Top EU military chief under fire for commenting on revisionist posting

A top EU military official has come under fire for reportedly commenting on a post by a historical revisionist Facebook account, with Brussels saying on Thursday it was taking the issue "extremely seriously".

According to a report by Austrian daily Der Standard, Austrian general Robert Brieger in 2023 seemingly approved of a Facebook post by a former policeman known for trumpeting anti-semitic conspiracy theories including Holocaust denial.

The post featured photos of camps for German prisoners of war run by the Allies, calling it "a chapter of German history kept secret".

In a screenshot published by the daily, Brieger - a subscriber to the account - commented on the post: "Above all, it is a chapter kept secret in the history of the victors."

The newspaper said the former policeman linked to a website containing claims that "German corpses were dug up there (at the camps) and presented as Jewish corpses in order to manipulate the number of Holocaust victims".

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is "seeking further clarifications", the bloc's spokeswoman Nabila Massrali told a press briefing.

"All forms of Holocaust denial, distortion are totally unacceptable and... there is no place for hate in the EU," she stressed.

In a statement published in the press, Brieger acknowledged the comment, which he said could be interpreted in different ways. He said he had since unsubscribed from the account.

"I was not aware that (historical) revisionist and anti-semitic statements and comments were shared on the Facebook page in question, which I strictly reject and from which I distance myself clearly and unequivocally," he wrote.

Austrian Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner voiced her support for Brieger, calling him a "reliable and responsible" military officer.