Reading the articles written by Washington Post and The New York Times raise a few questions concerning their coverage of Dr. Kurt Waldheim. And if you aren’t a careful reader, you would end up believing what you read.

Like any soldier of war, if you desert your troop, you are ordered to be sentenced. And if you disagree to the ruling government or ideology, you better hide or else you are dead. This is more or less the scenario during this era.

Despite the negative mood that the US mainstream media create about him, this memorial tablet goes to show that if you were a non-Jew/non-gypsy/non-gay Austrian and not a pro-Nazi but a communist/socialist that time you would be dead.

Just like the Viennese Viktor Christ, an ordinary citizen who was murdered in 1941 by the Nazis.
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As an expatriate/immigrant, I barely know Mr. Kurt Waldheim except for the political history/current events I learned from school. And the small fuss in the ’80s: the Waldheim controversy. Consequently, the government of United States barred him from entering the country. (Small, as it doesn’t strike as a big deal when you live in Asia by that time.)

Truth is my personal opinion concerning the Nazi and the German-speaking people has changed throughout the years. It was from being a negative-bigoted to positive-understanding. Not veering towards a favourable view on the fascists but the people who participated in it.

Maybe having an Austrian connection aside from being interested in your history helped my full understanding of the subject by having heard both sides of the story/coin.

So what is the connection of all these statements to Mr. Waldheim? Simple. The reason the US government put him on the watchlist is because of his Nazi past.

Mr. Waldheim, the former Austrian president, an ex-diplomat and former UN secretary general, was a former Nazi officer who joined the Nazi machinery to kill Jews and millions of others during the World War II. It was a controversy in the ’80s in and outside of Austria, the country, which according to BBC, is too small to matter in international terms.

I have known old people who were soldiers that time, even their children. There’s this one person who told us that he was not forced by the Nazis but he himself volunteered. He was young, only 17. He wanted to be part of it and he believed in the ideology and that they would succeed. Though like the others it was all too late before he realised that everything they, he and his comrades and the Nazi hangers on, had done was wrong. So wrong they even lost their loved ones because of that. Because of his deep disappointment and depression he has refused to be part of any political party/creed.

It would be stupid and lame to hear Mr. Waldheim say, “I was just doing my job,” in the eyes of the victims. But the name of the game was self-preservation. He was only human after all. Like the others he might have gone to believe that they were doing the right thing. He was told to do it like the US soldiers or the Muslim extremists today who are ordered to maim or exterminate their enemies.

So should Mr. Waldheim, after all these years, be forgiven after all these years? The answer is yes, we can forgive but we shouldn’t forget.

Source

Anyone heard about this one?
“Death in Vienna” by Daniel Silva.
Link

Gabriel Allon hasn’t been back to Vienna since his wife and child died there in a terrorist bombing. But when his mentor in the Israeli intelligence agency dispatches him to the Austrian capitol to investigate a murderous explosion at the Wartime Claims and Inquiry Office, his presence alerts the attention of police officials who have reasons to stand in the way of his investigation. When a concentration camp survivor is killed who could link the father of Austria’s next chancellor to Nazi atrocities and an ongoing coverup by the Catholic Church, Allon discovers another connection to the conspiracy, this one closer to his own past than he could ever have imagined.

I loooove fleamarkets. I always get excited looking at the dinghy, used items. It is one of the things I like about Vienna, that is, the familiarity and the smell of old things–from old furniture to secondhand CDs–being sold again to those people who are interested.

I love the idea of “trash to others but treasure to some” instead of just throwing the things away.

Today, Schwedenplatz was once again crowded due to this usual, almost monthly, one-day fleamarket.

The last time I was there I found a wooden figure of a Japanese geisha and a funny-looking candle-holder sold one euro each. It sounds so kitschy but I still find myself adoring them.

So browsing the stalls I found one that sold books and newspapers that dated from 1920s till 1950s. Yep, you guess it right the owners were selling reading materials propagating Nazi ideology.
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The ATVPlus did a rerun of the “10 Most Important Austrians.” In case you don’t know the “Hi Society” host Dominic Heinzl presents “The ATV Ranking Show“.
If you don’t watch TV, or better yet, you don’t tune in to this kind of fluffy program, in which I cannot blame you, watching it has become a motivation for me to improve my German. Anyway, one cannot declare that this is the ultimate list. It is just a matter of the ATV audience’s opinion.
People can be so mundane and at times contemplating. Just take the list with a grain of salt.
In order of importance. No. 1 being No. 1.

1. Wolfgang A. Mozart–composer, Austria’s official mascot. But hey, he was a prodigy and you like it or not, his music is really catchy (though I still prefer Schubert and Beethoven over him). This year is truly his.

2. Frank Stronach–businessman and the owner of the company Magna and others

3. Dietrich Mateschitz–Honestly, Red Bull disgusts me, especially in the morning (like the smell of Kebab or Leberkäse Semmel in a crowded wagon). But I am amazed with the popularity of this sugary drink. Mr. Mateschitz, the owner, is a marketing genius. Just look at the commercials.

4. Elfriede Jelinek–writer, the only woman on the list. I wonder if she wouldn’t have gotten the Nobel Prize in Literature, would the public dismiss her works?

5. Arnold Schwarzenegger–actor, politician, one ex-colleague asked me then if the significant other resembles Arnold. She thinks every Austrian is. I have to admit that my mother really likes him.

6. Carl Djerassi–inventor of contraceptive pills. Hail, hail to this man! During the Nazi era, he fled to the US of A in order to escape persecution.

7. Niki Lauda–F1 driver and champion.

8. Hans Dichand–media mogul, the owner of the popular tabloid Kronen Zeitung. They said he rules, unconsciously, Austria. He is a media practitioner and he forces (his paper’s) opinions on the people.

9. Helmut Pechlaner–the director of the Schönbrunn Tiergarten. My SO thinks he is sympathisch.

10. Gery Keszler–the promoter of AIDS Live Ball. I only got to hear that his charity parties are sort of the creme de la creme of celebs and fashion icons.

These are the people who didn’t make it on the list: Billy Wilder, Gustav Klimt, Sigmund Freud, etc.

We’ll show the wonderful “La Grande vadrouille” at the monochrom space/MQ on Sunday, February 19, 8 PM.
Franz Ablinger will held a lecture.

During World War II… When their combat aircraft is shot down by the Germans, three English airmen parachute to the comparative safety of Nazi occupied France. One lands on the scaffold of an amiable painter and decorator, Augustin. Another lands on top of a concert hall and is rescued by the irascible but patriotic conductor Stanislas Lefort. The third ends up in the otter enclosure in a Parisian zoo. When they try to help the airmen keep a rendez-vous at the Turkish baths in Paris, Augustin and Stanislas quickly find that they themselves have become targets for the German soldiers. Assisted by the daughter of a puppeteer and an anti-German nun, the two unwilling heroes accompany the three airman on a reckless trek across France towards the neutral zone and safety.

La Grande vadrouille is one of the great comic achievements of French cinema. A magnificent action comedy, it had until very recently the distinction of being the most popular film ever shown in France. Its box office sale of 17 million tickets has only recently been topped by the 1997 American blockbuster Titanic. Even today, its airings on French television attract stupendous audience figures. The phenomenal success of the film is a remarkable achievement given that the film makes light of one of the most unfortunate periods of French history.

No, that’s no Nazi militia propaganda. It’s part of a series of posters in front of MQ.
What exhibiton are these posters promoting?

While I waited for the bus, stomping my feet and fighting the cold weather, I noticed some frizzy scribblings ornamenting one of the columns supporting the bridge and the railways somewhere in Kagran. Either It was newly added by some bored teenager/passerby or I just didn’t simply notice it. The graffiti is the opposite of what I usually encounter every time I go to work. I mean, I know that Vienna was used to be the center of arts and all things like that centuries ago but vandalism is certainly the order of the day nowadays. You really cannot miss them. The vandals are rampaging. They like to put their marks everywhere and the city of Vienna is having problems dealing with them.
I don’t really mind them unless a) they start to “uglify” the new buses or train seats and b) they reek of racism/hatred of any kind.
With the point A not only they make the interiors of the vehicles depressing and disgusting (frankly my dear, it is not PUNK ROCK!, okay perhaps I am just getting older), but also a lot of money has been put to waste. With the point B it is a sign of a discontented youth trying to magify his/her hate through the power of words and by unleashing them will send everyone to panic. I mean, gee, Neonazis in the house! All right!
They are all over the place. They are splattered on the walls of the buses, on the trains, under the seats, even the street walls. And the “authors”? They move in shadows. They live, they eat, they work like the normal people. You cannot identify them unless they wear their “uniforms,” which is unthinkable today. Or they show up on your TV blabbering what is wrong with the foreigners without jobs and the best solution is to kick them out.
The first time I read them with my own eyes I was a bit amazed, my mouth agape. But this is the 21st century, right? And the people must have learned their lessons.
Unfortunately Vienna (or the whole Austria, or the whole Europe) hasn’t come to terms with it. Perhaps, parts of it. And this is the trying times. You mix glabalisation with unemployment equals everyone is fucked. Somehow Fortress Europe is afraid to acknowledge that it exists.
Racism exists everywhere, that is a fact. Still, there are a number of people living in this city who are struggling with their identity, shaking off the “Schuldgefühl”, forgetting the past, and worse, they could be the politicians who capitalise in this concept.
The words “Nazis, Bimbo, toten, Neger, Ausländer raus” are something you really cannot deny.
At the end of the day, I thank that Vienna is not Moscow, nor some parts in Russia, where cases of racism are frighteningly increasing, where haters smear synagogues and rabbis are beaten up during daylight and Asian students’ hostels are burned down while the Russian media keep their mouths shut, their eyes close, saying that it is not really happening.
And I hope that it won’t turn out like Paris.
Oh yeah, please tell me the truth. Do the Viennese really read Elfriede Jelinek???

Now that all this is over, there’s one more thing I want to add. Yesterday night, while I was waiting for my bus, I was able to witness something very.. touching. I decided to post this only after the votes are over, because maybe now there is a change people will not file this under “campaign spin” and move on.

The bus station was decorated with one of the FPÖ posters. The slogan was “Herr im eigenen Haus bleiben” (”Let’s continue being the owners of our home(country)”), and it was covered with nazi graffiti - everything from “foreigners out” to “kill the fucking turks” was present. While I was sitting and waiting, a man, somewhere in his late twenties and probably from the middle east, according to his looks, walked by, looked at the poster, stopped, and walked closer to read what had been written on it. After a few seconds, his face changed. I have never seen such a sad expression on someone ever in my life - not angered, not despaired, simply sad. It was so hard, actually, that I decided to just let it stand there, and not take a photo of it, as I usually would (Besides, the lighting conditions were less than perfect, and my camera has a hard time dealing with darkness and low artificial light at the same time).

That’s it. No moral of the story, no big fighting text. I just wanted to share this with you. And now, I’m off to work.

Simon Wiesenthal, 96, the controversial Nazi hunter who pursued hundreds of war criminals after World War II and was central to preserving the memory of the Holocaust for more than half a century, died today in Vienna, Austria, his base of operations.

Dubbed the “deputy for the dead” and “avenging archangel” of the Holocaust, Wiesenthal created after the war a repository of concentration camp testimonials and dossiers on Nazis at his Jewish Documentation Center. The information was used to help professional lawyers prosecute those responsible for some of the 20th century’s most abominable crimes.

Link NY Times
Link LA Times
Link Washington Post