Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

Heinz-Christian Strache in Haaretz on March 5th: “The Wehrmacht committed crimes like any other army, and the deserters should be treated like deserters in any other army….Neo-Nazism? It’s just a spirit which “does not really exist.” (1)

Was Austria the victim or the perpetrator in World War II? Or was Austria a combination of both?

It all depends on what you can milk out of the situation. Having your cake and eating it is the best way of dealing with it.

Here’s former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel’s view: “The sovereign state of Austria was literally the first victim of the Nazi regime….They took Austria by force.”(2)

If Austria was indeed “the first victim” of Nazi Germany, then the Wehrmacht was the army that conquered Austria. Those who fought in the Wehrmacht fought in an army of occupation. Thus, the Wehrmacht did not fight for Austria, but rather for Nazi Germany.

Interesting to note, is that Austria, not Germany, pays the Wehrmacht pensions of those soldiers who were Austrian citizens before 1938 and after 1945. Here’s he question of questions: If indeed “Austria was the first victim” of Nazi Germany, why on Earth are pensions and benefits for Austrians, who served in the Wehrmacht and the SS, provided by Austria - and not Germany? Why does the “victim” have to pay?

Well, we know how the “victim” victimized his victims. That’s the story that the Austrian revisionists are diligently rewriting.

The Anschluss is often referred to as the “Rape of Austria.” In my Memoirs of a 39er, I put it this way: “Before being violated, the victim hoisted her skirts and yelped.”

Former Austrian Minister of Defense Herbert Scheibner in an interview concerning the party’s opposition to granting pardons for deserters World War II. (3)

Scheibner: Every single deserter must be thoroughly investigated so that it can be the motivation for this action can be ascertained. Someone who shot comrades dead in the last days of the war is not worthy of being rewarded. This cannot be placed in the same category as those who fought against the Nazis for reasons of conscience. Desertion is a punishable offence in the Austrian military forces….Those who fought against National Socialism should receive comprehensive assistance. We (the Freedom Party) voted for the implementation of the National Fund (for the victims of the Third Reich) and for its expansion.
(Profil: Why are you opposed to a commission of historians?)
Scheibner: There are much interesting chapters in history. We don’t enough historians in Austria to this one investigate each of them. Finally something should be done for the Germans who were dispersed like the Sudeten Germans….Not every case of desertion was proper. That would mean, that the Wehrmacht was a criminal organization and everyone who did not desert was a criminal. I am unequivocally opposed to such a wholesale condemnation. This period cannot be viewed in a black and white manner with the perpetrators on one side and the victims on the other.
(Profil: First the Wehrmacht conquered almost all of Europe.)
Scheibner: That does not justify the crimes that were committed on innocent Germans.
(Profil: They would not have occurred if Nazi German country had not started the war.)
Scheibner: That may be may be, but the baby that was murdered in the Sudetenland in 1945 was just as innocent as the one in Russia.)
(Profil: Trying to balance accounts in this manner, obfuscates history. Aren’t you afraid that the reputation of Freedom Party for defending the Nazi regime will become augmented?)
Scheibner: No. These crimes must be condemned. Ask those who were in the governments since 1945, why these injustices have not been expiated to this day?
(Profil: I cannot remember that the FPÖ exerted much pressure to expiate Nazi crimes.)
Scheibner: The Socialist Party took the lion’s share of the Nazi fat cats.
(Profil: Almost the complete founder generation the FPÖ came from the Nazi nomenclature.)
Scheibner: I must unequivocally protest against that. You are accusing a party with an electorate of over a million, and whose founders, like Viktor Reimann, were themselves persecuted.
(Profil: The past of the founding fathers is an incontrovertible fact.)
Scheibner: It is fact is that that we favor the compensation of victims before and after 1945. The case of each deserter must be examined individually.

Here’s a quotation by Viktor Reimann, the “persecuted” founding father: “If Hitler had died or been assassinated after of the annexation of the Sudetenland, he would have gone down in history as one of the greatest popular heroes of all time.”(4)

Major Walter Reder, a mass-murderer, was welcomed back to Austria from Italian incarceration in 1985 by Friedhelm Frischenschlager, the Minister of Defense, and his Austrian citizenship, which he had given up in the Thirties for German citizenship, was returned to him automatically. What’s more, he received a pension and all benefits. There was no quibbling as far as Reder and other war criminals were concerned, but there is quibbling galore for the deserters.

Was the Wehrmacht an Austrian, as well as German military force? Did those former Austrians who fought in it consider themselves Austrians or citizens of the Reich? If Austria was indeed forcefully “annexed” to the Third Reich, Austrians who fought in the Wehrmacht fought in a foreign military force.

And shamefully, those who were forced to leave Austria, after it had been “integrated” into the Third Reich were very belatedly able to regain their Austrian citizenship, and they were presented with skimpy compensation six decades after the fact.

The revisionists claim that there was no Austria during the war, and thus they conclude that all perpetrators were Germans.

After the war, the perpetrators that hailed from what had been Austria became Austrian again, but everything that had happened during the war was a German matter. Many of the murderers of wartime “Germany” got off Scot-free in post-war Austria. It was best to let bygones be bygones, and victim or perpetrator, we were all in this together and we are all in this together. So we rolled up our sleeves and made a go of it, and we’ll continue to make a go of it.

And now from the horse’s mouth in Austria!

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.” (5)
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.) (6)  I have stated that the struggle our soldiers were engaged in helped stem the communist menace, and that is an undeniable fact.(7)  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.(8)  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.”(9)  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.(10)

Haider concerning Major Walter Reder: “Reder fulfilled his duty as a soldier.”(11)

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.

The revisionists claim that the Third Reich was a bulwark against “Red Plague” is hogwash.

The Hitler-Stalin Pact brought Soviet dominance to East Poland and the Baltic States, and the end result of the invasion of the Soviet Union was Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Thus the Poles, Hungarians, the Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Czechs and the Slovaks, as well as the East Germans were not “saved” from Communism at all. Nazi Germany, by waging a war of conquest, did not stem the flow of Communism, but rather unleashed it.

Stalin swallowed up what Hitler was forced to spit out.

The Wehrmacht and SS did indeed attempt to defend the territory that comprised the Third Reich, after it was forced to retreat from conquered territories.

Certainly credit is due to anyone who participates in reconstruction. The surviving veterans of the Wehrmacht and SS did indeed help rebuild Germany and Austria. But it must be said that they did this after they had participated in the wanton and gratuitous destruction of Europe, which in turn brought about the destruction of their own territory.

According to former Chancellor Schüssel’s interpretation, the Wehrmacht was exclusively the army of the Third Reich. Thus, the case of the Austrian deserters from the Wehrmacht should be taken directly to the Minister of Defense of the Federal Republic of Germany. Since the deserters were citizens of the Third Reich between 1938 and 1945, the German Minister of Defense, the highest representative of the Bundeswehr, should be their spokesman concerning pensions and benefits, as well as their rehabilitation.

Herbert Kuhner is what Vorarlberg Freedom Party Chief Bertram Egger termed an “exile-Jew from America.” On August 24, 2010, Heinz-Christian Strache declared in Austrian TV, that labeling someone as an “exile-Jew ” posed no insult and that the Freedom Party would not tolerate foreign criticism.
Thus the highest representative of the German Bundeswehr should be entrusted with solving the problems that have arisen concerning the Austrian deserters.

Since the deserters were citizens of the Third Reich between 1938 and 1945, the German Minister of Defense should be their spokesman concerning pensions, and benefits, as well as their rehabilitation.
The case of the Austrian deserters from the Wehrmacht should be taken directly to the Minister of Defense of the Federal Republic of Germany. For according to Chancellor Schüssel’s interpretation, the Wehrmacht was exclusively the army of the Third Reich. Thus the highest representative of the German Bundeswehr should be entrusted with solving the problems that have arisen concerning the Austrian deserters. Since they were citizens of the Third Reich between 1938 and 1945, the German Minister of Defense should be their spokesman concerning their pensions, and their benefits, as well as their rehabilitation.

Interesting to note, is that Austria, not Germany, pays the Wehrmacht pensions of those soldiers who were Austrian citizens before 1938 and after 1945. Here’s he question of questions: If indeed “Austria was the first victim” of Nazi Germany, why on Earth are pensions and benefits for Austrians, who served in the Wehrmacht and the SS, provided by Austria and not Germany? Why does the “victim” have to pay?

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(1)   Heinz-Christian Strache, Interview: Adar Primor, Haaretz, March 5, 2010.
(2)   Wolfgang Schüssel, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 9, 2000; Wiener Zeitung, Nov. 10/11, 2000.
(3)   Profil, no. 29, July, 1999. p. 39.
(4)  Viktor Riemann : „Der Zweite Weltkrieg und seine Ursachen”, 1985; Hans Weiß, Krista Federspiel, Wer, 1988, Copyright by the authors.
(5)   Jörg Haider, speech at Ulrichberg, Carinthia, October 7, 1990: Profil, No. 34, August 21, 1995.
(6)   Profil, No. 34, August 21, 1995.
(7)   Die Gemeinde, Feb. 1, 1993, Jörg Haider interviewed by Karl Pfeifer; broadcast by “Kol Israel,” The Israeli Broadcasting System, January 22, 1993.
(8)   Kärntner Nachrichten, Oct. 10, 1985.
(9)   Kärntner Nachrichten, Nov. 6, 1986.
(10) Jörg Haider, Zeit im Bild 2, ORF (Austrian Broadcasting System), Dec. 19, 1995.
(11) Jörg Haider, Profil, Sept. 14, 1995.