Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

Some quotations by SS-colonel Walter Reder, who was the “last Austrian prisoner of war” until his release an January 24, 1985.

Telegram to the mayor of Marzabotto December 25, 1984: “Nothing lies farther from my heart than forgetting the sacrifice of the martyrs. I beseech the survivors to believe me when I say that I weep for those martyrs and bow my head before their memory in deep Christian remorse”

Walter Reder in May of 1985 concerning that telegram:
“They do not hesitate to use my Italian lawyer’s gambit against me. I have no intention whatsoever of ‘whitewashing’ and humbling myself.”

Telegram to “Comrade Jüttner,” May 9, 1980:
“The rats are very tough, as we know.”

In 1983 the Socialists formed a coalition, with the Freedomites. In 1985 when Walter Reder, the last Nazi war criminal incarcerated in Italy, was released, Friedhelm Frischenschlager Freedomite Minister of Defense, flew to Graz to welcome the “old soldier” with a handshake and received him with full military honors.

Frischenschlager asserted that Reder was merely the last prisoner of war. He was not aware of why Reder had not previously been released.” No minister of defense in the history of mankind, and there have been many lulus, could be deemed so naive.

This was a bone in the throat of some Socialists, but others gulped it down without any trouble. The Conservatives raised a ruckus in parliament but smiled wanly when one of their mayors presented Reder with a hunting lodge to while away his twilight hours. (There is a brush dipped in brown paint and both major parties use it on each other when they consider it opportune, but they don’t do any rinsing out of their own.) Birds of a feather (and a color) flock together. The Catholic Church got into the act by giving Reder room and board until the more luxurious quarters were ready.

Incidentally, Reder gave up his Austrian citizenship in the Thirties, before Austria became Ostmark, when he embarked on an SS career in the Reich. He did not have to apply to regain it. He received on a silver platter along with a pension and other benefits. No emigré can boast of red carpet treatment with a cabinet member on hand to do the welcoming.

There was another bone to be swallowed in 1985 when Frischenschlager unveiled a plaque honoring General Alexander von Löhr for building up the Austrian Air Force before 1938. Löhr had indeed done a fine job with the Air Force, which first saw action after the Anschluss. Among his achievements was the bombing of Belgrade, which was carried out without a declaration of war with a death toll of 17,000. Lohr’s illustrious career came to an end in 1947 when he was executed for war crimes in Yugoslavia. A press campaign and public protest resulted in the removal of the plaque, but the resilient minister stayed on.

Jörg Haider concerning Major Walter Reder: “Reder fulfilled his duty as a soldier.” Major Walter Reder engaged in barbarism “beyond the call of duty.” The duty fulfilled by Reder in the Italian village of Marzabotto in October of 1944 consisted of the massacre of 290 women children and old people. The toll of his civilian victims in Italy stands at 1830. If girls were found alive under the bodies of their parents, they were raped before being shot. Reder not only carried out orders, but gave them at random, and he personally participated in atrocities. One of his “dutiful” actions was the rape of a nun.

Here’s what Jörg Haider said to veterans of the SS and the Wehrmacht: “Your sacrifice for the Europe of today, men and women of the military generation, should not have been in vain.”
And more by Haider: “Our soldiers weren’t perpetrators. The perpetrators were elsewhere … I have said that the Wehrmacht soldiers made democracy, as we find it today in Europe, possible. Had they not afforded resistance, had they not been in the East, had they not been in a confrontation, then we would have…(Haider is interrupted by two astute Profil editors.) I have stated that the struggle our soldiers were engaged in helped stem the communist menace, and that is an undeniable fact. Their sacrifice must not have been in vain. Without their valor, we would not have the freedom in Western Europe that we take for granted. It is incomprehensible to me that our grandfathers and fathers should have been criminals… I espouse this generation, the dead as well as the living.” Let me refer you to the judgment of the highest courts in Germany! They have confirmed that the Waffen-SS was part of the Wehrmacht, and thus worthy of the honor and respect which it enjoys in public life.

And Bruno Kreisky: “I had intensive contact with Walter Reder for a decade and have spoken for his release. Reder stated that I am the man he is most indebted to. There are situations when you cannot prevent being praised. I am always prepared for reconciliation.”
- Bruno Kreisky, Heinz P. Wassermann: Zuviel Vergangenheit tut nicht gut! Nationalsozialismus im Spiegel der Tagespresse der Zweiten Republik, Studien Verlag, Innsbruck, 2000; Interview with Bruno Kreisky, Profil.