Ernst Kirchweger House

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ernst Kirchweger House

The Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus (EKH) has been occupied since 1990 in Vienna - Favoriten . The building is a center of the autonomous scene that is known far beyond the borders of Vienna and houses some politically, culturally and socially committed groups and projects. On November 7, 2008, the occupation was declared over after all groups represented in the house had signed rental contracts.

Various types of events such as concerts, readings, discussions, information and advice evenings take place almost every day. The house was named after the anti-fascist resistance fighter and communist Ernst Kirchweger , who was fatally injured by a right-wing extremist counter-demonstrator during an anti-fascist demonstration in 1965.

history

Pochoir in Vienna on a house wall: "EKH remains"

The building at Wielandgasse 2-4 was built in the 1920s (according to Dehio in 1931) by Czech and Slovak workers according to plans by Josef Hofbauer and Wilhelm Baumgarten as a Komensky school for children of Slovaks and Czechs in Vienna. It is one of the oldest reinforced concrete structures in Vienna. The Wieland Theater, a stage that was regularly used at the time, was housed in the building.

In 1945 the property became the property of the Austrian Communist Party . On June 23, 1990 the house was occupied and named after the communist and anti-fascist resistance fighter Ernst Kirchweger . In 1965, during a demonstration against the National Socialist and anti-Semitic university professor Taras Borodajkewycz , he was injured so badly by a right-wing extremist counter-demonstrator that he died a little later as a result. At the time of the occupation by the left or autonomous activists and the Turkish association ATIGF , a large part of the building had been unused for years.

At the end of October 2004, the KPÖ sold the Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus to a real estate company , the managing director of which was accused of having contacts with the right-wing extremist scene and of earlier membership in the neo-Nazi Aktion Neuerechte (ANR). This procedure triggered massive protests and was justified above all by the financial plight of the KPÖ, which, following a court ruling, had to repay GDR funds that had been illegally received by them to the Federal Republic of Germany . Numerous initiatives and individuals such as B. the Nobel Prize winner for literature, Elfriede Jelinek, spoke out in favor of a continuing autonomous Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus.

Goals / reasons

Transparent for an “EKH stays” campaign.

The common goal of those involved was and is an internationalist anti-fascist center:

We, various Austrian and foreign groups - asylum seekers, homeless people, activists of the anti-fascist movement and the like. a. - have occupied this house in order to be able to realize our ideas of collective coexistence and work. Most of the house owned by the KPÖ is not used or is only used temporarily. We demand the vacant rooms for ourselves and the partially used ones for joint work against fascism, racism and foreign determination.

Many of the social and political activities of the groups and organizations located in the house, such as the anarchist "Black Thistle", are repeatedly under observation by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter Terrorism (BVT), as connections are assumed, for example, to the authors of the failed attack in Ebergassing were.

Current and previous projects in-house

  • Archive of the social movements (meanwhile moved)
  • Autonomous bicycle workshop
  • Library EKH
  • Computer laboratory
  • Deserters advice - free advice on asylum and alien law issues (meanwhile moved)
  • Federation of workers and young people from Turkey in Austria
  • Airport social service - emergency shelter for refugees in the EKH
  • Gangs of women
  • Women's writing workshop
  • Housewives
  • Info maggots (a Infoladen )
  • Political Discussion Beisl
  • Que (e) r-Beisl (meanwhile moved)
  • Rechtshilfebeisl - punk regulars table for those affected by repression
  • Rosa Antifa (a local Antifa group) (meanwhile moved)
  • Weird sounds
  • Screen printing workshop
  • TATblatt (now discontinued)
  • Association for audiovisual self-determination
  • Club room
  • Volxbibliothek (meanwhile moved)
  • Volxtheater favorites
  • Volxtheater caravan
  • Living area
  • Court bar

Others

Several of the house's projects are co-financed by the municipality of Vienna. There are always discussions about this in the Vienna City Parliament, as many of these activities are controversial and in some cases (such as advising illegal immigrants - sans papiers) operate in legal gray areas. A donation from the former Interior Minister Caspar Eine to the TATblatt , which Jörg Haider uncovered in order to create a scandal, also became known. However, this did not materialize. Several activists of the Volxtheaterkarawane were detained by the police after anti-globalization protests in Genoa , which led to a national debate about the disclosure of secret police data, as the files of several people were passed on to the Italian authorities.

On October 27, 2013, 30 neo-Nazis, including members of the right-wing radical movement “Immortal Vienna”, stormed the premises of the ATIGF association. They beat up a member of the board of the Communist Trade Union Initiative International (KOMintern). As a result, members of the ATIGF drove the attackers from the house.

On July 30, 2016, Turkish nationalists stormed the Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus and disrupted the celebration of a Serbian society, believing that it was a Kurdish event. The men tore posters from the walls and lit a fire next to a wooden staircase. The protection of the constitution was then switched on.

At the end of June 2020, riots and property damage occurred in the immediate vicinity of the EKH on the occasion of a Kurdish demonstration. The house itself was also attacked. In the following days, nationalist Turkish youths gathered in the immediate vicinity of the house and in front of the building and tried to attack it. The attackers are said to have been numerous members of the Gray Wolves .

Web links

Commons : Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ One in the foreground. Taras Borodajkewycz , Europaverlag, Vienna 1966; enriched with the latest disciplinary knowledge against Borodajkewycz, otherwise unchanged again: Ephelant, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-900766-26-9
  2. ^ News from the far right - February 2005: Völkische Geschichtsstunde ("At present"). DÖW , 2005.
  3. ↑ Ernst Kirchweger. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (ed.).
  4. ^ Karl Schmoll: Real Capitalism Made Difficult. In: fm4.orf.at . November 3, 2004, accessed April 9, 2019.
  5. ↑ ekhbleibt.info ( Memento from May 1, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ "Children away, the Nazis are coming" wienerzeitung.at of October 28, 2013
  7. ^ "Criticism of mild criminal charges against neo-Nazis" kurier.at of September 8, 2014
  8. ↑ Michael Bonvalot: Inverted brown world: The Nazi attack in the EKH. In: Vice. May 13, 2014, accessed July 1, 2020 .
  9. ↑ "Turkish gang attacked" Kurdish festival ": fire set" krone.at of August 2, 2016
  10. ↑ Turkish nationalists stormed the fake festival. Retrieved August 2, 2016 .
  11. ^ Another attack by gray wolves on Kurdish demo in Vienna-Favoriten , Der Standard from June 25, 2020, accessed on June 26, 2020
  12. ↑ Another escalation in Vienna: Mob moved through Grätzl. In: Krone.at. June 26, 2020, accessed July 1, 2020 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 10 ′ 39 "  N , 16 ° 22 ′ 43"  E