Haider, the Jews, and foreigners

THOMAS O'DWYER, the Irish-Israeli columnist and foreign affairs correspondent, has written often on Austrian affairs and has interviewed Vienna's leading politicians, including Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider. He wrote these two analyses after the Haider party's stunning advance in elections last October that has now brought it into coalition government.

JOERG HAIDER is not an anti-Semite, and he does not count Austria's small Jewish community among the 'foreigners' he campaigns against. His Freedom Party has not leapt to second place in a stunning election victory for praising Adolf Hitler's labor policies, but because 45 percent of Austrian voters are fed up with the ruling coalition parties.

These views were expressed by Marta S. Halpert, director of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) office in Vienna - although she also made absolutely clear, in a telephone conversation, that Haider is a dangerous politician living off 'global xenophobia.' Asked about reports in Israeli newspapers that Haider lives in a mansion which was forcibly taken from a Jewish family in the Nazi era, Halpert said: 'That's absolutely not true, check your facts. I have known Haider for many years, and it simply is not true... The fact that something is written in Hebrew newspaper headlines doesn't make it right.' (A new background paper on Haider issued by the US- based ADL Media Relations Department last month says: '[Haider] has inherited a 38,000 acre estate once owned by Jews who were forced to sell the land after the 1939 German annexation of Austria. Joerg Haider was born in 1950 in Upper Austria to parents with direct links to the Nazis. His father joined Hitler Youth in 1929 and the Nazi SA storm troops a year later. The senior Haider reportedly traveled to Munich with Adolf Eichmann and Alois Brunner in 1933 as a member of the Austrian legion. Haider's mother belonged to the Nazi Party's League of German Girls.')

International alarm over the ascendancy of the extreme right-wing politician has quickly been turned into a story of anti-Austrian hysteria at home, and attempts to 'set the facts straight' have come from the most unlikely quarters.

Even the Leftist Greens, whose attacks on Haider over the years have been relentless, issued a statement saying: 'Austria was not a Nazi country before the election and has not become one since.' Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen said: 'That is simply a misjudgment to which several Anglo-Saxon and Italian newspapers have succumbed' - yet it is pretty certain no European or American newspaper actually said Austria has become a Nazi state.

The Greens were the unlauded second success story of the election, getting 7.1 percent of the vote - up from 4.8 percent in 1995 - for 13 seats in parliament, up from nine. The Freedom Party got 27.2 percent of the vote, up 5.3 points to second place behind the Social Democrats who got 33.4 percent, their worst showing ever. Meanwhile the conservative People's Party lost one percent for a total of 26.9.

It seems odd that while defending Austria against 'hysterical' charges of xenophobic Nazism - even the anti-Haider camp is blaming foreigners for their image - one in four Austrians have voted for the most successful racist politician in democratic Europe. The argument seems to be that if Austrians are xenophobic, it's the fault of all those foreigners.

But it is equally clear that Austria is entering another agonizing period of schizophrenia over its intermittent flirtations over 50 years with Nazism, post- Nazism and neo-Nazism, for Haider is not an isolated issue.

He comes at the end of a line of 'unfortunate developments,' starting with the Austrian embrace of the anschluss with Nazi Germany. Then came the long silence, the belated claim that Austria had been a Nazi victim rather than a collaborator, the failure to emulate Germany in paying reparations to Holocaust survivors, and the election of former Nazi Kurt Waldheim as president in the face of international outrage.

In an interview during his visit to Israel in 1994, President Thomas Klestil insisted Haider was not extreme, not dangerous, not anti-Semitic and not important. At the same time, a correspondent of the London Guardian warned that Haider was a very dangerous man who could be chancellor by 1998.

One of the leaders of Vienna's Jewish community once told me (on a 1994 visit there): 'Austria has the best anti-Nazi laws in Europe and the worst implementation of them.' He added: 'Waldheim was a big liar but a little Nazi. Haider is much more dangerous because he rarely shows his true colors, but his supporters know what he stands for.' 'HAIDER IS far too clever to be an anti-Semite,' said the ADL's Halpert. 'That would be to go after a small slice of the political cake. He is xenophobic in the wider sense... Haider goes for the whole cake. He's going after power in Austria.'

In 1995, a comprehensive poll of Austria by the New York-based American Jewish Committee showed that fewer Austrians were hostile towards Jews than in a similar poll in 1991. But prejudice had risen considerably against Turks, Serbs, Croats and gypsies. Halpert said the sudden concern of the two big parties about the world being against Austria is fake.

'They let him get where he is, they didn't stop his 'too much foreignness' poster campaign. If he gets to power by winning off their mistakes, he doesn't mind. He doesn't win on Hitler's jobs policy, he wins on xenophobia.'

This echoed a statement made earlier by Abraham H. Foxman, national director the ADL: 'We are concerned that while Christian and Jewish religious communities and smaller opposition parties have universally condemned Haider's platform of hate, the major voices, especially the Social Democrats and the People's Party, have said virtually nothing in protest of his racist invective.'

And what of Haider's great personal appeal? Most certainly, this cannot be dismissed in an age of glitzy celebrity politics. He is youthful, handsome, and energetic, he sports a flashing smile and hugs a pretty wife - a regular Tony Blair of a character. But Haider also reminds you of a creepy movie where the hero's smile suddenly becomes lupine, his teeth fangs, and his eyes pulsing red. Then the image vanishes, and you think you imagined it.

At a carefully staged and camera-saturated meeting with Israeli journalists in Vienna five years ago, one colleague asked Haider about his alleged closet antisemitism. He dismissed it as a familiar bad joke done to death by hostile media leftists, and said many Jews had joined his Freedom Party. While he was still speaking, I snapped loudly 'Name one,' and just for an instant, we were in that creepy movie. Then the flash of red anger in his eyes vanished and the charmer continued: 'They are relatively new members and have not yet attained positions that would make them familiar to the leadership.'

The political werewolf's darker followers and admirers certainly are familiar with the leadership. The day of his big win, Jewish graves were desecrated in Berlin - of all places. During the election campaign, in the Austrian city of Hainburg, a Magen David was smeared on an election poster of the Freedom Party. Below the graffiti was written, 'Thank you, Joerg!'

Related Articles on this site:

Who is Joerg Haider? - The Man in Brief
Profile of Joerg Haider
The Anti-Everything Man
Quotes from and about Haider
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