The far right is on the march again: the rise of fascism in Austria
In Austria's recent general election, nearly 30 per cent of voters
backed extremist right-wing parties. Live visits the birthplace of
Hitler to investigate how Fascism is once again threatening to erupt
across Europe.
by BILLY BRIGGS
Supporters of far right leader Heinz Christian Strache (pictured in the
flyers held aloft by the man at the front) gather at a rally in Vienna
Beneath a leaden sky the solemn, black-clad crowd moves slowly towards a
modest grey headstone. At one end
of the grave, a flame casts light on the black lettering that is
engraved on the marble. At the other end, an elderly soldier bends down
to place flowers before standing to salute.
From all over Austria, people are here to pay their respects to their
fallen hero. But the solemnity of the occasion is cut with tension.
Beyond the crowd of about 300, armed police are in attendance. They keep
a respectful distance but the rasping bark of Alsatians hidden in vans
provides an eerie soundtrack as the crowd congregates in mist and light
rain.
We’ve been warned that despite a heavy police presence journalists
have often been attacked at these meetings. If trouble does come then
the mob look ready to fight. There are bull-necked stewards and young
men who swagger aggressively.
The Freedom Party leader Heinz Christian Strache
This is a neo-Nazi gathering and in the crowd are some of
Austria’
Kussel, a notorious thug who was the showman of Austria’
far-right movement in the Eighties and Nineties until he was imprisoned
for eight years for promoting Nazi ideology.
Today he cuts a Don Corleone figure as he stands defiantly at the
graveside. His neo-Nazi acolytes make sure no one comes near him and our
photographer is unceremoniously barged out of his way.
Ominous-looking men with scars across their faces whisper to each other
and shake hands. These are members of Austria’
an arcane, secretive organisation best known for its fascination with
fencing, an initiation ceremony that includes a duel in which the
opponents cut each other’
far right.
Incredibly, standing shoulder to shoulder with these hard-line Nazi
sympathisers are well known Austrian politicians. At the graveside, a
speech is made by Lutz Weinzinger, a leading member of Austria’
Freedom Party (FPO), who pays tribute to the fallen.
This is a gathering in memory of an Austrian-born Nazi fighter pilot,
who during WWII shot down 258 planes, 255 of them Russian. Such was
Major Walter Nowotny’
that the Nazi Party awarded him a grave of honour in Vienna’
largest cemetery, close to the musical legends Mozart, Brahms and
Strauss.
But in 2005 that honour was revoked and his body moved to lie in an area
of public graves. The decision infuriated the far right and made their
annual pilgrimage an even greater event.
Today, the anniversary of Nowotny’
Kristallnacht, the ‘night of broken glass’ in 1938 when 92
people were murdered and thousands attacked across Germany as
stormtroopers set upon Jews in an outpouring of Nazi violence.
Some 70 years on from that infamous pogrom, the world faces a similar
financial crisis to the one that precipitated the rise of Hitler and, in
chilling echoes of Thirties Europe, support for far-right groups is
exploding. Hitler’
across the world.
And so I have come to Austria to investigate how Fascism and extremism
are moving, unchecked, into the forefront of its society.
Last September, Austria’
influence in an election that saw the FPO along with another far right
party – Alliance For The Future (BZO) – gain 29 per cent of
the vote, the same share as Austria’
Democrats. The election stirred up terrifying memories of the rise of
the Nazi Party in the Thirties.
And just as the Nazis gained power on the back of extreme nationalism
and virulent anti-Semitism, the recent unprecedented gains in Austria
were made on a platform of fear about immigration and the perceived
threat of Islam. FPO leader Heinz Christian Strache, for example,
described women in Islamic dress as ‘female ninjas’
Emboldened by the new power in parliament, neo-Nazi thugs have
desecrated Muslim graves. Recently, in Hitler’
Braunau, a swastika flag was publicly unveiled.
Austrian far right leader Heinz Christian Strache addresses a rally
The FPO wants to legalise Nazi symbols, while its firebrand leader has
been accused of having links to far right extremists.
After the FPO’s election victory, Nick Griffin, leader of the
British Nationalist Party (BNP), sent a personal message to Strache.
‘We in Britain are impressed to see that you have been able to
combine principled nationalism with electoral success. We are sure that
this gives you a good springboard for the European elections and we hope
very much that we will be able to join you in a successful nationalist
block in Brussels next year.’
The message followed on from a secret meeting last May in which a
high-ranking FPO politician paid a visit to London for a meeting with
Griffin.
The relationship between the FPO and the BNP becomes more worrying as I
learn of the strong links between Austria’
hard-line Nazis.
Former Waffen SS officer and unrepentant Nazi Herbert Schweiger
Herbert Schweiger makes no attempt to hide his Nazi views. At his home
in the Austrian mountains, the former SS officer gazes out of a window
to a view of a misty alpine valley. Described to me as the ‘Puppet
Master’ of the far right, Schweiger, 85, is a legendary figure for
neo-Nazis across the world.
‘Our time is coming again and soon we will have another leader
like Hitler,’ he says.
Still remarkably sharp-minded, Schweiger was a lieutenant in the
infamous Waffen SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, an elite
unit originally formed before WWII to act as the Führer’
bodyguards.
This is his first interview for four years and the first he has ever
given to a journalist from outside Austria. It happens a few weeks
before he is due to appear in court charged with promoting neo-Nazi
ideology.
It will be the fifth time he has stood trial for breaking a law, the
Verbotsgesetz, enacted in 1947 to halt the spread of fascist ideology.
He has been found guilty twice and acquitted twice. It quickly becomes
apparent that little has changed in Schweiger’
Third Reich days.
‘The Jew on Wall Street is responsible for the world’
current economic crisis. It is the same now as in 1929 when 90 per cent
of money was in the hands of the Jew. Hitler had the right solutions
then,’ he says, invoking the language of Goebbels.
The room is filled with mementos from his past and indicators of his
sickening beliefs. His bookshelf is a library of loathing. I spot a book
by controversial British Holocaust denier David Irving and one on the
‘myth of Auschwitz’
Death’
Such memorabilia is banned in Austria but Schweiger defiantly displays
his Nazi possessions.
If Schweiger was an old Nazi living out his final days in this remote
spot, it might be possible to shrug him off as a now harmless man living
in his past. But Schweiger has no intention of keeping quiet.
‘My job is to educate the fundamentals of Nazism. I travel
regularly in Austria and Germany speaking to young members of our
different groups,’ he says.
Schweiger’
Jews as ‘intellectual nomads’ and says poor Africans should
be allowed to starve.
‘The black man only thinks in the present and when his belly is
full he does not think of the future,’ he says. ‘They
reproduce en masse even when they have no food, so supporting Africans
is suicide for the white race.
‘It is not nation against nation now but race against race. It is
a question of survival that Europe unites against the rise of Asia.
There is an unstoppable war between the white and yellow races. In
England and Scotland there is very strong racial potential.
Our time is coming again and soon we will have another leader like
Hitler
‘Of course I am a racist, but I am a scientific racist,’ he
adds, as if this is a justification.
Schweiger’
member of three political parties in Austria – the VDU, the banned
NDP and the FPO. He has given his support to the current leader of the
FPO.
‘Strache is doing the right thing by fighting the
foreigner,&#
He is now in close contact with the Kameradschaften, underground cells
of hardcore neo-Nazis across Austria and Germany who, over the past
three years, have started to infiltrate political parties such as the
FPO.
His belief that the bullet and the ballot box go hand in hand goes back
to 1961, when he helped to train a terrorist movement fighting for the
reunification of Austria and South Tyrol.
‘I was an explosives expert in the SS so I trained
Burschenschaften how to make bombs. We used the hotel my wife and I
owned as a training camp,’ he says. The hotel he refers to is 50
yards from his home.
Thirty people in Italy were murdered during the campaign. One of the men
convicted for the atrocities, Norbert Burger, later formed the
now-banned neo-Nazi NDP party with Schweiger.
Schweiger’
1962 but he was acquitted.
A gathering of the Burschenschaften, a secretive nationalist group with
far-right tendencies
At Vienna’
speak to Heribert Schiedel, who monitors neo-Nazi activity. He tells me
that the glue between people like Schweiger and the politicians are the
Burschenschaften fraternities. Schiedel draws two circles and explains.
‘In the circle on the left you have legal parties such as the FPO.
In the circle on the right you have illegal groups. Two distinct
groupings who pretend they are separate.’
He draws another circle linking the two together. ‘This circle
links the legal and illegal. This signifies the Burschenschaften. They
have long been associated with Fascism and have a history of terrorism.
Adolf Eichmann, Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler were Burschenschaften
– as are prominent members of the FPO in parliament.&
There are Burschenschaften groups all over Austria and 18 in the capital
alone. Their activities range from quaint to disturbing.
At the University of Vienna, members of the Burschenschaften come to pay
homage to a statue called the Siegfriedskopf (the Head of Siegfried, a
warrior from German mythology). Their ritual takes place every
Wednesday.
The university authorities wanted to remove the statue, but the
government insisted it should stay as it is a protected monument.
Instead, the piece was relocated to the courtyard.
Today, the Burschenschaften have been prevented from entering the
courtyard and at the main entrance police stand guard as they hand out
leaflets. Dressed in traditional uniforms, the Burschenschaften resemble
colourful bandsmen and are a far cry from the shaven-headed thugs
normally associated with Fascism.
But the groups have a 200-year-old history steeped in patriotism and
loyalty to a German state. In 2005, Olympia, one of the most extreme
Burschenschaften fraternities, invited David Irving to Austria.
As other students gather, there is tension in the air. One girl whispers
that this group recently attacked students protesting outside the
Austrian Parliament against the FPO.
A young student with round glasses and a scar on his left cheek, wearing
the purple colours of Olympia, is handing out leaflets. Roland denies
being a neo-Nazi but he quickly starts relaying his fiercely nationalist
views.
Gottfried Kussel (second from right) among the gathering at the grave of
WWII Nazi pilot Walter Nowotny
‘The anti-fascists are the new fascists,’ he says. ‘We
are not allowed to tell the truth about how foreigners are a
threat.’
The truth, according to Roland, is that Muslims, immigrants and America
are destroying his way of life.
‘We are German-Austrians. We want a community here based on German
nationalism,
and culture.’
The Burschenschaften hold regular, secretive meetings in cellar bars
around Vienna. Journalists are not usually admitted, but I manage to
persuade a group of Burschenschaften students to let me see their
traditions. Once inside, I find myself in a bar filled with 200 men
sitting at long tables drinking steins of Austrian beer.
The Burschenschaften are resplendent in the colours of their
fraternities. Old and young, they sport sashes in the black, red and
gold of the German flag, and as the beer flows in this neo-Gothic
building, chatter fills the room and cigarette smoke rises in plumes up
to chandeliers hung from a vaulted ceiling.
‘Prost!
is Christian. He is no neo-Nazi thug, but instead a psychology student.
His white peaked cap signifies that he is a member of a Burschenschaften
group called Gothia.
Most of the men at this table are Gothia, including the man sitting
opposite who ordered the beer. He glares at me again. He has long scars
on both sides of his face that run from his cheekbones down to the edges
of his mouth, and when he sucks on his cigarette he reminds me of the
Joker from Batman. Christian has a dozen wounds from fencing, including
five on his left cheek.
‘It is a badge of honour to duel,’ he says proudly, before
explaining that this is an annual event and that one of tonight’
speeches will be on the ‘threat of Islam to Europe’
Suddenly, everyone at our table stands amazed as FPO leader Heinz
Christian Strache enters.
He is wearing a royal blue hat – signifying his membership of the
Vandalia Burschenschaften – and after shaking hands with each of
us he sits at the far end of the table. Shortly afterwards I’m
asked to leave.
Although the Burschenschaften claims to be politically neutral, FPO
flyers had been placed in front of each guest and it was clear this
event was a political rally in support of the FPO – an event that
would culminate with these Austrians, including a leading politician,
singing the German national anthem.
After my encounter with the leader of the FPO among the
Burschenschaften, I contact Strache’
membership of an organisation linked to far right extremism, and ask why
the FPO wishes to revoke the Verbotsgesetz (the law banning Nazi
ideology).
In a response by email, Mr Strache replied that the FPO wants to revoke
the Verbotsgesetz because it believes in freedom of speech. He denied
having any links to neo-Nazi groups and says he is proud to be a member
of the Burschenschaften.
‘The Burschenschaften was founded during the wars against Napoleon
Bonaparte in the beginning of the 19th century. These are the historical
origins I am proud of,’ he wrote.
Back at Nowotny’
mountain home. How can a former Nazi still hold so much political sway?
The Burschenschaften are here, too.
There are no ‘sieg heils’ and no swastikas for the cameras,
but it’s clear that Fascism is back. These are not thugs merely
intent on racial violence, who are easily locked up. These are
intellectuals and politicians whose move to the forefront of society is
far more insidious.
Through the political influence of the FPO it is entirely possible that
the Verbotsgesetz could be revoked – and if that happens swastikas
could once again be seen on Austria’
The ideas and racial hatred that I have heard over my two weeks in
Austria are just as threatening and just as sickening as any I have ever
heard. And they are a lot more sinister because they are spoken with the
veneer of respectability.
The open defiance of these men honouring their Nazi ‘war
hero’, and the support they are gaining in these troubled economic
times, should be setting off alarm bells in Europe and the rest of the
world.
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