At the center of it all is right-wing politician Joerg Haider, 50, rich, tanned, stylish and, some say, a dangerous demagogue with a disturbing affinity for another Austrian-born politician, Adolf Hitler. After his Freedom Party took second place in October's elections and talks between two other parties broke down, a new government took office on Feb. 4 with a substantial role for Haider's slate. The result was an avalanche of international condemnations. The 14 other European Union members issued political. sanctions against Austria; Israel recalled its ambassador; Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the U.S. ambassador home to regroup; and Prince Charles postponed a scheduled May visit.
Haider's jarring words have long provoked outrage in Europe. In June 1991, he lauded Hitler's "orderly employment policy." In 1995, he praised the Nazis' SS troops as "decent people of good character" who deserve "honor and respect." That same year, he referred to Hitler's concentration camps as "punishment camps," implying that their victims had been guilty of crimes.
Haider has repeatedly apologized for his comments, once claiming they "were not in line with the personal values of tolerance and humanity that are the basis of my political work." But his regrets have not blunted charges that he is a fascist in populist's clothing. "I don't know what a card-carrying neo-Nazi could say in Austria that Haider has not said," says Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which tracks hate-group activity. (Curiously, Wiesenthal himself told PEOPLE, "I see no danger in [Haider] and think he is overrated.")
Born in the small mountain town of Bad Goisern to a cobbler and his wife (both Nazi youth organization members in the 1930s), Haider was outspoken from the very beginning. "Even as a child he reacted strongly to provocation," his sister Ursula Haubner, 55, told an Austrian news agency. "Others would swallow it, but he always talks back." At private school—his tuition was partly paid by a wealthy uncle—Haider excelled and was elected class spokesman.
After studying law in Vienna—where he met his wife, Claudia, now 44, a Freedom Party town councillor in Carinthia and mother to the couple's two daughters, Ulrike, 22, and Cornelia, 19—Haider taught law himself, then launched his political career. He became head of the Freedom Party in 1986 and that same year inherited from a great-uncle a $15 million estate once owned by Jews who were forced to sell it for a fraction of its value during the war. Elected provincial governor in 1989, he was forced from office two years later after publicly praising Nazi labor policies. He remained active, however, in the Freedom Party. Haider, who wears traditional Carinthian brown suit jackets in the country and designer clothing in Vienna, also tailors his material to his audiences. "He knows what the people want to hear," says boyhood friend Helmut Peter, "and he says it to them, without scruples."
After his party joined the government, Haider tried to defuse the protests by calling for reparations for Holocaust survivors and denied he aims to be chancellor soon. But his critics remain wary. "We don't know what will happen," says Hans Landesmann, 67, business director of the Salzburg Music Festival. "Now he says the past is the past. But his record is very poor."
Thomas Fields-Meyer
Michael Leidig in Vienna and Hannah Cleaver in Berlin
- Contributors:
- Michael Leidig,
- Hannah Cleaver.
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