Oberweiser Conference

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The Oberweiser Conference (also called Oberweiser Secret Talks ) was a meeting of leading representatives of the ÖVP with former high-ranking National Socialists on May 28, 1949 in Oberweis (municipality of Laakirchen ). The conditions for support for the People's Party by the “former” were discussed.

prehistory

In the first post-war years, the approximately 500,000 registered NSDAP members were excluded from voting. In the National Council election in 1949 , however , those with a lower burden were to be allowed to cast their votes again; Subsequently, both major parties tried to obtain this voter potential. When the VdU was founded in March 1949, the ÖVP feared a split in the bourgeois camp; For this reason one intensified its own efforts to reintegrate former National Socialists . In Styria, Alfons Gorbach and the Ennstaler Kreis tried in particular to build a bridge to the “national” camp; In Upper Austria , the ÖAAB -Obman Alfred Maleta was at the center of this policy. Both Gorbach and Maleta had themselves been in the concentration camp during the Nazi era and were therefore able to justify their approach to the occupying powers to some extent.

The conference

In the Villa Thonet ( ⊙ ), Oberweis, Laakirchen, owned by Alfred Maleta's father-in-law , a conversation lasting several hours took place on May 28, 1949, the Ascension Day . According to socialist correspondence, the following were present:

ÖVP:

Former:

The former diplomat Theodor Hornbostel acted as mediator . Reports on the content of the talks are contradicting: The demand for 25 members of the National Council for those polluted by the Nazis (equivalent to 500,000 votes) is said to have been made, which the conference participants later denied. The abolition of the Prohibition Act and other legal measures were also discussed; such as the reintroduction of the passive right to vote for all former NSDAP members. Borodajkewycz demanded the dismissal of Justice Minister Josef Gerö and a “national” ÖVP candidate for the federal presidential election ( Heinrich von Srbik and Egbert Mannlicher (1882–1973) were named). The 25 mandataries should also be exempted from compulsory membership in parliament. The later Federal Chancellor Julius Raab is said to have said at the conference - citing his past as a Home Guard functionary  -: "Gentlemen, I was never a democrat".

However, the participants themselves denied that any promises were made or demanded and speak of a more informal gathering, which was primarily for strategic reasons. Alfred Maleta later stated in an interview:

"So there was no negotiation, certainly not with any leaders [...] It was mostly just a matter of the visual appearance that there were a couple of former National Socialists as interlocutors, that we would sit down with them and that this fact was used as a hook used to be able to make statements on the question of National Socialist legislation as a party, statements that the ÖVP should make eligible for the former National Socialists. "

consequences

The conference, which had been announced several days earlier in the VdU party newspaper Neue Front , attracted international attention, and The New York Times reported on it. Some of the participants were briefly arrested by the State Police in Vienna as a result of the conference, probably on behalf of the SPÖ Interior Minister Oskar Helmer . The Arbeiter-Zeitung reported under the headline Packelei between ÖVP. and Nazi. An advance by the fascist wing of the People's Party ; Vice Chancellor Adolf Schärf said at an election rally in Wels that he was convinced that the ÖVP would even ask Adolf Hitler for an election recommendation if he was still alive. Similar contacts between the SPÖ and former Nazi functionaries took place during the same period in Ried im Innkreis , but, in contrast to the Oberweis conference, they were not made public. In August 1949 there was a conference of former National Socialists (including Erich Kernmayr ) with SPÖ Interior Minister Helmer in Gmunden , who declared: “If I look after the Nazis, the Maleta in Oberweis looks after them”.

After the Oberweis Conference became known, the former Minister of Social Affairs, Josef Dobretsberger , resigned from the ÖVP in protest and became chairman of the “Democratic Union”, which, however, did not get beyond the status of a splinter party and finally entered an electoral alliance with the KPÖ .

In the National Council election in 1949, both major parties lost equally to the VdU; However, in the years that followed, both parties succeeded in retaining many former National Socialists through support organizations such as the BSA and Ernst Strachwitz's “Junge Front” . However, there was no longer any open collaboration with prominent National Socialists following the pattern of the Oberweiser Conference.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Socialist correspondence . Course of publication: proven 1946–1991,242. Press service of the SPÖ, Vienna.
  2. ^ Fascists in the ÖVP. (...) The participants in the secret conference . In: Burgenland freedom . XIX. Vintage. No. 24/1949, p. 2, column 1, middle.
  3. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb : The paradoxical republic. Austria 1945 to 2005 . Zsolnay, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-552-04967-3 , p. 173.
  4. ^ Siegfried Beer (ed.): The "British" Styria. 1945–1955 . Self-published by the Historical Commission for Styria, Graz 1995, ISBN 3-901251-09-X , p. 72.
  5. ↑ cf. Siegfried Beer (ed.): The "British" Styria. 1945-1955 . Self-published by the Historical Commission for Styria, Graz 1995, ISBN 3-901251-09-X , p. 66 f.
  6. ^ Fascists in the ÖVP . In: Burgenland freedom . XIX. Vintage. No. 24/1949, p. 1, above.
  7. ↑ Michael Gehler (ed.), Hubert Sickinger (ed.): Political affairs and scandals in Austria. From Mayerling to Waldheim. Kulturverlag, Thaur / Wien / Munich 1995, ISBN 3-85400-005-7 , p. 490 f.
  8. ↑ Alfred Maleta: The jump to the podium failed . In: diepresse.com , January 15, 2010, accessed on October 7, 2012.
  9. ^ Hugo Portisch , Sepp Riff (Ill.): Austria II . Volume 2: The long road to freedom . First edition. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-218-00442-X , p. 383.
  10. ↑ Arbeiter-Zeitung , No. 135/1949, June 11, 1949, p. 1 .
  11. ↑ Lothar Höbelt : From the fourth party to the third force. The history of the VdU . Graz (et al.) 1999, ISBN 3-7020-0866-7 , p. 85 f.
  12. ^ Stefan Karner : Styria in the 20th century. Politics, economy, society, culture . Verlag Styria, Graz (a.o.) 2000, ISBN 3-222-12770-0 , p. 350.
  13. ^ Wilhelm Svoboda : The party, the republic and the man with the many faces. Oskar Helmer and Austria II. A correction. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna a. a. 1993 ISBN 3-205-98086-7 , p. 104.
  14. ^ Kurt Skalnik : Parties . In: Erika Weinzierl (Ed.), Kurt Skalnik (Ed.): Austria. The second republic . Volume 2. Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1972, ISBN 3-222-10704-1 , p. 225.