Electoral community for citizens' initiatives and environmental protection

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The Electoral Community for Citizens' Initiatives and Environmental Protection (WBU) was a political group that ran for state elections in Lower Austria and Vienna in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The electoral community for citizens' initiatives and environmental protection was founded in Vienna by Otto Häusler and the university director of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Fritz Weiss. It goes back to the conservative "Austrian Environmental Protection Movement" (USB) founded in 1973, which had been involved, for example, in the initiative against the construction of the Vienna observatory park. In the course of the Zwentendorf movement, the USB decided to participate in parliamentary elections and subsequently renamed itself to “Electoral Community for Citizens' Initiatives and Environmental Protection”, making the WBU the first “green” group to take part in state elections. In the regional and municipal council elections in Vienna in 1978 , however, the WBU only achieved 0.73%, in the regional election in Lower Austria in 1979 , which took place a year later , the WBU achieved 0.87%. The last time the WBU took part in the state and municipal council elections in Vienna in 1983 , it was again only able to achieve 0.64%.

The WBU was a group with bourgeois, liberal and conservative sides, which in some cases did not shy away from the right-wing extremist spectrum. For example, the WBU's top candidates in the state elections in Vienna in 1978 were also functionaries of the neo-Nazi People's Socialist Workers' Party (VAP), which had managed to gain a foothold in the environmental protection movement with anti-capitalist and pseudo-socialist tendencies. One of the top candidates was Alfred Warton, who had previously been a member of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and secretary of the National Democratic Party (NDP). In 1978 he held the position of General Secretary in the VAP. The former FPÖ functionary Karl Schmidt, who was later convicted of agitation against Jews, also appeared as a candidate for the WBU in this election. Erich Richard Raidl was again the editor in charge of the NDP newspaper “Klartext” and held the office of chairman of the “People's Conscious Workers Party” and later the office of chairman of the VAP.

The candidacy of the WBU in the state elections in Lower Austria in 1979, however, was made possible by the former ÖVP mayor of Melk, Kurt Wedl, who had been excluded from the ÖVP after an internal ÖVP dispute. When the WBU stood for the last time in the state elections in Vienna in 1983, the WBU had actually already been incorporated into the bourgeois / conservative United Greens of Austria (VGÖ). Since VGÖ chairman Alexander Tollmann wanted to weaken the party-internal opposition that was gathering in Vienna, he brought the federal VGÖ to support the WBU in the state elections, which represented the right wing of the Vienna VGÖ regional organization. However, the WBU subsequently developed into a reservoir for Tollmann opponents.

Due to the cross-links to right-wing extremism, it is questionable whether the WBU can even be classified as a real green group, even if it took up classic green issues such as environmental protection and democracy or with the election call "Not black, not red, not blue, but green!" occurred. However, certain political demands subsequently flowed into the green alternative electoral movement. This included the right to vote, the direct election of mayors and governors and the struggle for depoliticization and objectification in all areas.

The WBU's publication medium was the magazine “Die Grünen”.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Rheinhold Christian: The Greens - snapshot of a movement in Austria. P. 77.
  2. ^ Liao Kuei-Hsiang: The forms of participation of the green parties at the local level. P. 59.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Schandl, Schattauer: The Greens in Austria. P. 125 f.
  4. ↑ DÖW: Handbook of Right-Wing Extremism ( Memento from November 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ DÖW: Handbook of Right-Wing Extremism ( Memento from November 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ DÖW: Handbook of Right-Wing Extremism ( Memento from November 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Franz Schandl: The fourth force. On the formation of the Greens in Lower Austria.

literature