Kreisky-Peter-Wiesenthal affair
Encyclopedia
The Kreisky–Peter–Wiesenthal affair was a political and personal feud in the 1970s fought between the then Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky
and the Nazi hunter
Simon Wiesenthal
arising from Kreisky's ministerial appointments and the SS past of Freedom Party
leader Friedrich Peter
, which had been revealed by Wiesenthal.
since 1970, with an absolute majority since the 1971 general election. In 1975, their re-election was quite unsure, so Kreisky secretly struck a deal with the right-wing Freedom Party
´s leader Friedrich Peter on building a government together if the socialists failed to achieve an absolute majority of seats in the National Council
.
This however, proved unnecessary, when Kreisky's party managed to maintain its majority.
Simon Wiesenthal, by contrast, was a well-known supporter of the conservative Austrian People's Party
.
in Sweden
, formed his minority government
after a close victory in the 1970 election. Wiesenthal soon pointed out that five of his appointed ministers had a Nazi past, one of them, Minister for the Interior Otto Rösch, even for neo-Nazi activities after the war. Kreisky however, publicly defended his appointments claiming that because of his own past as refugee and political prisoner he could very well forgive former Nazis, if they were democrats now. Wiesenthal, on the contrary, stated that "the Nazis could live, the Nazis could die, but they should not govern us""..
In 1975, Wiesenthal had done some research about Kreisky's would-be coalition partner, and showed his report to president Rudolf Kirchschläger
, who urged him not to publish it before the election, because the Austrian people would see this as a foreign interference in their democracy. Wiesenthal agreed. Four days after the election, however, Wiesenthal revealed what he had found out about Peter's wartime years. His report showed that Peter had been an officer in the SS and had served as Obersturmführer
at Infantry regiment 10 of the 1. SS infantry brigade. This unit was part of the Einsatzgruppen
, which shot hundreds of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe in 1941. Peter, who never denied having been a member of the SS, however said that he didn't take part in any mass killings, claiming he was not on duty during the massacres.
in Austria. On a party conference, his secretary Leopold Gratz
attacked claiming that Wiesenthal was operating a "secret police and surveillance center" and was in no way allowed to defame democratically elected politicians. Kreisky later on said that Wiesenthal "makes a living telling the world that Austria is anti-Semitic. What else can he do?" He went on to call Wiesenthal a former Gestapo
agent, based on Czechoslovakia
n intelligence papers which turned out to be fakes years later and he wanted a parliamentary investigation of Wiesenthal's Jewish Documentary Center in Vienna
. He fiercely attacked Wiesenthal that the latter was employing mafia
methods.
It became a fierce battle between Austria's two most famous living Jews about Austria's dealing with its Nazi past, about supporting Israel
and about Jewish identity in Austria after the war. It climaxed in Kreisky arguing that he "was no longer Jewish" and Wiesenthal's response that "the only Austrian, who does not believe Kreisky is Jewish is Kreisky himself". In an interview with a Dutch
journalist, the chancellor even stated that "the Jews are no people, and if they´re, they´re a lousy people". Kreisky and Heinz Fischer
, now president of Austria, even considered a parliamentary inquiry on Wiesenthal and his center. Before the Austrian presidential elections in 2002, Fischer publicly apologized for his behavior in that context.
A lead article in the weekly news magazine Profil
assessed Kreisky's behavior towards Wiesenthal as immoral and undignified . The author was sued by the Chancellor and found guilty of defamation by Austrian courts; in 1986, the European Court of Human Rights
, however, decided unanimously in favor of the journalist for reasons of Freedom of speech
The same year Kreisky renewed his allegations against Wiesenthal, three years after leaving office and therefore no longer protected by parliamentary immunity
. Wiesenthal himself sued again and the former Chancellor was found guilty of defamation and had to pay a substantial fine.
government. It was one of these former cellmates who arranged Kreisky's escape to Sweden
in 1938.
Another factor was that Kreisky was an assimilated Jew from Vienna, who did not practise his faith and had nothing to do with the mostly very poor Eastern Jews that were considered inferior and embarrassing even by most of the Austrian Jews. "The eastern Jews are alien," Kreisky actually remarked. That was, however, exactly Wiesenthal's background: He was born in Galicia and raised in a very religious way. He felt that being Jewish was more than a religious faith, for him it was a shared fate. Kreisky is also alleged to have deliberately used code
d anti-semitic
semantics to attract right-wing voters in Austria.
Both men, however, never spoke to each other again and both felt that they were right about their view about each other. Historian Tom Segev
described the affair as triggered by both men's complex personalities: "Vienna was too small a city to hold two Jews with egos of this size, both of whom wished to be part of Austrian society" .
. Bruno Kreisky is still seen as a great statesman, his defense of Peter's wartime service in the SS is still shared by a substantial part of the Austrian population and Austrians are also today very critical of foreign interference in their political affairs, which sometimes leads to nationalism
and resentment
. This political climate supported the rise of Jörg Haider
and the Freedom Party
in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bruno Kreisky
Bruno Kreisky was an Austrian politician who served as Foreign Minister from 1959 to 1966 and as Chancellor from 1970 to 1983. Aged 72 at the end of his chancellorship, he was the oldest acting Chancellor after World War II....
and the Nazi hunter
Nazi hunter
A Nazi-hunter is a private individual who tracks down and gathers information on alleged former Nazis, SS members and Nazi collaborators involved in the Holocaust, typically for use at trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity...
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
arising from Kreisky's ministerial appointments and the SS past of Freedom Party
Freedom Party of Austria
The Freedom Party of Austria is a political party in Austria. Ideologically, the party is a direct descendant of the German national liberal camp, which dates back to the 1848 revolutions. The FPÖ itself was founded in 1956 as the successor to the short-lived Federation of Independents , which had...
leader Friedrich Peter
Friedrich Peter
Friedrich Peter was an Austrian politician who served as the chairman of the Freedom Party of Austria from 1958 to 1978.- Early life :...
, which had been revealed by Wiesenthal.
Political development in Austria in the 1970s
Bruno Kreisky's socialist party had been ruling AustriaAustria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
since 1970, with an absolute majority since the 1971 general election. In 1975, their re-election was quite unsure, so Kreisky secretly struck a deal with the right-wing Freedom Party
Freedom Party of Austria
The Freedom Party of Austria is a political party in Austria. Ideologically, the party is a direct descendant of the German national liberal camp, which dates back to the 1848 revolutions. The FPÖ itself was founded in 1956 as the successor to the short-lived Federation of Independents , which had...
´s leader Friedrich Peter on building a government together if the socialists failed to achieve an absolute majority of seats in the National Council
National Council
-Conservation:* National Council for Science and the Environment, a US-based non-profit organization which has a mission to improve the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking...
.
This however, proved unnecessary, when Kreisky's party managed to maintain its majority.
Simon Wiesenthal, by contrast, was a well-known supporter of the conservative Austrian People's Party
Austrian People's Party
The Austrian People's Party is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Austria. A successor to the Christian Social Party of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is similar to the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in terms of ideology...
.
Wiesenthal's accusations
Kreisky, a Jew who had been persecuted by the Gestapo because of his political beliefs and Jewish birthhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/323378/Bruno-Kreisky and after that spent all of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, formed his minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
after a close victory in the 1970 election. Wiesenthal soon pointed out that five of his appointed ministers had a Nazi past, one of them, Minister for the Interior Otto Rösch, even for neo-Nazi activities after the war. Kreisky however, publicly defended his appointments claiming that because of his own past as refugee and political prisoner he could very well forgive former Nazis, if they were democrats now. Wiesenthal, on the contrary, stated that "the Nazis could live, the Nazis could die, but they should not govern us""..
In 1975, Wiesenthal had done some research about Kreisky's would-be coalition partner, and showed his report to president Rudolf Kirchschläger
Rudolf Kirchschläger
Rudolf Kirchschläger was an Austrian diplomat, politician, judge and, from 1974 to 1986, the eighth President of Austria.-Education and early life:...
, who urged him not to publish it before the election, because the Austrian people would see this as a foreign interference in their democracy. Wiesenthal agreed. Four days after the election, however, Wiesenthal revealed what he had found out about Peter's wartime years. His report showed that Peter had been an officer in the SS and had served as Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...
at Infantry regiment 10 of the 1. SS infantry brigade. This unit was part of the Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
, which shot hundreds of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe in 1941. Peter, who never denied having been a member of the SS, however said that he didn't take part in any mass killings, claiming he was not on duty during the massacres.
Kreisky attacking Wiesenthal
Bruno Kreisky, never a very diplomatic character, not only fully supported Peter politically, but went on to attack Wiesenthal instead. Not only did he publicly support Peter, but he claimed Wiesenthal was a crypto-racist who himself was responsible for Anti-SemitismAnti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
in Austria. On a party conference, his secretary Leopold Gratz
Leopold Gratz
----Leopold Gratz was an Austrian politician.Born in Vienna, Gratz was a law graduate and a member of the Austrian Social Democratic Party . From 1963 to 1966 he was a member of the Bundesrat, from 1970 to 1971 Federal Minister of Education and the Arts...
attacked claiming that Wiesenthal was operating a "secret police and surveillance center" and was in no way allowed to defame democratically elected politicians. Kreisky later on said that Wiesenthal "makes a living telling the world that Austria is anti-Semitic. What else can he do?" He went on to call Wiesenthal a former Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
agent, based on Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
n intelligence papers which turned out to be fakes years later and he wanted a parliamentary investigation of Wiesenthal's Jewish Documentary Center in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. He fiercely attacked Wiesenthal that the latter was employing mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
methods.
It became a fierce battle between Austria's two most famous living Jews about Austria's dealing with its Nazi past, about supporting Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and about Jewish identity in Austria after the war. It climaxed in Kreisky arguing that he "was no longer Jewish" and Wiesenthal's response that "the only Austrian, who does not believe Kreisky is Jewish is Kreisky himself". In an interview with a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
journalist, the chancellor even stated that "the Jews are no people, and if they´re, they´re a lousy people". Kreisky and Heinz Fischer
Heinz Fischer
Heinz Fischer GColIH is the President of Austria. He took office on 8 July 2004 and was re-elected for a second and last term on 25 April 2010. Before he took office, Fischer was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria...
, now president of Austria, even considered a parliamentary inquiry on Wiesenthal and his center. Before the Austrian presidential elections in 2002, Fischer publicly apologized for his behavior in that context.
Legal action
Initially, Wiesenthal sued the chancellor for slander, but he dropped the case when Kreisky was persuaded by his party colleagues to drop at least part of his allegations, because it did damage to his image abroad.A lead article in the weekly news magazine Profil
Profil (magazine)
profil is an Austrian news magazine. It was founded in 1970 by Oscar Bronner, who also founded the magazine Trend and the daily newspaper Der Standard....
assessed Kreisky's behavior towards Wiesenthal as immoral and undignified . The author was sued by the Chancellor and found guilty of defamation by Austrian courts; in 1986, the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
, however, decided unanimously in favor of the journalist for reasons of Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
The same year Kreisky renewed his allegations against Wiesenthal, three years after leaving office and therefore no longer protected by parliamentary immunity
Parliamentary immunity
Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which members of the parliament or legislature are granted partial immunity from prosecution. Before prosecuting, it is necessary that the immunity be removed, usually by a superior court of justice or by the parliament itself...
. Wiesenthal himself sued again and the former Chancellor was found guilty of defamation and had to pay a substantial fine.
Background
Unlike Wiesenthal, who had spent years in Nazi concentration camps and had lost most of his family there, Kreisky felt that he had never personally suffered as a Jew, but only as a socialist. Historians believe that Kreisky's forgiveness and relaxed attitude towards former Nazis dates from his time in the prisons of the Austrian Dollfuss regime in 1935. Many of his cellmates were Nazis and he accepted them as fellow political opponents of the Austro-FascistAustrofascism
Austrofascism is a term which is frequently used by historians to describe the authoritarian rule installed in Austria with the May Constitution of 1934, which ceased with the forcible incorporation of the newly-founded Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938...
government. It was one of these former cellmates who arranged Kreisky's escape to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
in 1938.
Another factor was that Kreisky was an assimilated Jew from Vienna, who did not practise his faith and had nothing to do with the mostly very poor Eastern Jews that were considered inferior and embarrassing even by most of the Austrian Jews. "The eastern Jews are alien," Kreisky actually remarked. That was, however, exactly Wiesenthal's background: He was born in Galicia and raised in a very religious way. He felt that being Jewish was more than a religious faith, for him it was a shared fate. Kreisky is also alleged to have deliberately used code
Code
A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....
d anti-semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
semantics to attract right-wing voters in Austria.
Both men, however, never spoke to each other again and both felt that they were right about their view about each other. Historian Tom Segev
Tom Segev
Tom Segev is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's so-called New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.-Early life:Segev was born in Jerusalem in 1945...
described the affair as triggered by both men's complex personalities: "Vienna was too small a city to hold two Jews with egos of this size, both of whom wished to be part of Austrian society" .
Aftermath
The Kreisky-Peter-Wiesenthal affair rehearsed many of the themes that resurfaced a decade later during the controversy around Kurt WaldheimKurt Waldheim
Kurt Josef Waldheim was an Austrian diplomat and politician. Waldheim was the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and the ninth President of Austria, from 1986 to 1992...
. Bruno Kreisky is still seen as a great statesman, his defense of Peter's wartime service in the SS is still shared by a substantial part of the Austrian population and Austrians are also today very critical of foreign interference in their political affairs, which sometimes leads to nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and resentment
Resentment
Resentment is the experience of a negative emotion felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong done. Etymologically, the word originates from French "ressentir", re-, intensive prefix, and sentir "to feel"; from the Latin "sentire"...
. This political climate supported the rise of Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Austrian Freedom Party and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of Austria , a breakaway party from the FPÖ.Haider was controversial within Austria and abroad for comments...
and the Freedom Party
Freedom Party of Austria
The Freedom Party of Austria is a political party in Austria. Ideologically, the party is a direct descendant of the German national liberal camp, which dates back to the 1848 revolutions. The FPÖ itself was founded in 1956 as the successor to the short-lived Federation of Independents , which had...
in the 1980s and 1990s.