Far-right party bids to polish image

VIENNA: The far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) announced a bid to clean up its proNazi image by appointing a committee of historians to look into its history.

The move comes two months after the party, launched by former Nazis, joined the government and follows a series of scrapes involving its members.

In late January a regional official caught up in a scandal over a 1997 student fraternity songbook with lyrics glorifying Nazis was forced to resign.

“There’s been a lot of criticism of the FPOe, much of it unjustified, some, we have to say, justified,” parliamentary group leader Walter Rosenkranz told a press conference.

“We face the latent criticism that within the FPOe Nazi ideas are tolerated. No, they are not, and those who think they can impose such ideas on us have nothing to do in the party,” Mr Rosenkranz said.

Former FPOe MP and retired university professor Wilhelm Brauneder will chair the committee, which will invite contributions from researchers and representatives of independent bodies.

These will include the DOW resistance archive centre, which specialises in Nazism and neo-Nazism and has been a powerful critic of the FPOe.

The party issued a statement Tuesday saying it “recognises without reserve the Republic of Austria, democracy, parliamentarianism and the rule of law”.

The FPOe’s position on the Austrian state has long been perceived as ambiguous, with one faction still considering the country annexed by Adolf Hitler in 1938 as a German province.

“As members of the government, we have a special responsibility,” said FPOe general secretary Harald Vilimsky, adding that the party “clearly rejects Nazism, racism and anti-semitism”.

The new committee of historians, who are to produce a first report in the autumn, was promised last month by deputy chancellor and FPOe chief Heinz-Christian Strache.

Mr Strache, who flirted with neo-Nazism in his youth, has toned down the hardline rhetoric and expelled party members for overstepping the mark.

The FPOe, which has 51 MPs and ministers, is still viewed with suspicion by Austria’s main Jewish organisation as well as Israel which boycotts official contact with the party.