Ulrichsberg
Each September sees a gathering of former soldiers of the German "Wehrmacht" and SS-soldiers, war criminals, neo-nazis, young and old right wingers with their families, dead "normal" Carinthians and a great deal of political prominents at the memorial erected in 1958 at the Ulrichsberg, just a stone's throw north of Klagenfurt. The ruins of an old gothic church contain plaques in honour of a plethora of national-socialist organisations as well as the Carinthian victims of both world wars and of the "Carinthian defence fight" - victims in this case meaning patriotic, strapping German soldiers and Trümmerfrauen (rubble women), and not the thousands of deported and murdered Carinthian Slovenians, Jews, communists, disabled, homosexuals...Apart from the plaques for the Red Cross and the Austrian army – which continue to support the ceremonies – there also is a plaque of the Kameradschaft IV, the association of SS soldiers, which by using the appendage IV attempts to establish itself as part of the Wehrmacht and by doing so plays down its part in atrocious massacres and crimes. Another plaque honours the Norwegian volunteers, who during World War II joined the SS as a volunteer division. Other plaques commemorate Spanish, Belgian, Dutch, and Latvian volunteers who participated in numerous war crimes and played a role in the murder of thousands of Jews. The Gebirgsjäger (mountain soldiers) are also honoured on more than one plaque. They were deployed in Greece, amongst others, where they were responsible for numerous massacres during which entire villages were destroyed and their populations murdered under the cover of the fight against partisans. The ceremonies and plaques come close to breaking the nazi prohibition laws. Examples are the nazi plaques at Ulrichsberg of which merely the swastika has been removed, and speeches like the one in 2005 on which occasion the president of the Ulrichsberg society, Rudolf Gallob, declared that the members of the Waffen SS were welcome at the Ulrichsberg. Moreover, wanted war criminals such as Sören Kam have been sighted during ceremonies at the Ulrichsberg, standing next to defence ministers and heads of the state government.
Since 2005 the AK gegen den Kärntner Konsens has made an effort to mobilise people to take part in protest actions against the Ulrichsberg gathering.
