Herbert Kikl, the populist leader who won the elections this Sunday, but who will not govern, closed his campaign in the Stephansdom, the cathedral square in Vienna, very close to the Capuchin Crypt, where all the emperors of the era are buried. Habsburg dynasty. Kikl did not propose returning to the times of Sissi, but he did become solemn when speaking of himself as Volkskanzler (the people’s chancellor) and his party as “the instrument” to fulfill the wishes of that people.
Goebbels would have loved the speech, so popularand with Nazi resonances, which is hardly different from the rest of the European populist and extremist parties. Kikl will not be chancellor – because the federal president will veto him – but he is already an unavoidable politician, even in the opposition, who will try to remodel Austria following the Hungarian model. This character, as small and fragile as the propaganda minister of the Third Reich, can obtain the presidency of Parliament for the FPÖ, a key position. And will keep trying Organize his country taking advantage of its position of strength. Fighting firmly against European directives, especially those related to immigration, insisting on the “re-emigrations” of irregular immigrants, fighting the “climate dictatorship” and attacking the critical press. Although it is expected that his speech will continue to be radical, he will gain support from the Christian Democrats camp, because they have already collaborated in the past. Everything has an explanation in a deeply conservative country.
If Viktor Orbán began his career as a young liberal who has transformed into an autocrat, Kikl is the heir of a party that was born in 1959 with former Austrian Nazis protected by the American secret services. No one seemed to mind that those nostalgic for Greater Germany continued their political activity. The applied Schwamm drüberclean slate. Even the Social Democratic Chancellor Bruno Kreisky counted on the FPÖ between the years 1970-71. What’s more, he protected the party leader, Friedrich Peter, from the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal when he discovered his past as an SS member and murderer of Jews. The star of the party in the 90s and following, Jörg Haider, often confessed his admiration for the Third Reich and hardly anyone batted an eyelid. Logical if one remembers that a few years earlier the Austrians had massively supported their president, the conservative Kurt Waldheim, former Secretary General of the UN, when it was discovered, in 1986, that he was a Nazi soldier in the Balkans.
That dark past did not punish the FPÖ or prevent the Liberals from being junior members of three coalition governments, the last seven years ago. There was only external alarm in 2000, when the EU, then only 15 members, imposed sanctions on Vienna for six months because Haider entered the conservative government as vice chancellor. Then and now, one in three Austrians sees the Liberals as just another party. With the same scandals, corruption and mysterious financing. This party, yes, offers them a curious alliance with those who The Economist defined as the “useful idiots of Moscow.” Parties that want to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible, have the supply of cheap Russian oil assured and toy with a possible exit from the EU, considered a brake on their sovereignty policies. Together with Slovakia, Hungary and Austria could restore a new Austro-Hungarian Empire of illiberal democracies. Each one to his own and all supported by Moscow. Taking advantage of the fact that many have forgotten a piece of advice from Salzburger Stefan Zweig: “He who does not understand the past, in reality understands nothing.”
Knowing what happens outside is understanding what will happen inside, don’t miss anything.
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