"Sieg Haider": 30 Years Ago the Jewish Cemetery in Eisenstadt was Desecrated

Der Standard, December 18, 2022

German original: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000141741578/sieg-haider-vor-30-jahren-wurde-der-juedische-friedhof-in

The act burst into a politically enormously charged time - Beforehand, the then leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Joerg Haider, announced an anti-foreigner petition for referendum.

The act caused worldwide disgust and headlines. On the night of October 31, 1992, two men daubed 88 gravestones at the Jewish cemetery in Eisenstadt. In addition to Stars of David, swastikas and SS runes, Nazi slogans and statements such as "Hitler many forget", "Jews out", "Sieg Heil", "Saujude" and "NSADP" were sprayed. On one gravestone, the perpetrators wrote "Sieg Haider", a tribute to the then FPÖ party leader Jörg Haider.

On a gravestone, the two men left a kind of confession letter, in which they called the "carcass sites" of the "monkeys" "intolerable". The letter ended with the sentence: "In this way we would like to send an Aryan greeting to our role model Jörg Haider. HEIL HAIDER Racial Socialist Aryan Resistance Movement (R.A.W.)."

Anti-Foreigner Referendum "Austria First”

In response, thousands demonstrated in Vienna against right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism. The act burst into a politically highly charged time. Haider constantly made headlines with his provocations and campaigns, in the then powerful daily newspaper Kronen Zeitung, for example, which supported the politician sympathetically. The highlight was the announcement of the anti-foreigner referendum "Austria First.”

Civil society actors reacted to this xenophobic campaign by founding the human rights organization SOS-Mitmensch. Only a few weeks after its founding, the sea of lights against the FPÖ referendum took place in January 1993. Up to 300,000 people took to the streets in Vienna and other Austrian cities to send a signal against racism. The referendum was supported by only 416,531 people and thus fell short of expectations.

Shortly thereafter, Heide Schmidt, then deputy party chairwoman, resigned from the FPÖ and founded the Liberal Forum with four other FPÖ mandataries. They no longer wanted to support Haider's course.

The FPÖ in the Role of the Victim

The FPÖ reacted to the desecration of the Jewish cemetery according to a tried and tested pattern. It condemned the act and made itself the victim. "Left-wing provocateurs" were behind the act in order to harm Haider, it was said at the time.

In fact, one of the perpetrators was investigated in 1996, and because of this he was legally sentenced to four years in prison by a Wiener Neustadt jury for Nazi re-enactment in the same year. "I only took part in order not to lose my only friend," he explained at the trial.

Perpetrators Were Active With the FPÖ

He and his friend were neo-Nazis and active with the FPÖ. However, the alleged main perpetrator, Wilhelm Christian A., was able to escape abroad after the arrest of his accomplice. In 2002, the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) tracked down the man through his activities on the Internet. A. had absconded to South Africa, where he made a living as a casual laborer and ran a homepage. In 2003, he ended his escape and returned to Austria after being granted safe conduct on the instructions of the Ministry of Justice. A year later, he was sentenced to three years' unconditional imprisonment.

"Stimulatory Tactics of the FPÖ Against Foreigners"

It was already known beforehand that the two cemetery desecrators were active in the FPÖ. Former state secretary and FPÖ deputy Karl Schweitzer had once brought A. to the party’s youth organization RFJ and to the second place on the list in the municipal council election in Stadtschlaining. The accomplice was also active in the RFJ. At his trial, A. explained why the cemetery had been desecrated. According to the statement, the two perpetrators wanted to strengthen the FPÖ's "propaganda against foreigners" and gain "media attention." A. said that he had been a "member of the national camp" but not a "hardcore national socialist." The organization "RAW" (Racist Socialist Aryan Resistance) mentioned in the letter of confession had consisted only of him and his accomplice. The Jewish cemetery in Eisenstadt had been chosen as the location for the action because it was "very remote and without lighting." The fact that there were 88 graves that were desecrated was a "pure coincidence," said A. The number 88 is used in neo-Nazi circles as code for "Heil Hitler." (The eighth letter in the alphabet is H, 88 makes HH and stands for the Nazi salute).

Despite these obvious connections, the FPÖ stuck to its victim argument. The FPÖ politician at the time, Ewald Stadler, even claimed that A. had been deliberately infiltrated into the FPÖ by political opponents in order to harm it. An obviously far-fetched claim, which Stadler justified with the fact that A.'s father had been an ÖVP functionary.

In Court Because of alpen-donau.info

In 2011, A. hit the headlines again. He was arrested in the course of investigations into the neo-Nazi hate website alpen-donau.info, or "Adi" for short. The racist and anti-Semitic site was the mouthpiece of the far-right scene, advocating violence and threatening politicians and journalists. In 2014, in addition to A., neo-Nazi Gottfried Küssel and one of his closest companions were sentenced to prison.

In addition to A., however, other persons with (partly former) FPÖ backgrounds appear in the investigations surrounding the Alpen-Donau complex. Two of them were employees in the Freedom Party parliamentary club and participated in events advertised on "alpen-donau.info". Another was an RFJ functionary in Villach, Carinthia. His father worked for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism until 2010, as the newspaper "Die Presse" wrote. And an FPÖ member of parliament supplied "alpen-donau.info" with material.

At the Cradle of the Identitarians

The investigations against those behind the website were at the cradle of a new grouping that first appeared in Austria in 2012. A companion of Küssel broke new ground and has since become the mastermind and face of the Identitarians: Martin Sellner. (Markus Sulzbacher, 12/18/2022)