All posts tagged: Nazism

The Rise of the Austrian Far Right | Jan-Werner Müller

The Rise of the Austrian Far Right | Jan-Werner Müller

Vienna regularly ranks among the world’s most livable cities. A long tradition of municipal government by Social Democrats has made for famously affordable housing and well-run infrastructure. There is also a level of diversity that conjures up nostalgic images of the Habsburg empire as a haven of tolerance, or what Joseph Roth called an Übernation containing many nations: 40 percent of Vienna’s residents were born abroad. The rest of the Alpine Republic—much of it significantly more conservative—isn’t so bad either. A 2022 poll in Der Standard found that a clear majority of Austrians approve of their quality of life as a whole. Yet the far right prevailed in the recent Austrian parliamentary elections—a first in the country’s postwar history. The victorious Freedom Party (FPÖ) might not come to power, though. To the outrage of the far right and its supporters, President Alexander Van der Bellen, of the Green Party, has asked the biggest loser of the vote, sitting chancellor Karl Nehammer, of the center-right People’s Party (ÖVP), to form a new government. After weeks of “exploratory talks,” the ÖVP is now in …

My family and other Nazis | Nazism

My family and other Nazis | Nazism

My family were all Nazis. My grandfather and grandmother. My mother and my father. My stepfather, my uncle – literally all of them were hardcore Nazis during the second world war. And after? Not a single one changed their convictions or voiced any regrets for the Nazi crimes. On the contrary, they denied or justified them, including the Holocaust and mass murder committed with their knowledge and, worst of all, sometimes their active participation. We were not exceptional – in Austria and Germany, there were many families like ours. The official postwar version of events stated that Austria had been the first victim of Hitler’s expansionist politics. The four victorious allies – Britain, France, the US and the Soviet Union – specifically approved this interpretation, which, some believe, got Austria and Austrians off the hook for their complicity in Nazi atrocities. But not all Austrians accepted this version. Large parts of Austrian society still felt strong ties to national socialism, an aggressive Greater German ideology that rejected the notion of Austria as a separate country with its …

Russia Hits Ukraine’s Power Grid With a ‘Massive’ Attack on a Day Marking the WWII Defeat of Nazism

Russia Hits Ukraine’s Power Grid With a ‘Massive’ Attack on a Day Marking the WWII Defeat of Nazism

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces unleashed a nighttime barrage of more than 50 cruise missiles and explosive drones at Ukraine’s power grid Wednesday, targeting a wide area in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a “massive” attack on the day the country celebrates the defeat of Nazism in World War II. The bombardment blasted targets in seven Ukrainian regions, including the Kyiv area and parts of the south and west, damaging homes and the country’s rail network, authorities said. Three people, including an 8-year-old girl, were injured, according to officials. Russia has repeatedly pounded Ukraine’s energy infrastructure during the war that is stretching into its third year and has claimed thousands of lives. By taking out the power, the Kremlin’s forces aim to rob Ukrainian manufacturing of its energy supply, especially military plants, and crush public morale. Russian attacks have damaged nearly half of Ukraine’s power infrastructure since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, officials say. The damage is estimated at $12.5 billion, with $1 billion inflicted during the past two …

‘People would never forget these shoes’: the fight to preserve soles of Stutthof Nazi camp | Nazism

‘People would never forget these shoes’: the fight to preserve soles of Stutthof Nazi camp | Nazism

At the foot of a pine tree, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski bent to touch the black, moist shapes nestling amid the fungi and leaf mulch. “I’ve been monitoring this area now since 2015, and always hope I won’t stumble upon anything any more and that one day the entire area will have been cleared,” he said. This, however, was not that day. The 39-year-old poet, scholar and rock musician was walking in the forest just metres from the perimeter fence of what was once the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp in the German-annexed territory of Poland, and is now a memorial site in Sztutowo, a village 24 miles (38km) east of Gdańsk on the Baltic coast. Grzegorz Kwiatkowski has been dealing with the topic of memory of Holocaust victims for many years, especially the fate of Jews in Gdańsk and Pomerania. Photograph: Bartosz Bańka/The Guardian What he was looking for – and what, over the course of two hours in mid-March, he found – are shoes: hundreds of soles, large and broad, small and narrow, bordered with cobblers’ …

An Open Letter in Support of Luciano Canfora | Pierre Vesperini

An Open Letter in Support of Luciano Canfora | Pierre Vesperini

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has sued Luciano Canfora, an eighty-one-year-old historian, philologist, and professor emeritus at the University of Bari, for aggravated defamation (diffamazione aggravata). The preliminary hearing took place yesterday. The case dates back two years, to when Meloni was an opposition parliamentarian and the leader of the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party. Professor Canfora is the acclaimed author of dozens of books and a famous public figure. Invited to speak at a local high school as part of a discussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he made the following comment about Meloni’s position on the political spectrum:  Even the very terrible and always reviled, poor thing, leader of that right-wing party called Fratelli d’Italia (as if in France there was a political party called La Marseillaise)—who is usually treated as a lunatic, very dangerous, etc., because being a neo-Nazi in her soul, she immediately sided with the Ukrainian neo-Nazis [he later clarified he was referring to the far-right Azov Brigade]—has become a very important stateswoman and is more than happy of …

GOP lawmaker says neo-Nazi comments taken out of context in debate over paramilitary training

GOP lawmaker says neo-Nazi comments taken out of context in debate over paramilitary training

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A Republican state lawmaker is accusing Democrats of misrepresenting her remarks to make her sound like a Nazi sympathizer during a debate about a bill to restrict paramilitary training in the state. Rep. Laurel Libby, of Auburn, was speaking in opposition to the proposal, which she considers unconstitutional, when she talked about media coverage of neo-Nazi demonstrations last year in Maine. “Let’s talk about the Nazis,” Libby said Wednesday on the House floor while making a point about freedom of expression. “I would like to know what they did, in detail if folks would like to share, that was wrong, that infringed on another person’s right. Holding a rally, and even holding a rally with guns, is not illegal,” she said. The Maine House Democratic Campaign Committee shared the video clip on social media. “We won’t stand for this MAGA extremism in Maine. Check out who we have running against her,” the Democratic committee wrote, directing viewers to Libby’s opponent, Democrat Dan Campbell. On Sunday, Libby described the views of Nazis …

Jailed, released, jailed again: whiplash in a leading neo-Nazi’s legal case | Nazism

Jailed, released, jailed again: whiplash in a leading neo-Nazi’s legal case | Nazism

The violent neo-Nazi Robert Rundo thought he’d won freedom last week after a US district court judge in California threw out a federal indictment against the white-nationalist militant, arguing prosecutors selectively went after him and did not put far-leftist protesters through the same treatment. Fewer than 12 hours later, Rundo found himself in jail again on the order of appellate judges from the ninth circuit. It was a stunning turn of events in a case that has bewildered both longtime legal observers and researchers of the far right. Rundo, whose life traces a winding path from gang feuds on the streets of Queens, New York, to time in a state prison for the gruesome stabbing of another gang member, was the leader of a now-defunct white nationalist “fight club” called the Rise Above Movement (RAM) that instigated brawls with anti-fascist protesters up and down California in 2017. Federal prosecutors indicted Rundo in 2018 on anti-riot charges stemming from fights in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley, and he was extradited from Romania last year to …

‘Kish Mir in Tuchus!’

‘Kish Mir in Tuchus!’

A wannabe criminal who could when he chose draw like an angel, Stéphane Mandelbaum (1961–1986) was the child of two artists, bequeathed at birth the heritage of two genocides. Relatives of his Polish Jewish grandfather were murdered during World War II; relatives of his mother, of Armenian descent, were massacred during the ethnic cleansing of […] Source link

How many Holocaust memorial days do we need?

How many Holocaust memorial days do we need?

(RNS) — “So, did I hear that today is some kind of Holocaust memorial day?” A friend asked me that question this past Friday. “Yes,” I replied. “It’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day.” “Got it,” he said. “But, isn’t there also that day in the spring … ?” “Yes,” I replied. “That would be Yom HaShoah.” A respectful pause. “And then, isn’t there also one in November?” He was referring to the commemoration of Kristallnacht. His implicit question hung in the air: Why do we need three Holocaust memorial days? Why, indeed? Let’s look at the calendar of Jewish Holocaust memory — in the order of the cycle of the Jewish year. First: Nov. 8-9, 1938. Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, the true beginning of mass violence against the Jews of Germany and Austria. When Jews remember Kristallnacht, what are they remembering? We remember that we were passive, because this is what the Nazis did to us.  It is not only what the Nazis did to the Jews. It is also what the Nazis attempted …