strong links to the FPÖ through its editors FPÖ Bundesrat member John Gudenus, former ambassador Josef Dengler and Haider’s advisor Andreas Mölzer, is associated with the German New Right organ Junge Freiheit.

Anti-Semitism and racism in Zur Zeit are less blatant than in Aula, because the former seeks to be accepted by conservative circles. Nevertheless, its content is extremely right-wing. In the February 2000 issue of Zur Zeit, Mölzer, under the pseudonym Norbert Niemann, demanded an end to the Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the Nazi past). The European Union boycott was described by Zur Zeit as part of an “anti-Austrian conspiracy of a liberal-socialist-communist-internationalist clique.” Veiled reference to an alleged world Jewish conspiracy appeared in the weekly (15/2000) in an article which claimed, inter alia: “An alliance of the Socialist International and international high finance is anxious to force down the rates of the leading shares on the Vienna stock market since the new government has come to power.”

Former FPÖ member Robert Dürr announced in summer 1998 the demise of his Partei Neue Ordnung (Party of the New Order – PNO), following police investigations. Nevertheless, in September 1999 a new issue of the anti-anti-fascist PNO-Nachrichten (PNO News) was published. After further investigations, Dürr is to stand trial on charges of repeated circulation of NS propaganda, especially in PNO-N, which focuses particularly on conspiracy theories.

Other extreme right associations are Arbeitsgemeinschaft für demokratische Politik (AFP), which organizes a yearly seminar for radical right-wingers from Austria and other countries; the Kulturwerk; the Neue Klub, associated with the revanchist Österreichische Landsmannschaft, and the Freundeskreis Zeitgeschichte (Friends of Contemporary History).

In addition to Aula, Zur Zeit, Eckartbote and Fakten, Völkerfreund should also be mentioned as a leading rightist publication. In October 1999 Völkerfreund organized a “readers’ trip” to Spain, where they met the fugitive Austrian neo-Nazi Gerd Honsik. Honsik, who was sentenced to prison in Austria, still circulates his anti-Semitic smear sheet Halt from exile in Spain.SkinheadsPopular support for neo-Nazi skinhead groups increased in 1999 and they continued their attempts to form a network within Austria and with neighbouring countries. Blood & Honour -- Division Österreich was set up nationwide in Austria with the cooperation of the international Blood & Honour (B&H). These groups, which are organized conspiratorially, are characterized by violent tendencies. The danger, as can be observed in the case of the Hammerskins who operate mainly in western Austria (Vorarlberg), lies in the merger of neo-Nazism and the sub-culture of skinheads. During the mainly illegal rock shows, skinheads are recruited to the NS movement. The magazine of the B&H Austrian section (Blood & Honour -- Division Österreich) is distributed from a post office box in Hungary.

Karl Polacek, a leading skinhead and neo-Nazi ideologist, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1999, managed to flee the country, apparently to Scandinavia. In October 1999 he published a circular, announcing that he had transferred his paper, Braunauer Ausguck (which last appeared in 1998), abroad, probably to neo-Nazis of the German Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (FAP), which was banned in 1995.Links with European Extreme Right GroupsFollowing the Austrian election, extreme right parties in Europe declared their solidarity with Haider, in the expectation that their electoral chances would improve. Publicly, the FPÖ tries to play down its relations with the European extreme right, admitting contacts only with more moderate right-wing parties, such as the Italian Lega Nord, led by Umberto Bossi, with whom Haider met in October 1999. Obviously, however, the FPÖ considers other extreme right parties in Europe potential partners. At the party congress in Klagenfurt on 1 May 2000, Haider declared the “century of the Freiheitlichen [freedom parties]” and hoped that right-wing extremists would join the governments of Italy, France and Denmark. He said that in the case of Germany, a national freedom movement modeled on the FPÖ must unite the splintered right first. The FPÖ had already found the person in Germany capable of this task: the former Greens MP Alfred Mechtersheimer who is currently associated with right-wing extremism.

During 1999-2000 German and Austrian members of Deutsche Burschenschaft participated in meetings in Austria, where they discussed, inter alia, the Völkisches Prinzip (national principle), namely, the definition of Austrians as part of the German nation, and the concept that Germans are not defined by state borders but by language and blood. The meeting that took place in Salzburg in April 1999 was chaired by Andreas Mölzer; Jürgen Schwab (who writes both for Aula and the NDP organ Deutsche Stimme) and Rolf Schlierer, chairman of the German Republikaner, took part in the discussion. One of the claims made was that the Germans were faced with the threat of becoming a minority in the foreseeable future.

In late September 1999 it was revealed that the German NPD was trying to expand into Austria, aided on the Austrian side by Burschenschaftler Jürgen Schwab and former member of the SS Herbert Schweiger, currently head of the Deutsche Kulturgemeinschaft Europäischen Geistes (German Cultural Association of European Spirit -- DKEG) in Graz, his political follower Andreas Thierry, the right-wing extremist Christian Rogler from Salzburg and Robert Dürr. Walter Marinovic and Martin Schwarz, aka Robert Schwarzbauer, contributors to the NPD organ Deutsche Stimme, also play an important role in links to the German extreme right. The Carinthian cadre Andreas Thierry held several training courses in 1999 for the NPD in Germany. The NPD homepage announced that “a large number of sympathizers and guests from Austria would be welcomed” to the regional party conference of the Bavarian section on 10 October 1999.

Extreme Right Violence In 1999, the Ministry of Interior reported an increase of 83 percent in extreme right-wing criminal acts, including anti-Semitic incidents; 274 charges were pressed under the Verbotsgesetz (law against revival of National Socialism) compared with 198 in 1998.

The case of a Catholic priest, Dr. Michael Paulus, from Ternitz in Lower Austria illustrates the modus operandi of the extreme right. The priest, who works with refugees and the poor, received a death threat: “Our movement will give you a cruel death. Your church will burn.” The letter signed with SS runes and swastikas was headed “Juda Verrecke” (Perish, Jew) and contained further anti-Semitic insults.

In February 1999 neo-Nazis set fire to two pubs frequented mainly by foreigners, and to a refugee home in Vienna, causing property damage. Four juvenile skinheads were identified as the perpetrators.

ANTI-SEMITISM AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL

Dr. Ariel Muzicant, president of the Jewish community, pointed to an increase in anti-Semitic insults and threats in Austria in the wake of the FPÖ’s success. In addition, on 20 April 1999 (Hitler’s birthday) two 19-year-old neo-Nazis desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Graz. The perpetrators received prison sentences. When Muzicant blamed the FPÖ for the rise in anti-Semitism, he was sued by Haider for “stirring up hatred.” Other FPÖ activists responded by founding the Schutzgemeinschaft freiheitlicher Wählerinnen und Wähler (Defense Alliance of FPÖ voters – SG) to combat what they termed a well-organized initiative to defame their party.

The FPÖ attacks were also directed against anti-fascist organizations. Haider sued Dr. Wolfgang Neugebauer, director of Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes (DÖW), who accused the FPÖ leader of making anti-Semitic threats in his reaction to Israeli criticism of Austria.

A leading FPÖ activist in the confrontation with the Jewish community is Peter Sichrovsky, the FPÖ deputy to the European Parliament (see previous reports). Sichrovsky, who is Jewish, described Muzicant and other Jewish critics of the FPÖ as not “real” Austrians, “who are not emotionally bound up with this state.” He also called leading Jewish functionaries “professional Jews,” who had “taken advantage of the worldwide feeling of guilt.”

The allegation that the boycott of Austria was a “Jewish conspiracy” became a principal theme in anti-Semitic propaganda in 1999. Haider himself set the tone when he accused “high functionaries of the Jewish community in Vienna” of being the wire-pullers of an alleged anti-Austria campaign and of trying “to intervene against us in the State Department in Washington.” In the same vein, publications such as Zur Zeit labeled criticism of the FPÖ’s participation in the government as “the old anti-German hatred directed against a small country like Austria” and “Jewish-Israeli ambitions to have a bogy man in order to legitimate further financial claims.” Writers such as the Catholic theologian Friedrich Romig and the conservative journalist Kurt Dieman, claimed that the same clique involved in the anti-Waldheim conspiracy, namely, an international conspiracy of Jews, had revived its activities against Austria. Revisionist and Holocaust denial articles appeared as well in Zur Zeit. In the article “Doubt, Father of Cognition” (issue 23/99), Hans Gamlich called Adolf Hitler “a great social revolutionary,” blamed Churchill for the outbreak of World War II and denied the systematic murder of Jews in the chambers.

The alleged Jewish conspiracy to boycott Austria and denial of the Holocaust are themes that recur in Walter Ochensberger’s magazine Phoenix. Ochensberger, who served a two-year prison sentence (for NS revival) in the mid-1990s, maintains a low profile. According to Ochensberger, the Austrian case reveals the goals of the “rulers of the ‘Jewish ideological community’.” the institution of “democracy according to their worldwide program... which is not in conformity with the will of the peoples in question.” The Jews, claimed Ochensberger, had good reason to keep Haider out of power, because “with his policy, he could set off a chain reaction of resistance among those European peoples who are in danger of extermination.”

One of the main disseminators of the alleged Jewish conspiracy theory is Karl Steinhauser, who runs Edition Secret News, a small publishing and mail-order company. He distributed the book Protokolle der Weisen von Zion aus der Sicht nach 100 Jahren (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion 100 Years Later) by Herbert Pitlik, which was confiscated in early 2000. He continued to distribute anti-Semitic literature, for example Pitlik’s new book The Nuremberg Trials: Tracing the Truth, B’nai B’rith -- Jewry and World Politics and Israel’s Secret Plan for the Annihilation of Peoples. Steinhauser also offers reprints of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Theodor Fritsch’s version -- 1931) and The Power of the Jews, Its Nature and End, by Erich and Mathilde Ludendorff.

Lectures and interviews by Horst Mahler, who was invited to Austria by members of FAV, were frequently tainted with anti-Semitism. At one of these meetings in Vienna, on 23 November 1999, Mahler spoke to an audience of 150 against Jewish influence on German affairs and in favor of German-Austrian völkisch solidarity. He emphasized to his Austrian audience the necessity of freeing the German Volksgemeinschaft (völkisch community), which for Mahler includes the Austrians, from Jüdischen Prinzipien (Jewish principals) and from “Jewish money worship.” Mahler’s statements, were met with thunderous applause, and FAV chairman Reimer Timmel emphasized that “we identify with essential parts of the lecture” such as “concern about foreign infiltration.”

The “Jewish spirit” responsible for weakening the German nation, was a frequent theme in articles written by Aula’s editor Scrinzi. For example, in the July/August 1999 issue, Scrinzi claimed Germany’s “degeneration” was caused by Jewish influence. In the same issue, he wrote on the role of Jewish bankers. Scrinzi, like many right-wing extremists, identifies Jews with money and/or large banks. He denounced “German politicians” who had submitted to the “god of Mammon.” According to Scrinzi, the Holocaust memorial in Berlin was intended to symbolize the eternal subjugation of the Germans.

Aula promotes publications of Holocaust deniers such as Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, published in Great Britain by Germar Rudolf (see Germany).

Even Neue Kronen Zeitung (NKZ), Austria’s largest daily paper read by over 40 percent of the population, is often tinged with racism and anti-Semitism. In 1997 an Austrian court confirmed that the paper was carrying out a smear campaign against foreigners. Recent articles stirred up public opinion against paying compensation to former forced laborers and Jewish victims of NS. It also leveled strong criticism at domestic and foreign critics of the FPÖ’s joining the government. In February 2000, the NKZ published an openly anti-Semitic poem: “Dass Juden jetzt aus Östreich flüchten,/ steht zu befürchten wohl mitnichten./ Denn selbst für ärgste Haider-Fresser/ lebt es sich wohl um Häuser besser/ im ‘Nazi-Land’ der blauen ‘Schande’/ als im gelobten heil’gen Lande...” (No Jews will flee Austria now,/for even the worst Haider-eaters/prefer blue-shamed “Nazi-Land”/to the promised Holy Land.)

Anti-Semitic comments are common on the mailing list of Ostara, the website of the neo-Nazi Bürgerforum (Citizens’ Forum -- see previous reports). A main theme is the alleged Jewish conspiracy against Austria. Statements such as: “Undoubtedly, the result of the national elections was not in accordance with the Jews’ plan,” or “Somebody should tell the Jews: ‘Enough paying you off; get out, you bandits, back to the desert where you parasites came from’.”

The Wiener Nachrichten Online homepage, which began operating in 1999, is slightly more moderate, including reports about the activities of right-wing extremists in Austria and opinions on current affairs. In 1999, the homepage of the Austrian section of the Ku Klux Klan also went online. In addition, anti-Semitic and racist statements appear on sites that support the right of extremists to express their views; Speaker’s Corner Austria was one such site, until its chatroom was closed in June 2000.

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

In 1999, a Wehrbereitschaft (Defense Readiness Initiative) was proposed by associates of Zur Zeit. Their aim was to repair the tarnished image of the German Wehrmacht in Austrian schools by bringing former Wehrmacht soldiers, such as Walter Marinovic or Herbert Schaller, Gerd Honsik’s lawyer, to speak about World War II. The project was advertised in a leaflet prepared for the Ministry of Education. However, after the extremist origins of the Wehrbereitschaft were revealed, the ministry dissociated itself from the project.

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM

In 1999 the authorities dealt with a total of 717 reports of right-wing extremism, resulting in 146 house searches and 22 arrests. There were 38 convictions of extreme rightists in Austrian courts during the year. During raids, police seized large amounts of NS-material and CDs with neo-Nazi songs, weapons and files with personal information on political opponents.

In March 1999 the retired chaplain Gottfried Melzer was sentenced to a six months suspended sentence for anti-Semitic incitement. Melzer wrote and circulated “Ritual Murder and Host Desecration as an Act of Hatred by the Counter-Church” (Loreto-Bote, 14a) which, in addition to Holocaust denial dealt extensively with ritual murder, especially Jews murdering Christian children. Melzer is a co-organizer of the pilgrimage to Rinn (Tirol), the location of an alleged Jewish ritual murder in the 15th century. The pilgrimage took place in 1999 despite being prohibited by the church (see previous reports).

The traditional NS association Verein Dichterstein Offenhausen was disbanded by a court order in 1999. All efforts of FPÖ politicians to have the ban lifted were to no avail.

The DÖW lodged a complaint about Gamlich’s Holocaust denial article in Zur Zeit. The prosecutor began investigating Gamilch and the newspaper’s publisher, Andreas Mölzer. Haider, as head of the provincial government of Carinthia and Mölzer’s employer, said the legal authorities should concentrate on the problem of child molestation rather than on marginal issues (referring to the denial and minimization of NS crimes). Indeed, the Ministry of Justice announced in May 2000 that the law suit against Mölzer would be discontinued but the investigation against Gamlich on suspicion of violating the Nazi-Verbotsgesetz would continue.

Two leading VAPO activists, Gottfried Küssel and Hans-Jörg Schimanek, jr., were released on probation in 1999 after they had served two-thirds of their sentence.