Name | Jörg Haider |
---|---|
Caption | Haider in 2007 |
Order | Governor of Carinthia |
Term start1 | 1989 |
Term end1 | 1991 |
Predecessor1 | Peter Ambrozy |
Successor1 | Christoph Zernatto |
Term start2 | 1999 |
Term end2 | 2008 |
Predecessor2 | Christoph Zernatto |
Successor2 | Gerhard Dörfler |
Office3 | Chairman of theBündnis Zukunft Österreich |
Predecessor3 | Founder |
Successor3 | Peter Westenthaler |
Term start3 | 4 April 2005 |
Term end3 | June 2006 |
Predecessor4 | Peter Westenthaler |
Successor4 | Stefan Petzner |
Term start4 | 30 August 2008 |
Term end4 | 11 October 2008 |
Office5 | Chairman of theFreedom Party of Austria |
Predecessor5 | Norbert Steger |
Successor5 | Susanne Riess-Passer |
Term start5 | 1986 |
Term end5 | 2000 |
Birth date | January 26, 1950 |
Birth place | Bad Goisern, Austria |
Death date | October 11, 2008 |
Death place | Köttmannsdorf, Austria |
Party | Freedom Party of Austria (1970-2006)Alliance for the Future of Austria (2006-2008) |
Spouse | Claudia Haider-Hofmann (m. 1976-2008) |
Children | Ulrike, Cornelia |
Profession | Attorney |
Education | Dr. iur. (law degree) |
Religion | Roman Catholic |
Alma mater | University of Vienna |
Haider was controversial within Austria and abroad for comments that were widely condemned as praising Nazi policies or as xenophobic or anti-Semitic. Several countries imposed mild diplomatic sanctions against his party's government. Haider died in a car accident shortly after leading the BZÖ in the Austrian Parliamentary elections. He was driving over the speed limit while significantly over the legal alcohol limit.
Robert Haider joined the DNSAP in 1929 as a fifteen year-old boy, four years before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. He remained a member even after the Nazi Party was banned in Austria and after Engelbert Dollfuss had dissolved the Austrian parliament and established a Ständestaat, a fascist dictatorship. In 1933, Haider senior moved to Bavaria but returned to Austria the following year after the failed Nazi attempt to overthrow the Austrian government. He was arrested and chose to move back to Germany where he joined the Austrian Legion, a division of the Sturmabteilung.
Haider senior completed a two-year military service in Germany and returned to Austria in 1938 after it was annexed by Nazi Germany (the Anschluss). From 1940, he fought as a junior officer on the Western and Eastern Fronts in Europe during the Second World War. Having been wounded several times, he was discharged from the Wehrmacht with the rank of lieutenant. In 1945, he married Dorothea Rupp, at that time a leader in the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM).
Following the end of the war, Haider's parents were investigated as part of the denazification process, conducted to determine what measures should be taken against them because of their NSDAP membership (proceedings against all former Nazis—NSDAP members and collaborators—were undertaken as a matter of law in both Austria and Germany after the war ended). They were labelled as "Minderbelastet" (meaning "compromised to a lesser degree", i.e. low-ranking in the NSDAP structure). Robert Haider found a job in a shoe factory. Dorothea Haider, who had been a teacher, was prohibited from teaching for a few years following the end of the war. Robert was forced to dig graves, which their son recalled as a "brutal injustice." Haider's mother eventually outlived him, turning ninety on the day he died.
After he graduated with highest distinction in 1968, he moved to Vienna to study law. During his studies he was affiliated again with a Burschenschaft: Silvania. After graduating from the University of Vienna with the title of Dr. iur. in 1973 he was drafted into the Austrian Army where he voluntarily spent more than the mandatory nine months (called 'the voluntary one year'). In 1974 he started to work at the University of Vienna law faculty in the department of constitutional law.
The decisive point of his career came in 1986 when he defeated Austrian Vice Chancellor Norbert Steger in the vote for party leadership at the party convention in September in Innsbruck; many delegates feared that Steger's liberal political views and his coalition with the Social Democrats threatened the party's existence.
In 1991, in a debate in the regional parliament, a Socialist leader attacked Haider's plan of reducing unemployment payments for people seen as "freeloaders", calling it forced work placement reminiscent of Nazi policies. Haider replied, "No, they didn't have that in the Third Reich, because in the Third Reich they had a proper employment policy, which not even your government in Vienna can manage to bring about." Haider claimed that the legislators understood his comment as a criticism of the present Austrian government, but in the days that followed the SPÖ joined with the ÖVP in a vote of no confidence against him. Haider had to resign his post as governor, the FPÖ-ÖVP coalition was replaced by an SPÖ-ÖVP coalition. Although the remark was costly both for Haider and the FPÖ, a country-wide poll reported that 42 percent of Austrians considered the press's treatment exaggerated, and 33 percent believed Haider's remarks to be based in fact.
In 1999, Haider again was elected governor of Carinthia by the Carinthian parliament, where the FPÖ now held a plurality of more than 42%. Even after the FPÖ fell to only 10% from 27% in the national elections in 2002, Haider's support in Carinthia did not diminish and he succeeded in the 2004 elections receiving a slightly higher percentage (42.5%) than in 1999.
With Haider practically leading the FPÖ single-handedly, he was able to unite the scattered, divided extreme-right in Austria and establish a party that was not so much founded on leading personalities or an ideology but on just one leader - Haider himself, who used to change his opinions frequently. His style of governing the party became authoritarian in the following years, however his followers did not challenge his ultimate authority in the party, especially because Haider was able to gain one victory after another in elections.
An exception was the split off by the Liberal Forum in the mid-1990s headed by Heide Schmidt, a long-time political supporter of Haider and the FPÖ's candidate for presidency in 1992. The liberals initially gained the support of about 6% of the voters nationwide, but Schmidt was not able to uphold this support and the Liberal Forum subsequently dropped out of parliament in 1999.
The party's mixture of populism, anti-establishment and nationalist themes steadily gained support over the years. In addition to far-right voters, the FPÖ was able to attract voters from both the Social Democrats and the Conservatives in both the national and regional elections of the 1990s, mostly those who were fed up with decades of government by the 'Great Coalition' (see also: Proporz).
The EU leaders soon saw that their measures were counterproductive and returned to normality during the summer of 2000, even though the coalition remained unchanged. (See Austria legislative election, 1999.)
At the end of 2000, Jörg Haider stepped down from the leadership of the Freedom Party. This was widely regarded as a cynical move to appease foreign criticism, as he appeared to continue to control the party from behind the scenes, with Susanne Riess-Passer who was the following party chairwoman being only pro-forma in charge. Haider proclaimed that his move was just the fulfillment of his promise to Carinthian FPÖ voters he gave prior to the election that had been held in the same year.
This resulted in new general elections in November, which resulted in a landslide victory (42.27% of the vote) of the conservative People's Party led by Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel. Haider's Freedom Party, which in 1999 was slightly stronger than Schüssel's party, was reduced to 10.16% of the vote.
In response, Haider stated that he had demanded that the leader of the FPÖ must step down to allow him to be leader, and on being refused, stated that he would leave federal politics permanently.
In October 2003, in a cabinet reshuffle instigated by Haider, Haupt stepped down as Vice Chancellor and was replaced by Hubert Gorbach.
On 7 March 2004, the FPÖ won a plurality (42.5%) of the vote in the elections for the Carinthian parliament. On 31 March 2004, Haider was re-elected Governor of Carinthia by the FPÖ and SPÖ members of the state parliament.
However, outside Carinthia, Haider's charisma seemed to have largely lost its appeal among voters. The FPÖ incurred devastating losses in several regional elections, the European Elections of 2004 and in elections for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. In each of those elections, it lost between one half to two thirds of their previous voters.
In the following months, the BZÖ tried to establish itself within the Austrian political landscape, but met little success. Haider and his new party remained in the coalition with the People's party, leading to fierce fights between the FPÖ and BZÖ following the split-up. Subsequent polls showed that both parties were losing voter approval and in danger of failing to reach the critical 4% of the national vote barrier required for representation in parliament.
In the 2006 general elections, the BZÖ received 4.1% of votes, thus narrowly securing its representation of 7 seats in parliament. The FPÖ, now led by Heinz-Christian Strache surpassed initial expectations, receiving 11.0% of the vote, 532 votes behind the Greens.
From June 2006 to August 2008, the BZÖ was led by Peter Westenthaler. On 30 August 2008, shortly before the legislative election, Haider re-assumed the party chairmanship. Subsequently, the BZÖ received 10.7% of votes, and the FPÖ 17.5% of votes.
In a 27 September 2008 talkshow on ORF television, Haider described the boards of directors of numerous world banks as "mafia". Haider also advocated the creation of heavier punishments for banking managers and proposed the creation of a special Legal Court against financial crimes, in one of his last interviews to the Austrian Kleine Zeitung daily.
Haider supported fighting against increasing prices, and paying a minimum salary of €1000 per month, as well as €1000 per month for mothers. He also supported reforming the Austrian social insurance system with one insurance company per profession. Until 2005 Haider was for the entry of Turkey into the European Union. Later, he urged that decisions like the treaty for the European Union, or the entrance of Turkey into the European Union should be decided by a referendum.
"The social order of Islam is opposed to our Western values. Human rights and democracy are as incompatible with the Muslim religious doctrine as is the equality of women. In Islam, the individual and his free will count for nothing; faith and religious struggle – jihad, the holy war – for everything."
In May 2006, Haider personally moved the road sign of the town of Bleiburg () in south-eastern Carinthia for several meters as the response to the decision of the Constitutional Court which ruled the sign was unconstitutional because it was written only in German. He compared himself to Jesus Christ who moved the stone over his tomb, provoking indignation by the local Roman Catholic clergy. After the Court condemned his action as illegal, Haider threatened to call a regional referendum on the issue, for which he was publicly admonished by the Federal President Heinz Fischer. The referendum was blocked by the decision of the Federal institutions which found it unconstitutional. In December 2006, Haider tried to bypass the ruling of the Constitutional Court by attaching small, barely visible, plaques with Slovene placenames to German road signs, which was again found unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. Haider nevertheless disregarded the Court's decision and pursued his action.
In his last speech, delivered on the celebration of the 88th anniversary of the Carinthian Plebiscite only a few hours before his death, Haider reiterated his opposition to any kind of visual bilingualism in the region and warned the Slovene politicians "not to play with fire".
A confiscated diary mentions a 45 million euro transfer from Gaddafi, as well as more than 10 million euro that individuals brought home from Iraq. Some of Saddam's money was picked up by Haider's confidant from a Swiss account belonging to the dead sons of Saddam Hussein.
On several occasions Haider made remarks about Austrian World War II veterans that were represented as broad endorsement of the war and of the Nazi SS. Speaking to a gathering of veterans from several countries in 1990, he said that the veterans were "decent people of good character" and "remain true to their convictions." Haider stated that he did not specifically address Waffen-SS veterans with his remarks. On another occasion, he said, "the Waffen-SS was part of the Wehrmacht (German military) and because of that it deserves every honor and recognition." In 2000, at gathering of Wehrmacht veterans in Ulrichsberg, including Waffen-SS veterans, he said, "Those who come to Ulrichsberg are not the old Nazis. They are not neo-Nazis, they are not criminals."
Haider also compared the deportation of Jews by the Nazis to the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II. Haider's detractors also pointed to a punning reference to the leader of the Jewish community of Vienna, Ariel Muzicant; Haider indicated that he did not understand how someone named Ariel (also the name of a popular laundry detergent) could have gathered so much filth, implying the real estate agent's business methods were crooked. Haider's critics characterized the remark as antisemitic. Haider also maintained that Muzicant faked antisemitic hate letters to himself. He later withdrew this and other accusations, and apologized for his "derogatory remarks."
Haider was closely watched by Mossad, the Israeli secret service; FPÖ secretary general Peter Sichrovsky - a Jewish-Austrian politician and formerly one of Haider's closest aides - had gathered inside information on Haider's controversial contacts with prominent "Arab dictators". Due to Haider's perceived contacts to Holocaust deniers, the Israeli Foreign Ministry on September 29, 2008 declared it was heavily concerned about the 2008 Austrian elections; a spokesman of the ministry said that Israeli officials were "very worried about the rise to power of people who promote hatred, Holocaust denial, and befriend Neo-Nazis. We see it as a disturbing development and are following the matter very closely".
Austrian President Heinz Fischer said of Haider's death that it was a "human tragedy". Reactions in the press were mixed. Wolfgang Fellner, publisher of "Österreich", wrote: "I have fought bitterly" with Jörg Haider, but "finally, Haider became a gentle, considerate, almost wise politician ... Alas, he was once again too fast." Haider "died as he lived: always full of gas, always over the limit", Fellner concluded. But Ernst Trost pointed out in the Kronen Zeitung that while Haider had enjoyed a "comet-like rise" in politics, he also had "ever again embarked on self-destructive actions and provoked opposition." The Chief Editor of Kurier, Christoph Kotanko, wrote that "however much his brown tones, xenophobia and aggressive populism were to be rejected ... Haider's criticism of the dominant conditions of the 1980s and 90s was partly also justified", and he had "named, fought and in part also changed" those conditions.
On 25 January 2009, the Lippitzbachbrücke was renamed to "Jörg-Haider-Brücke".
In 2009, the consequences of Haider's financial policies became apparent when the Bavarian-Carinthian Hypo-Alpe-Adria Bank got into heavy difficulties, later leading to the bank's nationalization. Swiss paper Tagesanzeiger wrote about "Haider's money destruction machine". Carinthia now has the highest per-capita debt in Austria.
According to a confiscated black booklet handwritten by Walter Meischberger, a former Freedom Party politician, Austrian authorities said they would examine a diary that allegedly detailed money transfers from Saddam and Gaddafi. The diary reportedly mentions a $58.7m transfer from Gaddafi, as well as more than $13.3m that unidentified individuals brought back from Iraq. It also references an anonymous confidant who supposedly brought a suitcase filled with $6.6m from Switzerland to Munich for investment purposes; the money was supposed to have come from a Swiss account belonging to the deceased Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.