LATEST UPDATE: 31 DECEMBER 1997
The number of incidents with a far-right, xenophobic or antisemitic motive that were investigated by the police in 1997 increased by 11 per cent over the previous year.
The xenophobic Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) led by Jörg Haider continues to be successful. In March 1997, in local council elections in Carinthia, a traditional FPÖ stronghold, the party made significant gains, taking 26 per cent of the vote. In November 1997 the FPÖ demonstrated its influence by forcing a referendum on European monetary union as a result of collecting 200,000 signatures (twice the required number).
While Haider enjoys continuing electoral success, the extremist scene is increasingly marginalized. The reason appears to be twofold: the police seem to have acquired a firmer grip on far-right activities, primarily as a result of their investigations into the letter-bombing campaign; and a number of successful prosecutions of individuals for neo-Nazi activity over the past few years has to some extent deprived these movements of their leaders.
By far the most spectacular recent legal development was the arrest in October 1997 of Franz Fuchs, the principal suspect in several of the letter-bombing incidents of the previous four years and a self-confessed member of the underground Bajuwarische Befreiungsarmee (BBA, Bavarian Liberation Army).
As for underlying attitudes towards Jews, the results of an opinion poll carried out in the autumn of 1996 show that certain prejudices against Jews exhibit a marked resilience among the Austrian population. While such issues as the 'Waldheim affair' and the fact that the money of Holocaust victims has been held in European banks (see Nazi gold) periodically recall the tradition of Austrian antisemitism and the darker side of Austrian history, this must be weighed against the recent efforts of politicians, academics and others to confront this legacy openly and to denounce racism and antisemitism.
Demographic data
Total population: 7.9 million
Jewish population: 8,000 (mainly in Vienna)
Other minorities: Slovenes, Croats, ex-Yugoslavs, Turks, Roma and Sinti
Political data
Constitutional status: federal parliamentary democracy
Ruling coalition (since the December 1995 general election): Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (SPÖ, Social Democratic Party)-Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP, Austrian People's Party). The SPÖ was led by Chancellor Franz Vranitzky until January 1997 when he resigned and was replaced by Victor Klima, former finance minister of the governing coalition.
Other parties: Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ, Freedom Party of Austria) led by Jörg Haider; Die Grünen (Greens); Liberales Forum (LiF, Liberal Forum)
Next presidential election: April 1998
Economic data
GDP: growth rate of 2.0 per cent on 1996 (1997 figure, Austrian Central Statistical Office, ACSO)
Inflation: 1.4 per cent (1997 figure, ACSO)
Unemployment: 4.4 per cent (1997 figure, ACSO)
Currency: US$1=Sch12.69 (end 1997)
Jews have lived in Vienna and its environs since the tenth century. It was not until the modern period that they were dispersed geographically throughout what is now Austria.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the confiscation of property, economic restrictions, expulsions and, finally, persecutions became so commonplace that Austria became known among Jews as 'the bloodstained land'.
From the end of the eighteenth century, with the growing centralization of government and empire, the position of the Jews in Austria became increasingly linked with the history of the empire as a whole. Under the rule of Joseph II (1780-90) and the influence of his Toleranzpatent, assimilation was encouraged, and Jews were even admitted into the army.
In the late nineteenth century antisemitism became more widespread in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Catholic antisemitism found expression through Karl Lüger and his Christian Social Party, and pan-German nationalist antisemitism became integrated into the policies of Georg von Schönerer and his German National Party.
In the 1930s the Christian Social Party's amalgamation of religious, economic, cultural and racial prejudice, together with its reluctance to introduce discriminatory measures against Jews, was at a disadvantage against Hitler's racial 'antisemitism of reason' and the Nuremberg Laws. Yet the stated objectives of these two strands of antisemitism were not dissimilar. In 1938 Austria was incorporated into the German Third Reich, and the Nazis' racial policies were applied.
The Austrian Second Republic, founded in 1945, repudiated National Socialism. Antisemitism was redefined officially as a relic of a hated regime. While the negative connotations associated with the term 'antisemitism' did not eliminate the problem of anti-Jewish prejudice, public expressions of hostility towards Jews were seen to transgress, at least implicitly, recognized normative expectations of post-Auschwitz Austrian political debate and, as such, were considered largely unrelated to the wider political culture.
The 'Waldheim affair' in the 1980s was a watershed in the development of the post-war 'Jewish question', because it witnessed the willingness of a major political party (ÖVP) to appeal to antisemitic prejudice - coded in an appropriate post-Auschwitz idiom - and indicated the potential for success of such an appeal. A 1991 poll showed that even after five years of Waldheim's international isolation, a significant percentage of Austrians still held 'the Jews' accountable for the 'Waldheim affair'. The same opinion survey revealed the alarming resilience of anti-Jewish stereotypes in Austria. Waldheim's retirement from public office in 1992 removed the focus of hostility towards Jews. Yet any allusion to the World Jewish Congress (Waldheim's strongest critic in the 1980s) usually still elicits a venomous response from the tabloid press and some conservative politicians.
In the early 1990s, with the rise of Haider's FPÖ, so-called 'foreigners' became the principal focus of political intolerance.
For the results of an opinion poll of Austrian attitudes to minorities, see Opinion polls.
In March 1997 changes in legislation on asylum, residence permits and work permits were adopted, and described by the government as an 'integration package'. Among the changes to the asylum law was the provision that no applications for political asylum could be made from a 'safe third country' and that what constitutes a 'safe third country' would be decided at ministerial level (and not by asylum authorities). The residency law (Aufenhaltsgesetz) was incorporated into a revised 'alien law' (Fremdemgesetz) and included amended provisions such as: the ability to grant permanent residency to foreign residents after eight years; the lifting of the ban on permanent residency for the second generation of family members; the extending of the investigative powers of the police in tracking down illegal aliens.
According to the latest information supplied by the Bundesministirium für Inneres (BFI, Interior Ministry) the following 'hate crimes' (motivated by xenophobia or racism, but apparently not by antisemitism) were recorded in Austria in 1997: 3 incidents of arson (one death, 11 injuries); 2 incidents of assault and battery; 1 incident of assault; 2 incidents of vandalism; 3 anonymous threats.
A total of 384 incidents was reported in connection with 'right-wing extremism', including: 143 in which the culprits were unknown; 58 against individual youths; 20 against members of youth gangs.
The police searched the premises of 99 individuals, as a result of which 25 people were detained. Altogether, 47 indictments resulted in convictions, while in 36 cases, the evidence was not sufficient to bring a prosecution.
In addition, 322 incidents motivated by extreme right-wing ideology, xenophobia or antisemitism (some committed in earlier years) were investigated by the police during 1997. Of these, 163 were solved by the end of the year. In comparison with 1996, the number of such incidents investigated by the police increased by 11 per cent (from 290 to 322). These incidents included contraventions of the 1945 law against open support for National Socialism or Nazism (NS-Verbotsgesetz), violations of the criminal code (including incitement), violations of the law prohibiting Nazi symbols, and violations of the laws on association (Vereine) (see Legal matters). The rate of convictions increased from 48.6 per cent in 1996 to 50.6 per cent in 1997.
All five parties represented in the Austrian parliament (see General background) officially oppose discrimination against Jews and national or ethnic minorities, and all condemn acts of political violence. And while the enormous influence of the sometimes offensive mass-circulation tabloid Neue Kronen Zeitung makes most mainstream politicians hesitate before criticizing its editorial line too explicitly, blatant expressions of anti-Jewish prejudice usually elicit public admonition and, if deemed serious enough, sometimes have political consequences.
Thus it is rare for national leaders of any of the parliamentary parties openly to express hostile attitudes towards Jews. On the contrary, part of the legacy of the 'Waldheim affair' to Austrian political culture is that political elites have become keenly aware of the potential damage such expressions might cause. Moreover, the pronouncements of national leaders on questions such as the historical responsibility of Austrians for the Holocaust, the commemoration of its victims and the need to combat antisemitism have continued Franz Vranitzky's much-acclaimed inauguration in 1992 of policies based on an acceptance of Austria's historical responsibility for crimes against the Jews (see Countering antisemitism). Yet, while there is no doubt as to the broadly 'philosemitic' inflection given to contemporary political discourse about Jews and things Jewish, the 'hard cases' such as the Wehrmacht exhibition (see Countering antisemitism) or the issue of stolen Jewish property stored in Swiss banks (see Switzerland) point to ambivalence in the carefully cultivated pronouncements of many politicians.
If the mainstream parties and politicians, with few exceptions, still abide by the taboo on openly anti-Jewish statements, restraint is sometimes less noticeable among individual members of these parties, particularly regarding expressions of ethnic prejudice against other minorities. (Notable exceptions here are the Greens and LiF who have unimpeachable records in this regard.) Such utterances do not always elicit the same kind of public condemnation as antisemitic ones. Indeed, in the case of the FPÖ under Jörg Haider, anti-foreigner sentiments have met with well-documented success - a success that has contributed to the inability of the far right to make electoral headway with its racist and xenophobic propaganda (see below).
From the FPÖ's use of the slogan 'Wien darf nicht Chicago werden' ('Vienna must not become Chicago') in successive municipal election campaigns, to Haider's 'Austria first' initiative petition (1992-3), to his promise to use the negotiations on the 'eastern' expansion of the European Union to focus on immigration, to Karl-Heinz Grasser's racist directive (see below), Haider's FPÖ skilfully channels the fears and uncertainty many Austrians feel about their future into xenophobic sentiments.
In addition, the FPÖ's frequent demagogic appeals to ethnic prejudice and exploitation of the 'foreigner' issue in its electoral propaganda (sometimes containing racist overtones), together with the highly restrictive immigration policies pursued by the government, all seem to have reduced the political 'space' for non-terrorist far-right organizations (see below).
Equally, Haider's attempts to build a more respectable image and appeal to a wider range of voters by dumping important planks of the FPÖ programme - in particular talismanic references to membership of the 'German cultural community' and the party's militant secularism - have caused dissension among his ideologically less adaptable supporters. Should Haider's 'turn' towards Catholic voters engender moderation of the FPÖ's more inflammatory anti-foreigner discourse, and this be perceived by his more militant supporters as too accommodating or even a betrayal, one might expect the potential for growth of the far right to increase.
In March 1997, in local council elections in the traditional FPÖ stronghold of Carinthia, the party made significant gains. It took 26 per cent of the vote (in 1991 it took 21.5 per cent). The SPÖ took 40.5 per cent (compared with 45.3 per cent in 1991).
In the same month the Carinthian FPÖ Landesrat Karl-Heinz Grasser stated that 'only Austrians or EU citizens' should be employed on public contracts in the construction industry: 'The question is whether in this Republic we can still take care of Austrian work opportunities.' In the context of the long-running FPÖ anti-foreigner campaign, this comment demonstrates that, despite Haider's attempts to 'clean up' the party image, crude racism remains.
The long-standing controversy surrounding the city of Wels's method of dealing with its National Socialist and antisemitic legacy has come to an end. The central issue has been Otto-Kernstock-Straße, the street named in 1955 by the Wels city council after the antisemitic priest Otto Kernstock, author not only of the second Austrian national anthem but also of the Nazi anthem 'Hakenkreuz-Lied' ('Swastika song'). It is because of this latter accomplishment, and less because of his antisemitism per se - Vienna, after all, still honours the memory of the famously antisemitic Viennese mayor Karl Lüger (see Antisemitic legacy) - that the controversy arose. Members of the local Sozialistische Jugend (SJ, Socialist Youth), the Greens and representatives of the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (DÖW, Archive of the Austrian Resistance) made several attempts over the years to have the street renamed, but the mayor of Wels, Karl Bregartner (SPÖ), rejected their requests. In May 1997, however, the Wels city council finally voted to rename the street Thomas-Mann-Straße.
Bregartner also signed an agreement with the national SPÖ leadership. Point 7 of the nine points agreed states that 'public facilities of the city of Wels are to cancel all business associations with people suspected of far-right activities'. In December 1997, however, the SJ disclosed that Bregartner had renewed a contract for a booth at the Wels industrial fair with Ludwig Reinthaler. Reinthaler, who has never been convicted of neo-Nazi activity but whom the Handbuch des österreichischen Rechtsextremismus (Handbuch, Handbook of the Austrian Far Right), published by DÖW, described as a 'well-known right-wing radical', has in the past distributed leaflets against Roma, and in September 1996 sent a rope to Wolfgang Neugebauer, the director of DÖW, suggesting that he hang himself. To SJ activists, Bregartner's behaviour violated the nine-point agreement. Bregartner, who serves as president of the Wels trade fair, responded that Reinthaler's contract would probably be renewed, and that this was justified because 'Reinthaler had never been convicted [of neo-Nazi activity]'.
A month later, also in Wels, the Moritz Etzold Hall of the Österreichischer Turnerbund (ÖTB, Austrian Gymnastics Association, see below), named after another important Nazi, became the Wels Gymnasium, and the 4-F symbol of the ÖTB that adorned it (bearing a striking resemblance to the swastika) was covered up (see also Countering antisemitism).
The only explicitly antisemitic parties and organizations in Austria are those on the far right, comprising not only small, militant political parties (often 'regional' divisions of German groups) but also more diffusely organized cultural, educational, religious and sporting associations, as well as certain veterans' groups.
The Handbuch lists over fifty such organizations, though many of these consist of no more than a mailing address, and memberships frequently overlap. The Austrian police estimate that hard-core neo-Nazis number approximately 300-500.
Although it is important to identify the groups and individuals who view themselves explicitly as continuing, or reviving, the policies and ideology of the Third Reich, and who are prepared to use violence - and the danger which such potential political violence presents should not be dismissed - such groups have become increasingly marginalized even within the far-right milieu. Primarily as a result of their investigations into the letter-bombings in Austria since 1993 (see Legal matters), the police seem to have acquired a firmer grip on far-right activities. In addition, a number of successful prosecutions over the past few years of individuals for neo-Nazi activity has to some extent deprived these movements of their leaders (see Legal matters).
The recent fate of what was in the late 1980s and early 1990s probably the most active and best known of all Austrian far-right groups, the Volkstreue außerparlamentarische Opposition (VAPO, Ethnically Loyal Extra-Parliamentary Opposition), is emblematic of these developments. Founded in 1986, VAPO came to widespread public attention in 1992, after the arrest of its leader Gottfried Küssel, imprisoned for ten years (increased to eleven on appeal) in 1993. Subsequently, virtually the entire VAPO leadership and several activists have been imprisoned for periods ranging from eighteen months to fifteen years for neo-Nazi activity.
Police and the prosecuting attorney's office believed that the first series of letter-bombs in 1993 had been sent in retaliation for the harsh sentence Küssel had received. Indeed, VAPO activists Peter Binder and Franz Radl were tried in connection with the letter-bombs, but were acquitted due to lack of evidence. However, the investigation into the letter-bombs and their possible connection to VAPO (largely without results) led to over 100 searches of homes of far-right activists, which in turn yielded more evidence on the organization, its membership and the objectives of the far right.
All these investigations and prosecutions have resulted in the virtual disappearance of VAPO as an organization, and have also had a dampening effect on the entire far-right milieu. Thus, while the Aktionsgemeinschaft für demokratische Politik (AFP, Action Society for Democratic Politics), for example, continues to publish its Kommentar zum Zeitgeschehen (Current Affairs Commentary), and its annual political academy remains a meeting point for local and international far-rightists and neo-Nazis, such groups have become even more marginalized than in previous years.
The same law-enforcement efforts have had a similar effect on the older generation of Austrian neo-Nazis. Gerd Honsik, editor of the neo-Nazi Halt (which is still sent into Germany and Austria), remains a fugitive from Austrian justice in Spain, and thus unable to play any significant role in Austria, while many other older German and Austrian formations have either splintered into mutually hostile grouplets or retired to private life. The importance of groups such as the Kritische Demokraten (Critical Democrats), led by Horst Jakob Rosenkranz, has declined significantly, and individuals like Herbert Fritz, a teacher and for many years editor of the far-right paper Der Völkerfreund (The People's Friend), told the news magazine Profil in April 1997 that 'the moderates are withdrawing [from active political involvement]. And [he] wasn't interested in illegal political activity.'
Indeed, the activities of those still committed to far-right politics have recently centred around support groups for imprisoned comrades. The most active of these groups at present are the German Hilfsgemeinschaft für nationale Gefangene (Aid Committee for National Prisoners) and the Forum für ein humanes und demokratisches Strafrecht und zur Einhaltung der Menschenrechte (Forum for a Humane and Democratic Criminal Law and for Upholding Human Rights, see Legal matters).
In theory, the new legislation adopted by the Austrian parliament authorizing the use of intrusive surveillance techniques (see Legal matters) ought to enable the police to keep more effective tabs on far-right activities. At the same time, the far right's increasing use of electronic telecommunications, including sophisticated encoding programmes, has made police work more difficult.
Furthermore, it remains unclear how effectively the organizations that have been dispersed have been able to regroup underground, and to what extent the various diffusely organized cultural, educational, veterans' and athletic organizations with a völkisch character have been used as legal fronts for the dispersed memberships and as potential vehicles for recruitment.
One such group is the Kameradschaft IV, a veterans' organization with a membership largely composed of former Waffen-SS members. It is regionally organized (including German divisions), publishes Die Kameradschaft , an 'independent journal of information for soldiers', and holds regular meetings where far-right literature and Nazi memorabilia are on sale. The group holds a variety of meetings to commemorate war-time events, including an annual meeting on Ulrichsberg mountain near Klagenfurt. Here in 1995 Jörg Haider made the keynote speech that provoked a number of Austrian writers and intellectuals to initiate court proceedings against him for glorification of National Socialism, charges which the authorities did not pursue. Kameradschaft IV condemns the Wehrmacht exhibition (see Countering antisemitism).
Similarly, the athletic organization ÖTB (see above), with some 70,000 members, dozens of regional branches, publications - including the newsletter Bundesturnzeitung (National Gymnastics Newspaper) - and summer camps, is concerned with 'cultural education that instils an awareness of nationality'. To what extent it is successful in this aim is open to dispute - many members are there to enjoy organized sport - but it is one of the most active and 'respectable' of the groups whose leadership openly promotes a kind of völkisch Germanic nationalism, and has been the recipient of indirect government subsidies.
The BFI (see Racism and xenophobia) recorded 17 antisemitic offences in Austria in 1997. This is more than double the number recorded in 1996 (8) but lower than the number recorded in 1995 (25).
In March 1997 Jewish tombstones in a cemetery in Klagenfurt were vandalized. The police have made no arrests.
The second suspect, believed to be the main assailant, involved in the 1992 desecration of the Eisenstadt cemetery, one-time FPÖ candidate Christian W. Anderle, had not been apprehended by the end of 1997. Wolfgang Tomsits, his co-defendant, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in December 1996. Tomsits's sentence took account of his neo-Nazi activity, including the publication of the neo-Nazi pamphlet Albus. At the time of the desecration both men were officials of the FPÖ youth organization Ring freiheitlicher Jugend (RFJ, Circle of Libertarian Youth). Anderle is rumoured to be in Latin America.
In August 1997 the Austrian government began an investigation into an incident that led a group of seventy Italian orthodox Jews to cut short a holiday in Austria. Newspapers reported that Alois Auernigg, the manager of a hotel in Saalbach, near Salzburg, had insulted the Jews with antisemitic 'oaths'. He had also apparently assaulted two members of the group and, when others protested, threatened them with guns. Auernigg denied the charges, claiming that he felt 'intimidated' by the tourists and their insistence on kosher catering.
The most recent opinion poll of attitudes of Austrians towards Jews was conducted by the University of Vienna sociologist Hilde Weiss as part of a September 1996 conference on 'Xenophobia in metropolitan areas'. The results suggest that, while the number of Austrians holding negative stereotypes about Jews in general seems to have increased, Austrians' attitudes towards Jews living in Austria have become more positive.
By asking the same or similar questions as in her 1984 study, Weiss was able to compare attitudes across some thirteen years. Significantly her original survey was carried out two years before the 'Waldheim affair', and thus could not have factored in the effects on attitudes towards Jews, both positive and negative, that that discussion of Austria's past engendered.
In the 1984 survey 33 per cent of those asked agreed (either 'completely' or 'somewhat') with the statement: 'The Jews are too influential today in Austria'; in 1996, it was 34 per cent. The percentage of those who disagreed with this statement (either 'somewhat' or 'completely'), however, rose from 50 (1984) to 56 (1996) per cent. Similarly, while the number of those who agreed with the statement 'Removing the Jews [from our country] also had positive effects' decreased from 19 per cent in 1984 to 16 per cent in 1996, there was no change in the number of those who disagreed (73 per cent).
Slightly more alarmingly, given all the commemorative activities that have taken place in Austria since the 'Waldheim affair', there was an 8 per cent increase between 1984 (18 per cent) and 1996 (26 per cent) of those who agreed with the statement: 'A lot has been exaggerated in regard to concentration camps and Jewish persecution.' The percentage of those who disagreed with the statement also rose, but only from 61 to 66 per cent. This result is traceable in part to the feeling that there were too many commemorative events, particularly those that were held in 1988 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Anschluß.
Responses to questions not included in the 1984 survey also suggest the continued presence of negative stereotypes. Thus, fully 49 per cent agreed that 'Jews dominate world affairs' (41 per cent disagreed), while 18 per cent agreed that 'Jewish access to influential professions' should be controlled or numerically limited (74 per cent disagreed).
Although, at least on the level of general stereotypes identified in the survey's questions, it is difficult to dissent from Weiss's conclusion that antisemitic prejudice 'is still quite strongly anchored in Austria', her study also suggests that attitudes of Austrians towards Jews in Austria have become more favourable since 1984. Thus, if in 1984 only 38 per cent of Austrians responded affirmatively to the question 'Should the Jews live with us in Austria or should they not?', 49 per cent did so in 1996. It remains troubling that less than 50 per cent of Austrians polled in 1996 responded favourably to this question. But it is perhaps of greater significance that the percentage of those who believed that Jews should not live in Austria rose from 16 (1984) to 22 per cent (1996).
One may infer from the results of the study as a whole that the hostility this question engenders probably reflects a more widespread intolerance towards ethnic minorities and immigrants in Austria in general. Of all minorities listed in Weiss's 1996 survey - migratory workers from former Yugoslavia, migratory workers from Turkey, Jews, Roma and Sinti (not included in 1984), ethnic Slovenes, ethnic Croats, immigrants (in 1984 these were considered refugees) from Poland, Czechs (not included in 1984), Hungarians (not included in 1984), refugees from developing countries (not included in 1984), and refugees from Bosnia (not included in 1984) - only ethnic Croats and Slovenes found greater acceptance among Austrians than Jews.
While the results confirm, as Weiss stated, that 'prejudices against the established groups [in Austria] - Slovenes, Croats, ex-Yugoslavs, Jews, Turks and Roma - have declined significantly' in recent years (in this respect Weiss's findings corroborate more detailed earlier polls conducted by Gallop for the American Jewish Committee in 1991 and 1994), the extent of the underlying xenophobia these prejudices reflect remains high.
In December 1997 an article entitled 'Tightrope walk on a one-way street?' by Robert Prantner was published in Zur Zeit, a far-right weekly (see Publications and media). A retired theology professor, Prantner last taught Christian ethics and society at the Catholic college in Heiligenkreutz. He is also a former director of studies of the political academy of the ÖVP, and was accredited as a diplomatic representative of the embassy of the Sovereign Order of Maltese Knights in Austria. After noting the efforts of the Vatican to confront the legacy of Christian antisemitism, and endorsing the statement of an unnamed Belgian Dominican friar against 'antisemitism, racial hatred and crimes against humanity, which have long determined history and contributed to an atmosphere in which the Holocaust could have become possible', Prantner addressed what he perceived as the Jews' unwillingness to return the favour: 'In view of the even bloodier crimes of Jewish representatives (not "Jewry" itself) against Catholic Christians', Prantner wrote, he was disappointed that notable Jewish figures had not offered 'a word, a gesture, a sign of regret, of remorse, of apology'. In particular, Prantner evinced a tale of ritual murder: 'Crimes by Jewish people against Christians are also deplorable stories, against children, such as the holy martyred child Anderl von Rinn, as well as against adults in the period before Easter.' Only if and when 'a congress of world Jewry' asks for forgiveness for 'the blood of murdered Christians shed by Jewish hands' would he be able to congratulate recipients (such as Willy Brandt, Richard von Weizsäcker and Franz Vranitzky) of awards given by B'nai B'rith. In the meantime, he would pray for the 'child Anderl von Rinn martyred at "Judenstein", beatified by the Roman Catholic Church, to whom devout people have remained loyal'.
The blood-libel cult of Anderl von Rinn was established to commemorate the memory of a child, Andreas von Rinn, who, according to a seventeenth-century legend, was the victim of a Jewish ritual murder in 1462. Every 18 July, die-hard devotees of the cult visit the site at 'Judenstein' in Tyrol. In the early 1990s the then bishop of Innsbruck, Reinhold Stecher, spoke out forcefully against the cult, and in 1994 abolished it altogether, renaming the church in Judenstein 'Mariä Heimsuchung' (the Visitation of Mary), and removing all references to the alleged ritual murder. The Vatican itself has since endorsed Stecher's ban on the cult.
One should not exaggerate the significance for the wider political culture of a marginal theologian writing in an obscure, if heavily advertised, right-wing paper. Moreover, not only have several prominent Catholic authorities protested against Prantner's article, the colloquium of professors of Catholic theology at the University of Vienna voted by a two-thirds majority to rescind Prantner's authorization to examine students in theology (though to what extent Prantner's defence of the blood libel played in this decision is unclear). Still, it does suggest that leading representatives of one important, if dissident, wing of the FPÖ, by providing space in the pages of Zur Zeit, see nothing untoward in providing a forum for the crudest of anti-Jewish lies.
More alarming is the response of Ewald Stadler, head of the FPÖ's parliamentary group. In an intervention in parliament, Stadler criticized the 'scandalous rescinding of examination authority' by Vienna's faculty, and stated that the charge of antisemitism against Prantner's article was 'a malicious insinuation'.
Both the concern for their editorial reputations and the public taboo on the subject preclude the appearance in mainstream Austrian newspapers and magazines of primitive anti-Jewish propaganda. This does not prevent more subtle forms of prejudice from appearing in these papers or in less mainstream papers whose editorial line lies between conservative and far-right.
Wiener is a glossy monthly magazine whose principal targetted readership appears to be young professionals (or those so aspiring). Combining articles on personal or professional self-fulfilment with human interest and society gossip, Wiener normally exhibits few pretensions to being either committed to investigative journalism or to pursuing aggressively, or even espousing, a particularly retrograde editorial line. It was thus surprising to find in the July 1997 issue an article by Thomas Köpf entitled 'Skandal in der Kultusgemeinde' (Scandal in the Jewish Community Organization), which made allegations about financial practices and purported misuse of funds received for the benefit of victims of the Holocaust. Also in the magazine was a small item (which appeared under the rubric intern ) by Wolfgang Höllrigl which referred to Köpf's article. While the article posed troubling questions about the funds in question and, in particular, the practices followed in a Jewish old-age home, its style and idiom made use of anti-Jewish stereotypes.
With a prominent subtitle calling attention to 'good business with a bad conscience', the article's lead suggested its tenor: 'Under the guise of [providing] aid for victims of the Holocaust, the Bundesverband der israelitischen Kultusgemeinden [IKG, National Council of Jewish Communal Organizations] pockets horrendous subsidies, which are invested in questionable projects. The accusers - no right-wing agitators, but honest [rechtschaffend ] Jews - have after several years broken their silence and describe how lucrative coming to terms with the past can be.'
The article was laced with pejorative allusions to what has become known as 'Shoah business'. For example, one Ilan Knapp, identified as the executive director of the 'Jewish Professional Training Centre', was described as being 'in charge of small talk, which is not very successful, but does promise extensive ill-gotten gains [satten Reibach ] from subsidies'. Reibach, a colloquial term for profit gained by deception, derives from the Yiddish word rewach (interest).
Normally, the article states, 'whoever criticizes this busy [geschäftig ] association risks being at least painted brown [the Nazi colour] or even being stamped as a Nazi. Dr Fritz Rubin-Bittmann did it anyway. After all, he is himself a Jew.' The pun on the word geschäftig, where beschäftigt would normally be used, reinforces the image of suspicious 'business' dealings. In Köpf's view: 'As long as the past needs to be confronted, the Kultusgemeinde will apparently never lack money.' And, as the magazine announced in bold-faced letters: 'Even in times of cutbacks, the Jewish [mosaisch ] faith can move mountains of money - in the form of subsidies.'
Putting to one side the author's specific allegations of wrongdoing, it seems legitimate to ask what made this particular issue so newsworthy to Wiener in the first place. Why did Köpf strongly imply that the current IKG leadership's primary interest lay in cashing in on Austria's guilty conscience?
In June 1997 three prominent individuals from the Austrian organization Action against Antisemitism registered a formal complaint concerning Köpf's article to the Austrian press council. At its meeting on 9 July, the press council ruled that the authors of the article and the small intern item had 'grossly violated the professional responsibilities of the press and had severely damaged the press's reputation'. In its August 1997 issue Wiener apologized for what it described as 'ill-conceived formulations' capable of 'injury'.
Another example of the transmission of antisemitic messages by means of allusions can be found in a column by Hannes Vogler in the November 1997 issue of Solidarität, the official magazine of the Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund (ÖGB, Austrian Trades Union Federation). Vogler wrote a letter on the question of the single European currency, purporting to have been sent to the magazine by George Soros, the financier and philanthropist. Soros is Jewish and is known to have reservations about the single European currency. In his column, presumably intended to be satirical, Vogler averred that 'experts such as [Soros] should be increasingly heard on the subject of the Euro'. The letterhead of this fictional letter was 'International Moneymakers' Foundation, 1 Wall Street, New York N.Y.' In the letter Soros 'wrote', among other things, that 'the Euro endangers many jobs, above all mine and those of my friends in international currency markets. And this catastrophe could even end up by making many of us do real work.' In a postscript, Soros 'writes': 'Just how serious the situation is for us you can see from the fact that I cannot even afford the ink for a second argument.'
The letterhead used by Vogler strongly implies the existence of an international organization (read 'conspiracy') of 'moneymakers'. Though never explicitly mentioned, the internal evidence of the letter, when read against the background of Austrian antisemitic cultural stereotypes, makes the 'Jewish' nature of this 'organization' clear, though this is not evident in English translation. Several grammatical mistakes, and in particular the non-standard word placement of the modal verb in the postscript ('dass ich mir nicht einmal kann leisten' instead of 'dass ich mir nicht einmal leisten kann'), are clear allusions to what is known in Viennese slang as jiddeln, traces of Yiddish in the speech of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Moreover, the formulation 'to do real work' evokes images both of the traditional anti-Jewish stereotype that Jews do not do manual work, as well as the antisemitic distinction between 'productive' and 'rapacious' capital. There is no record of any repudiation of the column by the editors of Solidarität, the president of the ÖGB, Fritz Verzetnitsch, or the leaders of the party factions in the confederation.
Another case of stereotypes being used to convey an antisemitic message concerns a 1997 version of a children's book by the well-known author Thomas Brezina, illustrated by Robert Rottensteiner. The illustrations of the evil Dr Spinntus in Who Haunts the Black Castle depict a dark, hook-nosed villain with lecherous eyes and a hump. The accompanying text paints Spinntus as a greedy man who kidnaps children and is cruel to animals. A spokesperson for the publishers of the volume, Neue Breitschopf, conceded that 'there is a problem with the illustrations'. The book was withdrawn by the publisher after complaints and re-issued with new illustrations.
Zur Zeit is a weekly paper recently founded and edited by Andreas Mölzer (see below), former director of the FPÖ's political academy. Mölzer is perhaps most (in)famous for having warned Austrians against the dangers of 'ethnic transformation' (Umvolkung ) several years ago. He and others from the more orthodox German nationalist wing of the FPÖ have been critical of Haider's most recent programmatic opportunism (see Parties, organizations, movements). Zur Zeit was founded in part to provide a forum for the more intellectually-minded of such disgruntled elements, and its editorial line can best be described as a middle- to high-brow version of the politics Haider represented between 1986, when he became head of the FPÖ, and roughly the end of 1996, when he inaugurated the explicit political 'turn'. As such, Zur Zeit has been among the most hostile opponents of the Wehrmacht exhibition (see Countering antisemitism) and frequently opens its pages to authors of far-right views as well as to those who propagate old-fashioned Christian antisemitism (see Religious antisemitism).
The August 1997 verdict in favour of Karl Pfeiffer in the case brought against him and the Jewish community magazine Die Gemeinde by the German political scientist Werner Pfeifenberger (see Legal matters) raised the question of public monies being used to support publications that the Austrian courts have adjudged to contain antisemitic propaganda and a '[neo-]Nazi tone'. The case began in 1995 when Pfeifenberger published an essay entitled 'Internationalism versus nationalism - a never-ending mortal hostility' in the Jahrbuch für politische Erneuerung 1995 (1995 Yearbook for Political Renewal), published by the FPÖ-related Freiheitliches Bildungswerk (FBW, Libertarian Educational Institute, now renamed the Freiheitliche Akademie, or Libertarian Academy). In Pfeiffer's February 1995 review in Die Gemeinde, he described the essay as exhibiting a '(neo-)Nazi tone', employing 'Nazi diction' and resurrecting 'the Nazi fairy tale of the world Jewish conspiracy'. Pfeifenberger brought a civil action against Pfeiffer and Die Gemeinde, and also sought redress in the criminal court for defamation of character. The FBW receives between Sch26 and 29 million (between US$2 and $2.3 million) per year in government subsidies. According to the law on subsidies for political academies, those that receive subsidies must 'pursue the aim of education in line with the fundamental principles of the constitution', of which 'Nazi diction' clearly is not one. The current directors of the FBW have declared that they have 'dissociated themselves from Andreas Mölzer and Brigitte Sob, who were then responsible', to which Mölzer retorted lamely that, since he had resigned from the FBW in November 1994, he could not be held responsible for the yearbook which appeared in February 1995.
Use of the Internet, e-mail and computer bulletin boards continues to enable neo-Nazis to establish an ever-growing international network. This network remains relatively inaccessible to law-enforcement agencies in Austria, although new legislation allowing the extended use of investigative tools may change this (see Legal matters).
In February 1996 Kurt Peter Weiß and computer expert Franz Swoboda set up the Bürgerforum Österreich (Austrian Citizen's Forum) web-site on the Internet which contained antisemitic propaganda and Holocaust-denial material. The web-site also enabled visitors to contact other prominent Holocaust deniers, both organizations and individuals, such as the Institute for Historical Review and Ernst Zündel (see United States of America and Canada). Weiß has a long history of far-right activitism, and was at the time an FPÖ member of parliament.The DÖW reported this activity to the police in February 1997 (see Legal matters). Although the web-site was closed down by its Austrian server (Vianet) when details of its contents were made known to the company, it is still accessible through US servers.
Various far-right activities are punishable under Austrian criminal law. Open support of National Socialism and advocacy of Nazi objectives are prohibited by legislation dating from 1945, the so-called 'prohibition law' (NS-Verbotsgesetz). Amendments to the law approved in February 1992 widened the scope of prohibited activity to include denial of the Holocaust and 'crude trivialization' of Nazi genocide. At the same time, the Austrian parliament reduced the minimum sentence from five years to one, reasoning that the lighter the minimum sentence the greater the likelihood of successful prosecutions. Statistics provided by the BFI seem to bear this out. From 1984 to 1990, for example, 676 total prosecutions under the NS-Verbotsgesetz led to only eight convictions. Since the amendments in 1992, however, there have been nearly sixty convictions (some are still pending on appeal). Nonetheless, the long-term educational value, and the civil liberties issues involved in making denial of the Holocaust a criminal offence, remain a matter of controversy.
In addition, the Austrian criminal code penalizes incitement to commit acts of persecution or discrimination against an individual on the basis of his or her race, religion or national origin. The same law also prohibits a person from ridiculing members of one of the aforementioned groups in a contemptuous fashion, or from insulting them in a manner that offends their human dignity. In the past, the law against incitement has been invoked to protect Jews and other minorities against physical attacks, and the latter provisions against crude forms of antisemitic material. However, the wording has proved to be vague and malleable in the courtroom.
The law on the formation of associations (Vereine) states that permission to form an organization may be denied if it is apparent that the organization will pursue the illegal activities of a prohibited organization (e.g. neo-Nazi activities).
Legislation was passed in October 1997 to provide law-enforcement agencies with expanded investigative tools, such as electronic eavesdropping, merging of databases and witness protection programmes. This law will have a direct effect on investigations into far-right activities, particularly in cases involving the Internet.
By far the most spectacular recent legal matter was the October 1997 arrest of Franz Fuchs, the principal suspect in several bombing incidents over the previous four years and a self-confessed member of the underground BBA. Since December 1993 there have been five series of bombings in Austria. They have included letter-bombs sent to individual politicians, outspoken advocates of a more open immigration policy, doctors who had immigrated to Austria from Syria and Korea, and the stepmother of the then interior minister Caspar Einem; pipe-bombs placed in front of a bilingual elementary school and in a village whose residents are predominantly Croatian-Austrian; and a booby-trap bomb in the Burgenland village of Oberwart. Four members of the Roma community were killed in Oberwart in February 1995, and several people have been injured, some severely, by other bombs that have detonated. In a series of lengthy letters laced with racist and xenophobic language, the BBA has claimed responsibility for most of these bombings, and has been linked by police investigators to others. Despite massive police work, however, the authorities have been unable to obtain a single conviction for involvement in these murderous activities.
In October 1997 police in the Styrian community of Gralla stopped Franz Fuchs in an unrelated matter. When the officers approached his car, Fuchs detonated a bomb he was holding, blowing off his own hands and injuring both arresting officers. Searches of Fuchs's apartment yielded much important evidence apparently linking him to several of the bombings and to the BBA. According to newspaper reports, Fuchs has confessed to membership of the BBA and has provided technical information on bomb construction, but has consistently maintained that he belonged to Styrian Battle Group Number 3 of the BBA.
Since Fuchs's arrest, public debate has centred on two closely related issues: whether he was acting alone or as part of a wider conspiracy; and whether his alleged actions were politically motivated. The question of individual 'authorship', of both the bombs and the letters, has dominated discussion since Fuchs's arrest, and has assumed political overtones. By the end of 1997 the investigations had yielded no specific evidence of a network of underground terrorists, and the police were publicly promoting the theory of the individual bomber ever more urgently. 'Only the public wants an accomplice', said Michael Sika, the law-enforcement official in charge of public security. However, there are unanswered questions about the assumption, which the police make, that the crimes Fuchs is alleged to have committed are BBA-linked bombings. For one thing, police have not been able to find many of the ingredients used to build the bombs. Moreover, since the author(s) of the letters from the BBA appear(s) to have lifted, or paraphrased, passages from certain history books, and is believed to be schooled in law, many observers believe that there must be a 'library', or at least photocopies, of the works in question. To date, however, the police have discovered neither another 'workshop' nor the literary resources believed to be required to write the letters. This latter point has itself caused a great deal of controversy. Several historians in Austria have argued that only someone with specialized knowledge, and thus training as a historian, could have written the letters. The internal evidence of the letters, however, suggests that a reasonably talented amateur could have written the 'historical' passages. Police have said that they are still searching for possible accomplices, and have not provided plausible explanations for any of these still open questions.
Throughout the investigation there had been leaks about differences within the police as to the culprit's psychological profile. At the same time, speculation about the bomber's potential political motivations ranged from Haider's claim that the Serbian secret service or the extreme left might be involved, to the claim that there existed a definite link between the FPÖ's xenophobic rhetoric and the formulations in the BBA letters. Given the explicitly racist content of the letters, the police investigated the neo-Nazi milieu but, after the embarrassing acquittal of Peter Binder and Franz Radl of complicity in the letter-bombs (see below and Parties, organizations, movements), they abandoned the theory that the culprit was a neo-Nazi activist. More recently, however, Sika, supported by the tabloid daily Neue Kronen Zeitung, has attempted to 'depoliticize' the terrorist acts entirely. Hans Dichand, publisher of Neue Kronen Zeitung, criticized unnamed members of a 'hunting party' who 'wanted to fool the public into believing that an army of right-wing radicals was standing by'. Indeed Sika has argued that Fuchs's ideology, while admittedly racist, is not radically right-wing. Sika has been quoted as asking rhetorically whether 'every racist must be a right-wing radical?', rather missing the point that this culprit was a racist who was willing to kill his opponents. Sika's opinion does not appear to be shared by all government officials, or even by the new interior minister, Karl Schlögl. Nonetheless, the views Sika, supported by Neue Kronen Zeitung, has expressed - an attempt, as Herbert Lackner, the editor of the news weekly Profil, described it, 'to convert the most serious political crime in post-war [Austrian] history into a boring everyday psychological thriller' - do contribute to the trivialization of the clearly racist motivation of the bomber(s).
The DÖW originally filed complaints against Franz Swoboda in February 1997 (in Vienna) and against Peter Kurt Weiß in July 1997 (in Salzburg). They were charged with two counts of violating the NS-Verbotsgesetz on their Internet web-site (see Publications and media). The Vienna prosecuting attorney's office decided that use of the Internet did not violate the provision in the NS-Verbotsgesetz against public dissemination of neo-Nazi material. In response to criticism of this initial decision not to prosecute Swoboda, Justice Minister Nikolaus Michalek announced in May that the prosecuting attorney's office would pursue the investigation. In the meantime Michalek's ministry has issued its own guidelines on prosecuting, and otherwise combatting, such propaganda on the Internet. The case against Weiß by the Salzburg district court is ongoing. In the meantime Weiß and Swoboda remain active.
In April 1997 Peter Binder, sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 1995 (of which he had served several months in pre-trial detention) for neo-Nazi activity, was released on parole (see above).
Two of the main VAPO leaders, Gottfried Küssel and Hans-Jörg Schimanek Jr, sentenced to eleven and eight years respectively, must both serve many years before they come up for parole (unless their sentences are further reduced). Küssel was originally sentenced to ten years, raised on appeal to eleven (see Parties, organizations, movements); Schimanek Jr was originally sentenced to fifteen years, reduced on appeal to eight. Since his son's conviction in March 1995 Hans-Jörg Schimanek Sr (an official of the Lower Austrian FPÖ) has been campaigning to have the case reopened and/or the sentence reduced. Moreover, Schimanek Jr's cause had been adopted by the Forum for a Humane and Democratic Criminal Law and for Upholding Human Rights (see Parties, organizations, movements). Recently, however, the head of the FPÖ's parliamentary group, Ewald Stadler, has become involved in Schimanek Jr's case. In an interpellation directed to Justice Minister Michalek in June 1997 Stadler claimed that two of the jurors in Schimanek Jr's trial were biased because of alleged links with the Roma and Sinti community (particularly in Oberwart). Stadler argued that, for this reason, 'the trial by the media, and . . . the constantly repeated apparent connection between the defendant and the Oberwart bombing, it is not surprising that a fifteen-year sentence was handed down'. The justice ministry currently has no plans to reopen the case.
Trials were held in July and September 1997 of VAPO activists for violations of the NS-Verbotsgesetz. Altogether, ten people were tried and given suspended sentences.
The suits brought by the German political scientist Werner Pfeifenberger against the journalist Karl Pfeiffer and the Jewish communal magazine Die Gemeinde were resolved in 1997 in Pfeiffer's favour. Pfeifenberger brought a civil action against Pfeiffer and Die Gemeinde, and also sought redress in the criminal court for defamation of character. The cause of the offence was Pfeiffer's description of one of Pfeifenberger's articles as exhibiting a '(neo-)Nazi tone' (see Publications and media). An expert opinion on the question, which the court had commissioned from Rudolf Ardelt, professor of history at the University of Linz, found that 'Nazi tones are clearly identifiable, both terminologically and with respect to the construction of a specific historical account'. In August 1997 the Vienna civil court found for Pfeiffer, concluding that there were 'various patterns of Nazi propaganda, [some of] which are contained in the plaintiff's [i.e. Pfeifenberger's] article'. One month later the criminal court with jurisdiction (Landesgericht ) dismissed Pfeifenberger's suit.
For Pfeifenberger personally, the verdicts had immediate professional consequences: he was fired from his college teaching position in Münster, and his appeal to the Düsseldorf labour court was dismissed. Pfeifenberger is appealing this decision as well, but his chances of being reinstated are slight.
Haider has kept Austrian courts busy over the past few years. For the most part, it is Haider who brings suit against public figures who make disparaging references to his right-wing politics or attempt to link him to the neo-Nazi right. Occasionally, he has won libel judgements. Even more frequently, however, the courts have found against him, ruling that his detractors are properly exercising their right to free speech.
The 1996 case against Haider for defaming the minister fo r science and transport, Caspar Einem, has still not been settled, but a defeat seems likely. Haider had accused Einem of having spent time in Zwettl prison for a drug offence, though at the time Einem was to have been incarcerated the prison was no longer in operation. If found guilty Haider could face up to one year in prison, although a fine is more likely. Members of parliament are usually guaranteed immunity from prosecution, but a special parliamentary committee has revoked Haider's immunity.
On 1 June 1995 the Austrian parliament adopted legislation to establish a fund for victims of National Socialism. The law explicitly recognized that this was not intended as Wiedergutmachung (compensation), but as official recognition of Austrian survivors. According to the law all who were victims of the Nazi regime or had to flee the country to avoid persecution, and who were Austrian citizens on 13 March 1938, are entitled to claim compensation. In 1997 Sch600 million (US$49 million) were set aside for these payments. Although Heinz Fischer, the president of the national assembly, has stated his belief that all claims, expected to total around 25,000, will be paid by the end of 1998, this deadline will almost certainly not be met. One of the younger (aged sixty) applicants was recently told that she could not expect payment before the year 2000. In an interim report published early in 1997 it was disclosed that, as of 20 February 1997, the fund had received approximately 23,000 applications from over thirty countries. The youngest applicant was fifty-two, the oldest 104. A total of 11,367 payments had been made, primarily to people who reside in the United States, Israel, Austria and Great Britain. An additional 717 applications had been rejected, because they did not meet the conditions stipulated in the law. One case, which illustrates how rigidly the law can be interpreted, involved a woman who had one child and was pregnant with a second when she was forced to flee Austria after the Anschluß. All three submitted applications. But while the woman and her first child were deemed eligible for the payment, the second child, who was born outside Austria, was ruled ineligible. In Fischer's view, the monetary aspect, while important, should be seen as less important than the fact that Austria had finally officially acknowledged the injustice done to victims of National Socialism, and had offered each of them a one-time payment of Sch70,000 (US$5,500) as a material gesture. Hannah Lessing-Askapa, the secretary-general of the fund, emphasized the positive response the fund had received from claimants. She and Fischer have said that correspondence suggests that recipients of the money see Austria's official recognition of their plight as the most important point.
The new chancellor, Viktor Klima, in an address delivered in July 1997 to a group of Jewish Austrians who had been forced into exile, endorsed the views of Franz Vranitzky about Austria's acceptance of its war-time role. He acknowledged Austrians' culpability for the crimes of National Socialism, and stated that Austria could not shirk its historical responsibility and that 'the combatting of racism and antisemitism [was his] special concern'.
Support for such policies, at least in some quarters, was indicated by two awards Vranitzky received in 1997. In May, in recognition of his initiative in organizing the autumn 1996 auction of the 'Mauerbach collection' - works of art originally owned by Austrian Jews, stolen by the Nazis and in the government's hands since the war until they were returned to the Jewish community for auction in 1995 - he was awarded the IKG's gold medal. The proceeds of the sale of the unclaimed works - Sch155 million (US$12.2 million) - have gone to a fund administered by the Jewish community to help Holocaust survivors.
Vranitzky's efforts to assist victims of the Holocaust were also acclaimed by the Endowment for Democracy in Eastern Europe, which in December 1997 presented him with its Raoul Wallenberg award.
In March 1997 Heide Schmidt, national leader of the LiF and a candidate for the 1998 presidential elections, called on the government to designate one day a year to commemorate the victims of National Socialism. Soon thereafter, the three presidents of the Austrian parliament and the leaders of all parliamentary parties designated 5 May, the date of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, as the day of remembrance of violence and racism in commemoration of the victims of Nazism. The ministry of science and transport announced that it was making Sch32 million (US$2.5 million) available over four years for scholarly research into questions related to xenophobia.
On 17 June 1997 Green members of parliament organized a one-day commission of inquiry into the economic damage which victims of National Socialism in Austria had suffered. Although historians and journalists have investigated the question of 'Aryanizations' for years, this was the first such enquiry by a parliamentary party. The hearing, which included testimony from individuals as well as experts, considered all types of Jewish goods and property that had been confiscated, acquired through forced sales or otherwise 'Aryanized'. Experts estimated total Jewish wealth in 1939 at c. 2,300 million Reichsmarks (today's equivalent c. US$80,500 million), of which two-thirds consisted of invested capital and property of large firms, and one-third real estate and small firms. By comparison, the entire annual budget of the Austrian state in 1938 amounted to RM1,300 million.
The exhibition 'Vernichtungskrieg-Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944' (War of Extermination-Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941-1944), produced by the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research) in Hamburg, remains the focus of heated controversy (see Germany). In Austria it was successfully shown in Vienna and Innsbruck in 1995, and in Klagenfurt and Linz in 1996. The exhibition documents the involvement of certain Wehrmacht units, and the enthusiastic participation of individual soldiers, in the murder of suspected partisans and their supporters and hostages in the south-east theatre; in the murder of Jews and other civilians by the Wehrmacht's 6th Army during its advance towards Stalingrad; and Wehrmacht murder policies during its three-year occupation of Byelorussia. Though the evidence presented in the exhibition has been known to military historians and Holocaust researchers for years, the exhibition has helped demolish one of the most cherished myths in post-war Germany and Austria, that of the 'thoroughly decent' Wehrmacht. How one reacts to the exhibition remains a litmus test for Holocaust remembrance for politicians from all mainstream political parties.
Individual political leaders at the national level - including President Thomas Klestil, the first president of the Austrian national assembly, Heinz Fischer (SPÖ), Minister Caspar Einem (SPÖ), Green and LiF members of the Austrian and European parliaments, the mayor of Graz Alfred Stingl (SPÖ) and union leaders such as Hans Sallmutter - have offered to serve as honorary sponsors of the exhibition. (Klestil declined to serve because of the conventions of presidential protocol, but expressed gratitude to the Reemstma Foundation for having funded the exhibition.) Several dozen other prominent individuals have joined a committee of support. Other politicians have done their best to evade the issue (not a single national leader of the ÖVP has offered to serve as honorary sponsor), while still others, mainly from the FPÖ and ÖVP, and primarily at the provincial or local level, refuse to provide financial support (or even space) for the exhibition. Some repeatedly attack the exhibition for being an attempt to criminalize the entire war-time generation. Alfred Stingl, the SPÖ mayor of Graz, where the exhibition is scheduled to run from 12 December 1997 to 11 January 1998, summoned representatives of supporters and opponents of the exhibition to a meeting to exchange views, but representatives of neither the local ÖVP nor the FPÖ attended. Given the uncertainty about where the exhibition was to be held, the University of Graz, through the good offices of then Rector Helmut Konrad, offered to host it. The exhibition's next port of call is Salzburg.
The Graz leg of the exhibition offered an extensive array of panel discussions, symposia and other public events to consider themes raised by the exhibition, to facilitate dialogue on this sensitive issue, and to provide opportunities for research and discussion during and after the exhibition. Despite controversy caused by the Austrian historian Stefan Karner, who called into question the authenticity of some of the material presented, and despite continuing attacks on the exhibition by all manner of conservative politicians, both the exhibition and the supplementary events were well attended, and the discussions held were fruitful.
The example of the SJ in Wels in protesting the continued presence of objects celebrating Austrian Nazis (see Parties, organizations, movements) has been followed in Graz and Salzburg. Kurt Murtinger, head of political education for the SPÖ in Graz, vowed to take up the issue of Graz's Kernstockgasse in the Graz city council. As early as 1995 Green politicians Gudrun Hümer and Peter Pilz had temporarily covered up an inscription honouring Kernstock with a black sheet to call attention to this issue. Murtinger's plan, following the vote in the Wels city council to rename Otto Kernstock-Straße, is to have the street renamed after Elias Grünschlag, a prominent member of the Graz Jewish community who helped organize the evacuation of Jewish children to Palestine before such transports became impossible in November 1939.
Likewise, the SJ in Salzburg has called attention to Nazi relics there. Youth activists have focused on Thorak-Straße and Damisch-Straße. Josef Thorak is often described as 'the Führer's sculptor'; Heinrich Damisch was a member of the NSDAP from 1932 onwards and a notorious antisemite. Thorak is buried in a place of honour, while in the 1950s Damisch received the gold medal of Salzburg as well as the gold medal of honour from the Austrian Republic. Following the lead of the Wels SJ, their Salzburg counterparts covered the street signs.
The SJ in Salzburg has also been campaigning for the removal of the 4-F symbol decorating the Jahn gymnasium of the ÖTB, which bears a resemblance to the swastika. In Ried and Wels, this symbol had already been removed, and in other towns, such as Ybbs, Tulln and Amstetten, campaigns to have the symbols removed have also been initiated. Similar activities directed at such relics have been taken up in other cities by the SJ as well as by ad hoc movements or those supporting 'Youth against racism in Europe'.
In the framework of these campaigns, the SJ collects information for the Katalog der 'NS-Flecken' in Österreich (Catalogue of 'National Socialist Sites' in Austria). Included in this catalogue are street names (such as those discussed above), 'brown' monuments and forgotten sites of resistance. The main aim of the project is to bring to public awareness the fact that commemorations of the victims of National Socialism are meaningless when markers lauding Nazis and fascists remain in towns and villages.
On 9 September 1997 the Jewish Welcome Service opened its new office in Vienna's main street. At the ceremony Mayor Häupl stated: 'I would like antisemitism to disappear from this city conclusively and the discussion over "foreigners" to be driven out of the kitchen of political agitation.'
In August 1997, in Vienna, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) opened an office for Central and Eastern Europe.
The Vienna school board has called attention to the dangers of racist and neo-Nazi propaganda on the Internet. In October 1997 it held a one-day symposium on the issue which included speakers from DÖW, the school board, the justice ministry and the ADL. This is part of ongoing efforts by the school board to combat far-right activities in Vienna's schools.
Preparations for the mid-1998 opening of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna are ongoing.
Controversy about the planned erection of a Holocaust memorial on Judenplatz in the centre of Vienna continues. Vienna's mayor Michael Häupl enthusiastically took up the idea, originally proposed in 1994 by Simon Wiesenthal, of erecting a monument to commemorate the over 65,000 Austrian Jewish victims of National Socialism. Paul Grosz, the president of the IKG, also supported the idea. An international jury chose the design, submitted by award-winning British artist Rachel Whiteread, for a rectangular concrete cubical bookcase with the shelved books turned inside out. The memorial was to have been unveiled on the 58th anniversary of Kristallnacht in November 1996. Judenplatz was also the site of a synagogue destroyed in 1421, after Vienna's Jews were forcibly converted or, if they refused, committed suicide or were burned at the stake in the Erdberg area of Vienna. After excavation of the site began, however, remains of the synagogue destroyed in the fifteenth century were discovered. As a consequence, the project has been the subject of repeated discussions that have inevitably led to delays, and the monument has still not been erected.
Since Whiteread's winning design was announced, the project has been surrounded by controversy. Some critics find the design aesthetically inadequate (referring to it as the 'concrete block'), but few have seriously suggested abandoning it (though B'nai B'rith has called for its reconsideration). Others do not object to the design itself, but argue that positioning it on Judenplatz will destroy the square's architectural balance. Still others believe that the discovery of remains of the synagogue demands reconsideration of the entire project. One view is that the Whiteread monument should be placed elsewhere, and that the synagogue remains should be fully excavated and displayed as a memorial to the centuries-old Jewish religion and culture in Vienna. Another view, which would place the memorial on its originally planned site and make the synagogue remains visible from transparent panels inside the structure itself, seems to be technically unfeasible. Still others, primarily merchants on or near Judenplatz, have, independently of all questions of aesthetics, expressed fear that such a monument could become the target of antisemitic attacks.
Closely related to the dispute about the memorial to Jewish victims of National Socialism is one about a plaque to be placed on Judenplatz at the initiative of the Catholic Church. There is already a plaque near that square which contains an inscription, for those who read Latin, that alludes to the forced baptism, forced suicide or murder of 200 Viennese Jews in 1421. In 1997 Leon Zelman persuaded Vienna's archbishop Christoph Schönborn to mount a second plaque, this time in German, which would more clearly describe the events in 1421 and explicitly attribute responsibility (i.e. to the Catholic priests who reputedly harangued the crowds, and more generally to historical Christian anti-Judaism). Schönborn responded favourably to the idea, but the text he originally proposed was considered by many to be too vague, if not misleading. Most critics objected to a passage stating that during the 'period of [their] persecution in 1420/21, Jews of Vienna committed suicide in the synagogue here on Judenplatz, in order to avoid a feared forcible baptism. Others, approximately 200, were burned alive on a pyre in Erdberg. Motivated by superstitious hostile attitudes towards Jews, the Christians of Vienna accepted this without resistance, even justified it.' In view of the strong opposition to the initial text, Schönborn has agreed to revise it, but a new text has not yet been published.
Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee
© JPR 1998