Written by Bernhard Friedl | 06 February 2012
Posted in Comment - Politics

Photography: Heinz Christian Strache by sugarmelon.com

During a much-publicised protest at a far-right extremist meeting in Vienna, Austria, Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the far-right Freedom Party (the FPO), described himself and his followers as “the new Jews.” The statement caused not only confusion but also outrage: it was made at the annual Wiener WKR-Ball, which ironically took place on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Not knowing that he was speaking to an undercover journalist, he compared the ongoing protests to the Kristallnacht, the terrible pogrom in Germany and Austria in November 1938 during which about 400 Jews were murdered, thousands more arrested and more than a thousand synagogues and shops were destroyed.

It’s more than understandable then that other parties, as well as the public, had some questions for Strache the next day: What is your excuse for this unbelievably disrespectful comparison between the terrible crimes committed during the time of National Socialism and the meagre injuries inflicted upon three guests of the prom? How can you still maintain your political function after you have proven such a lack of historical knowledge and sensitivity? The answer was as surprising as it was sad. Strache has neither any intention of retiring nor of apologising – he is deeply convinced that he is the victim in this case.

In order to understand the situation, it is useful to look back at how Austrian society manipulated its own image in the aftermath of World War II and how this mentality has propagated until the present day.

The Moscow Declaration of 1943 stated that Austria was the first victim of the Nazi Germany’s Third Reich. It was subsequently possible to literally cross out the partial guilt for the war in Austria’s 1955 State Treaty which guaranteed Austrian sovereignty. The common idea was that Austria did not know what was going on and as an occupied country just did as it was told.

At around the same time the media offered several new and positive pictures to identify with: films like 1. April 2000 (1952) and the very popular Sissi Trilogy (1955-1957), and also the weekly news implemented a specific picture of Austrians as friendly and harmless people who don’t take themselves too seriously. In this way Austria was soon internationally romanticised as the peaceful neutral country of classic music, mountains and winter sports. Thus, the new identity was not a natural process but had rather been constructed to deny responsibility for what happened.

Modern historical science shows a particularly high percentage of Austrian participation in the NSDAP (Nazi Party) and in Nazi-terrorism. But in the collective memory the Nazis were always the others.

In the late 80s it turned out that even President Kurt Waldheim did not pay adequate attention to his past as an officer of the Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany’s Armed Forces). Even though he was not actively involved in any war crimes, his tacit complicity and inaction during that époque made him the personification of Austria’s repression of the past. The participation of Austrians in the war, mass murderers, deportation and displacements became the subject of public discourse. The foundation of the Jewish Museum of Vienna (Jüdisches Museum Wien) in 1988 was just one important step to start this remedial process.

Unfortunately this progress is yet to reach every Austrian politician. Time and again the officials of the FPO continue to outrage many citizens with statements that downplay the time of National Socialism. Yet besides the anti-Semitism in Strache’s comparison between protests against him and the terrible pogroms, the case has yet another dangerous dimension.

He successfully presents himself as the victim of sloppy journalism and the left-leaning television; it is very much a story of self-victimization for political reasons. In many ways he styles himself as the fighter against an unfair system that protects the aggressors, namely the left-wing protesters and the other parties, while his own right of free speech is restricted.

In this manner it is possible for him to avoid any serious discourse about important political questions and he can keep running his national-populist and racist propaganda that insults the rights of ethnic minorities and sets people against each other.

In the same way, the lie about the roles of culprits and victims after 1945 was used to avoid carrying responsibility for what happened, the (self-) victimization of Strache deceives the public about his role as a culprit of denunciation and racist violence.

It just takes a smidgen of historical and political knowledge to understand how dangerous this emotion-based rhetoric is for the productive democratic process. But even though a massive wave of protests – mostly on social-media-platforms like Facebook – keeps running the resistance, Austria is in many ways still far away from handling its history with the required sensitivity and responsibility.

Bernhard Friedl studied History and German at the University of Vienna. He is currently working as a teaching assistant in Lycée Bellevue, Le Mans.

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