Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstands
Neues von ganz rechts - Oktober 2000:
Ulrichsbergtreffen
Auch dieses Jahr trafen sich ehemalige Wehrmachtssoldaten und (Waffen-)SS-Männer sowie deren Angehörige und Nachfahren im Geiste Anfang Oktober am Kärntner Ulrichsberg. Geladen hatte wieder die Ulrichsberggemeinschaft, in welcher die rechtsextreme Kameradschaft IV (K IV) über maßgeblichen Einfluss verfügt. Über deren Auftreten bei der diesjährigen Feier heißt es auf der rechtsextremen Homepage Wiener Nachrichten online: "Stolz präsentierten SS-Veteranen der Kameradschaft IV ihre schwarze Fahne mit dem abgewandelten Wahlspruch: 'Des Soldaten Ehre heißt Treue'." Festredner Jörg Haider sagte u. a. vor diesen "Veteranen": "Es kann nicht so sein, dass die Geschichte unserer Väter und Großväter aufgrund des absonderlichen Zeitgeistes zu einem einzigen Verbrecheralbum gemacht wird und ihre Leistungen vor der Geschichte mit Füßen getreten werden." (News 40/2000, S. 24)
Am darauf folgenden "Europaabend" der K IV in Krumpendorf, der im Fremdenverkehrsprospekt der Wörthersee Tourismus GmbH angekündigt wurde, waren dann die ehemaligen (Waffen-)SS-Männer gänzlich unter sich. Der Vorsitzende des Kameradenwerkes Korps Steiner, Kurt Meyer, versuchte dort einmal mehr, den deutschen Angriffs- und Vernichtungskrieg umzudeuten: "Ohne unsere Soldaten der Waffen SS würde es heute kein freies Europa geben. Wir wären vom Kommunismus-Bolschewismus überrollt worden. Bekennen wir, dass unsere damalige Regierung den Mut hatte, 1941 den Befehl zum Vormarsch zu geben. Das war kein Leichtsinn. Es war die letzte Rettung Europas." (Ebenda, S. 26) Lobende Worte fand Meyer auch über Haider: "Ich bin sehr dankbar für die Rede des Herrn Landeshauptmannes am Ulrichsberg. Das, was er über Europa gesagt hat, ist genau das, was wir brauchen. Ich würde mich freuen, wenn irgendein deutscher Politiker eine ähnliche Rede halten würde." (Ebenda)
Welcher Geist in Krumpendorf, wo Haider bereits 1995 auftrat, weht, zeigt auch ein dort verteiltes Flugblatt. Auf diesem findet sich ein Bekenntnis des Rechtsextremisten und vormaligen Aula-Autors Nikolaus Preradovich: "Ich bewundere Adolf Hitler von Tag zu Tag mehr. Der Mann hat zwölf Jahre regiert. Er hat mehr als fünf Jahre Krieg geführt, davon drei Jahre äußerst erfolgreich! Und das mit einem Volke, welches zu einem Drittel emigriert war, zu einem Drittel im Konzentrationslager saß und zu einem Drittel wütenden Widerstand leistete. Das soll dem Mann einmal erst einer nachmachen."
PS: Auch beim offiziellen Umzug anlässlich der Kärntner Volksabstimmung von 1920 am 10. Oktober trugen stolze "SS-Veteranen" eine Fahne mit ihrem Wahlspruch mit. Diesmal begann jedoch die Staatspolizei umgehend mit Ermittlungen.
Quelle: www.doew.at > Neues von ganz rechts - Oktober 2000 > Ulrichsbergtreffen
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BBC News, 2 October 2000
Haider defends Nazi army veterans
Austria's controversial far-right leader Joerg Haider has defended the country's World War II veterans who fought alongside Hitler's Nazi army.
"It is unacceptable that the past of our fathers and grandparents is reduced to that of criminals," he told a gathering of about 2,000 veterans in the southern town of Ulrichsberg.
Mr Haider, former chief of the Freedom Party, said: "Most who come here are not old Nazis or neo-Nazis. "They are old citizens who suffered during the war and lost their youth to the war and then began to rebuild." Mr Haider received a spontaneous standing ovation from the crowd. Austria was annexed by Hitler's Germany in 1938, and its army was fully incorporated into the Third Reich.
Ethnic tolerance
However, the theme of this year's 41st gathering centred largely on democracy for all of Europe. Mr Haider also called for compensation for slave labourers, who were forced to work on farms and in factories throughout Hitler's Third Reich. He also endorsed tolerance for ethnic minorities in Europe. Mr Haider has praised Hitler's employment policies, sympathised with SS veterans and labelled Nazi concentration camps "punishment camps". In October 1999, his Freedom Party ran an election campaign using the Nazi-invented slogan "Ueberfremdung" - too many foreigners. He resigned as party leader in May after Austria's 14 EU partners slapped sanctions on the country for allowing the Freedom Party to join the government coalition, but he is still generally believed to be pulling the party strings. The sanctions were lifted last month after an EU commission found Austria in compliance with EU standards of democracy and human rights.
The Ulrichsberg gathering, held each year on the first Sunday of October, has been harshly criticised as a festival for old Nazis that serves as a feeding ground for neo-Nazis. Three years ago, the ruin of a church that serves as a monument to Nazi soldiers who died in the war was attacked and severely damaged. It has since been restored. At the entrance, the old SS slogan "Die Ehre Unserer Soldaten Heisst Treue" (the honour of our soldiers is their loyalty) is carved in large elaborate letters on the wall.
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Guardian, 2 October 2000
Haider embraces SS veterans
Weeks after the end of EU sanctions against Austria, the far-right leader is again mixing in bad company
Austria's populist firebrand, Jörg Haider, taunted EU governments yesterday by appearing at an annual reunion of SS veterans and Hitler's other soldiers shortly after Brussels ended seven months of diplomatic sanctions against his country. The de facto leader of the anti-immigration Freedom party (FPO), which shares government with the conservative People's party (OVP), hit back at Vienna's 14 EU partners for attempting to isolate Austria because of his rightwing views. The experience of Austrians in rebuilding postwar Europe had given the country the strength to stand up and fight the "unjust" sanctions, said Mr Haider, who is governor of the southern province of Carinthia. "The future democracy is decided by the people and not by a handful of various self-declared European leaders," he said in what was widely interpreted as an indirect dig at France, Germany and Belgium.
The sanctions were lifted last month after a report by a group of European experts, dubbed the "three wise men", concluded that the sanctions were "counter-productive" because they turned Austrians against Europe and into the arms of Mr Haider. Mr Haider said of the gathering of veterans: "Those who come to Ulrichsberg are not the old Nazis. They are not neo-Nazis, they are not criminals." But Peter Timm managed to make the strenuous mountain pilgrimage, paying £2.50 for entry to the annual gathering to commemorate the deaths of Hitler's soldiers. The 79-year old former Waffen SS officer travelled to Carinthia from his home in Rheinland-Pfalz, in Germany. "This is my 40th time," he said. "It gets harder every year, but only death will keep me away." The sentiment was largely shared by more than 2,000 of his former colleagues from the SS and Wehrmacht, members of sympathy groups from Italy, France and Hungary, and the Burschenschaften - young and uniformed rightwing fraternities.
Mr Timm and his colleagues spoke with enthusiasm about their time spent fighting on the Russian front for Hitler. The SS death's head signet ring Mr Timm still wears, he explained with ease, was an award, along with an iron cross, for the part he played in the Nazis' brutal suppression of the Warsaw uprising. "We fought for Germany, not for the SS, and I had no choice - that's why Europe's free today," he added before three skinhead youths from the German state of Saxony suddenly tried to extricate him from the media glare.
For Mr Haider, who was elected as governor of Carinthia last February with 42% of the vote, this year's event was supposed to be a chance for him to clean up his act. The speech he made five years ago to SS veterans at Ulrichsberg caused an international outcry after he praised the former members of Hitler's voluntary army as "men of character". Speaking yesterday against the backdrop of a huge steel and concrete crucifix, he defended Austria from criticism by the outside world that it had done little to fight its Nazi past. "It can't be so that the history of our fathers and grandparents, due to dubious commentaries, is reduced to a single catalogue of crimes, and that the part they played in history is just thrown back in their faces," he said to great applause.
Willi Stelzhammer, of the human rights pressure group SOS Mitmensch, whose members milled among the crowds along with a handful of anti-Nazi observers, said: "This was clearly a cleverly-constructed event by Haider to convince the world that Austria is more tolerant." An attempt by opponents to disrupt the meeting by flying over the scene in a helicopter blaring Wagner music flopped after a tabloid newspaper exposed the plan, prompting the helicopter company to cancel the flight. Drinking a schnapps with his neo-Nazi fans, Mr Timm said he was satisfied. "He's the only one we've got," he said of Mr Haider, his hands trembling as he lit a cigarette with a lighter bearing the slogan of the rightwing extremist German National party (NPD). "I only wish he had a doppelgänger so that we could have a Haider in Germany."