Kreisky-Peter-Wiesenthal affair

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A conflict that broke out in 1975 between the social democratic Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky and the Viennese “ Nazi hunter” and ÖVP supporter Simon Wiesenthal was referred to as the Kreisky-Peter-Wiesenthal affair , in which it was about the activities of the FPÖ chairman Friedrich Peter under National Socialism went. Anti-Semitic resentment and Austria's way of dealing with its National Socialist past played a role in the dispute . Kreisky played a critical role in this affair.

prehistory

1970 Wiesenthal had from against four ministers of the FPÖ tolerated SPÖ - minority government Kreisky protesting Nazi past: Otto Roesch (Interior Minister), Erwin Frühbauer (Minister of Transport), Josef Moser (Bautenminister) and Hans Öllinger (Minister of Agriculture). Öllinger, who had been with the SS and was not known to Kreisky before his nomination by the SPÖ Carinthia, was replaced after a month by Oskar Weihs , who was "only" a member of the NSDAP (see Bundesregierung Kreisky I ). The others could not be accused of anything special, as the SPÖ had long tried to integrate former National Socialists (Rösch was a member of all four Kreisky governments until 1983).

As a result, there were already violent attacks on Wiesenthal at the SPÖ party congress in 1970: Central Secretary Leopold Gratz explained about Wiesenthal's documentation center

“That a private, I would like to say, spy and state police have been set up here, which did not shy away from using illegal methods. (…) In all seriousness - and I would like to conclude this point - it is time for the democratically legitimized organs of the Republic of Austria to ask themselves whether this state still needs the private remote organization of Mr. Wiesenthal. "

affair

The SPÖ had ruled with an absolute majority since 1971. Kreisky feared that this would not be sustainable in 1975, and alternatively prepared for an SPÖ-FPÖ coalition in which Friedrich Peter (whose tolerance of an SPÖ minority government he had already needed in 1970) would become vice chancellor . Shortly before the National Council election in Austria in 1975 , Wiesenthal found out by chance that Peter had belonged to an SS infantry brigade that had committed mass murders of civilians behind the Eastern Front during World War II .

Wiesenthal informed Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger of what he had found to prevent Peter from becoming Vice Chancellor. Kirchschläger passed the information received on to Kreisky and Peter. There was no publication before the election.

Four days after the election, in which the SPÖ again achieved an absolute majority, so that the coalition with the FPÖ had (for the time being) lapsed, Wiesenthal published his allegations against Peter in a press conference. Peter replied that he was not involved in any murders himself.

Kreisky, himself of Jewish descent and forced into exile by the National Socialists in 1938, defended Peter in a TV appearance on October 10, 1975: He believed Friedrich Peter that he was not guilty of any Nazi war crimes. In addition, apparently furious with Wiesenthal, he suspected that Wiesenthal himself was a Nazi collaborator and Gestapo informant. Forged documents leaked to Kreisky by the Polish communist secret service could have led him to the extraordinary accusation of Wiesenthal.

Wiesenthal complained; Kreisky had to withdraw his statement. The publicist Peter Michael Lingens , who wrote about it in the Viennese news magazine “ profil ”, stated critically that most intellectuals in Austria must have been aware of the baselessness of Kreisky's accusations, but only very few could have come up with public support for Wiesenthal against the Chancellor . On the other hand, the affair sparked a wave of anti-Semitism, as many Austrians were of the opinion that we should finally let the past rest.

Kreisky reiterated his suspicions in the 1980s; Wiesenthal complained again. Kreisky was thereupon sentenced to a conditional fine of 270,000 schillings for defamation . Wiesenthal later commented: "Kreisky lost, and instead of paying the fine, he died".

In an interview with the Israeli radio correspondent Zeev Barth, in which Kreisky's allegations against Wiesenthal came up, Kreisky said that the Jews are not a people, but should they be, they would be a "lousy people". The Chancellor's statement caused outrage around the world. ( Der Spiegel No. 47/1975)

Lingens was convicted in the first and second instance because of his armed criticism of the Chancellor ( egregious, immoral, opportunistic ). In 1986 this judgment was unanimously determined by the European Court of Human Rights as a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (freedom of expression) and Lingens was awarded “fair satisfaction” of over 280,000 schillings , payable by the Republic of Austria.

In connection with the affair, the then SPÖ club chairman in the National Council , Heinz Fischer , possibly out of loyalty to Kreisky, demanded an investigative committee against Wiesenthal. A committee was not set up because, as Fischer must have been clear as a politician and as a lawyer, such a parliamentary committee (in the context of the separation of powers, an existing control body of the legislative versus the executive state authority) is by its very nature only processes of state enforcement and not Investigate the activities of private individuals.

As Federal President , Fischer awarded Wiesenthal the Great Golden Decoration of Honor in 2005 for services to the Republic of Austria .

background

The historian Tom Segev describes the conflict between Kreisky and Wiesenthal as not least motivated by socio-psychological reasons: The “Nazi hunter” came from a Yiddish-speaking and devout Eastern Jewish family in Galicia , while Kreisky grew up in an assimilated , upper-class environment. Like many from this class, the Chancellor no longer felt himself to be a member of a Jewish religious community or community of fate and resisted having Wiesenthal “forced” such an identity. Wiesenthal, on the other hand, viewed Kreisky's attitude as “Jewish self-hatred” .

literature

  • Martin van Amerongen: Kreisky and his unresolved present . Styria Verlag, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1977 ISBN 3-222-10995-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Background: "Kreisky-Wiesenthal Affair". Website of the daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, September 20, 2005.
  2. ↑ Peter Michael Lingens: Before Kreisky's beatification. Website of the news magazine profil , Vienna, April 24, 2010.
  3. ^ Voices on Wiesenthal. Simon Wiesenthal Archive.
  4. ↑ Simon Wiesenthal : Right, not vengeance . Ullstein Verlag , 1988, ISBN 978-3-550-07829-3 .
  5. ↑ After losing the absolute majority in 1983, an SPÖ-FPÖ coalition was quickly formed and Peter was to become the third President of the National Council; Only days of protests, referred to by Peter as manhunt, prevented the latter.
  6. ↑ Peter Michael Lingens: Views of an Outsider. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-218-00797-9 , p. 148.
  7. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb: The paradoxical republic. Austria 1945 to 2005. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-552-04967-3 , p. 386.
  8. ↑ Unconditional imprisonment is rare. (No longer available online.) In: orf.at. October 13, 2014, archived from the original on October 15, 2014 ; accessed on March 31, 2019 .
  9. ↑ European Court of Human Rights, Lingens v Austria, judgment of July 8, 1986.
  10. ↑ Why separation of powers? Website of the Austrian Parliament.
  11. ↑ Article 53 B-VG in the version at that time.
  12. ↑ § 33 Rules of Procedure Act 1975 in the version at that time.
  13. ^ Hunting Simon Wiesenthal In: Haaretz. September 8, 2010.
  14. ^ Alan Levy: Nazi Hunter. The Wiesenthal File. Constable & Robinson, London 2003, ISBN 1-84119-607-X , pp. 409f.