Extremist Party Evokes Ghosts In Austria's Past

VIENNA -- Extremist political parties in Europe take great care to disguise their true identities. They give themselves innocent-sounding names in an effort to win respectability and votes. Thus in Italy we have the Italian Social Movement, which is in reality a club for neo-fascists, and in Denmark we have the Progress Party, which is actually an anti-immigrant group.


In Austria, the self-styled Freedom Party has just won 22.6 percent of the vote in national parliamentary elections. This has turned the party into the most successful extreme right-wing political movement in Europe. Although Austria's ruling coalition of social democrats and conservatives will stay in office, the harsh fact is that they are floundering in the face of the challenge from the buoyant and determined Freedom Party.


European pundits are having difficulty defining the appeal of the Freedom Party and its disturbingly fresh-faced leader, Joerg Haider. The day after the Oct. 9 elections, one commentator called him a "telegenic extremist," while another termed him a "yuppie fascist." The venerable Financial Times of London, while noting Haider's xenophobic stance on immigration, appeared to give him a mild pat on the back by adding that he espouses "liberal economic views."


This is reminiscent of the way that some Europeans used to praise Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for supposedly making the trains run on time, or the way that Adolf Hitler initially won plaudits for reducing joblessness in Germany. As it happens, Haider himself commented in 1991 that there was much to be said in favor of the Third Reich's employment policies. That remark should have consigned him to the fringes of politics, but instead he has just received the votes of 1 million Austrians.


One reason for his spectacular performance lies in Austria's failure to confront its Nazi past with honesty. Many Austrians were delighted when Hitler's Germany absorbed their country in the 1938 Anschluss. But after World War II the Allies found it convenient to forgive Austria and call it Europe's first victim of Nazi aggression. This was plainly untrue and it meant that, in contrast to Germany, Austria never went through an agonizing period of soul-searching about its fascist experience.


The all-important question is whether Haider's success means that Austrians have abandoned their post-war tradition of consensus politics and comfortable, middle-of-the-road democracy. The answer is: Not yet, but the warning signs are there.


Austrians voted a referendum last June on whether to join the European Union, and by a solid two-thirds majority they said "yes." But the strong vote for Haider, who campaigned against EU membership, indicates that many Austrians are worried about the direction that Europe is taking. He picked up support by advocating the expulsion of immigrants caught committing serious crimes and by demanding that the state limit the number of non-German-speaking children in classrooms.


Immigration is indeed a serious issue in Austria, where the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe has resulted in a wave of legal and illegal entrants into the country. Many Austrian taxpayers are angry that they are being asked to foot the bill for people who in their view should not be in the country in the first place. But the proper response to this problem is not to put a man like Haider in power. There are demons in Austria's history that must not be resurrected.