haider watch  Antisemitism  deutsch

• We do not need acclamations of the east coast. Now it is once enough. Now it concerns another part of history, the compensation for the refugees of homeland.  Vienna, 21-2-2001

• The Mr. Muzicant (Ariel Muzicant, president of the Jewish Kultusgemeinde Vienna) is only content, until one paid him also those 600 million debts, which were accumulated by him in Vienna.  Vienna, 21-1-2001

• All this doesn't sound new. After having repeated it again and again, it finally gets stale. Whether it is Monica Lewinsky or David Levy, it's always the same and people are fed up with it.  commenting on the US and Israel criticising his victory 14-10-1999

• Goebbels never spoke so hatefully about Austria as Mr. Bronfman (Preisdent of the World Jewish Congress) is doing now!  Kleine Zeitung Graz 22-1-1988

haider watch  Foreigners / Immigrants

• Social welfare assistance is too few for a residence permit.  Klagenfurt 1-10-2001

• It is the right attempt to differentiate in the immigration debate (...) .  Joerg Haider commenting a proposal of his party to have all foreigners carry a special ID with fingerprints. Radio Kärnten 24-11-1999

• If Chancellor Klima is so eager to enlarge the European Community to the East, why doesn't he run for elections in the Czech Republic rather than here?  preelection speech, Stephansplatz, 1-10-1999

• Every refugee immediately calls his family to get medical treatment. All this at the expense of hardworking Austrians.  Kleine Zeitung Graz 12-1-1998

• There are 300.000 unemployed people in Austria and 300.000 foreigners.  Press Service of the Freedom Party 1-5-1996

• An Austrian's right to his homeland is stronger than the foreigner's right to live with his family. Therefore we should not follow the European Convention of Human Rights.  Salzburger Nachrichten 6-10-1995

• I visited friends in Namibia - formerly called Deutsch-Suedwestafrika - because I wanted to find out how life is in a country where blacks hold the political majority. There is definitely a problem with those blacks. Even in places where they have the majority, they don't achieve anything. It's hopeless.  Austrian TV 1-5-1995

• If I think about the polish people who believe that they can reach the same living standard as the West without working accordingly (...). If I look at Lech Walesa, who, since he became president, has gained more weight than height since, all this seems to me typical for their way of thinking: they believe they can hide their problems and get wealthy just by living from western help. Those who have not learned how to work will never have a wealthy country, and this is something that should be said to the people of eastern Europe.  1-5-1991, during the May celebration of the FPOE

• We, the Freedom Party, are not the vermin destroying democracy, we are the vermicide. In our country blacks and reds are running the government, while in other countries they live in reservations.  Die Presse 10-9-1990

haider watch  Holocaust / WW2

• Yes. With Churchill, there are a lot of bad things - and a lot of honour. He did right and wrong. That's the fate of any important politician.
  What did Churchill do that was so bad?
  Tha bad things were like the decision to destroy cities such as Dresden, where there were no soldiers of the German army. There were only civilians. That's the same argument we put against Hitler. We say: why should Hitler drop bombs on cities where only civilians and children live?
  So, are you saying, there is good and bad on both sides?
  Yes, yes, yes.  The Sunday Telegraph, February 13th 2000, where Haider has been asked why he had qualified Churchill as one of the worst criminals of this century

• It is typical for Germans to dwell endlessly on the past and to keep turning around one and the same point. Austrians have another mentality.
  You mean they rather look forward?
  No, but for an Austrian there is a point where he will say: this matter has been discussed sufficiently. We better start to deal with our future.  Die Zeit 3-2-2000

• All this apologising only stirs up emotions, with many people asking what sense does it make after all these years.  Die Zeit 3-2-2000

• Who do you think are the century's worst political criminals?
  Hitler and Stalin.
  You once said Churchill.
  That was a misunderstanding.  Newsweek 29-11-1999

• When jewish emigrants claim for compensation, this can go on forever. When 'Sudetendeutsche' (ethnic Germans expelled from communist Czechoslovakia in 1945) do the same thing and ask the Austrian government to support their claims before the Czech authorities, then they are told: Stop this, we have to come to a final point. (...) Equal cases should not be dealt with unequally.
  Are you sure we are talking about equal cases?
  I don’t want to judge what has been worse (...) .
  Let’s go back to your assumption: the case of the 'Sudetendeutsche' and the injustice done to the jews are to be put on the same level?
  Of course, because I refuse to judge human rights violations in terms of quantity.  Austrian TV 9-9-1998

• All participants of WW2 should leave this room, otherwise somebody will say it was another nazi meeting.  Austrian Radio 2-6-1996

• (...) in these turbulent times there are still decent people, people of character who stick to their conviction even when they have to face resistance, and who have remained loyal to their conviction to the present day. And that's the foundation, my dear friends, that's the foundation that you transmit to us, the young generation. A nation that doesn't honour its ancestors will perish anyway (...) . We are spending money for terrorists, we are spending money for newspapers that are calling for violence, we are spending money for scoundrels who refuse to work, but we don't have money for decent people.  speaking to SS veterans in Krumpendorf, Carinthia 30-9-1995

• I have said that the soldiers of the 'Wehrmacht' fought for our democracy. If they had not resisted, if they had not been in the East, then (...)
  What do you mean by 'resistance'? It was an aggression, wasn't it?
  Then we should start asking how things really happened.  interview with the Austrian weekly magazine 'profil' 21-8-1995

• In any case we have to stop criminalising our own history, as if the life of our war generation had been nothing but a series of crimes.  J. Haider, 'Freiheit, die ich meine' Berlin 1993

• I never evaluated it (the Nazi 'Policy of Employment'), I just said that they created a great number of jobs in a very short time - and this is a historical fact, and is one of the reasons why the system was very successfull in its first phase.  ORF-Morning News 14-6-1991

• To avoid any misinterpretation - all I said was based on facts: That the Third Reich has created a great number of jobs through an intensive policy of employment, and thus eliminated unemployment. And I said it in the context of a debate we had, as more and more people in Austria are losing their jobs, and at the same time we are importing more and more foreigners who take our jobs.  ORF-Morning News 14-6-1991

• In the Third Reich they made a proper policy of employment, something that your government in Vienna never accomplished.  speech in the local parliament of Carinthia 13-6-1991

• Our soldiers were not criminals, they rather were victims. Ladies and Gentlemen, Freedom of Thought is part of democracy, but it has limits, when people take advantage of this freedom that they only can enjoy because others have sacrified their lives.  speaking to veterans at the Ulrichsberg, Carinthia october 1990

• Some people throw dirt at soldiers. Some gentlemen like to trample on the honour of our war veterans. But it is shameful when you see that people who gave all they had - their lives - are treated like this by skyvers and dodgers and political opportunists. This has to stop. It is incomprehensible that our fathers and grandfathers should have been criminals, as some politicians claim.  Press Service of the Freedom Party 2-11-1986

• So you are saying that the Nazi regime was like any other dictatorship?
  It's not my job to judge whether other dictatorships are more humane.
  The Nazi dictatorship was the most inhumane of all?
  That's your opinion. I won't evaluate.  Profil 18-2-1985

• There was a period in history when there were armed conflicts in which our fathers were involved. Simultanously, in the context of the Nazi regime, there were unacceptable incidents. But no members of my family participated in those incidents.
  Did I get you right? Incidents? What exactly do you mean by 'incidents'?
  Well, those were activities and measures that were directed against some groups of society and that represented blatant violations of human rights.
  Is it difficult for you to speak about gas chambers and mass murder?
  If you want to use that word, let's call it mass murder.  Profil, Austrian weekly magazine 18-2-1985

• Walter Reder was a soldier like any other. He fulfilled his duty, according to the oath of a soldier.  speaking about the former SS obersturmführer Walter Reder, who has been convicted for his responsibility in the massacre of Marzabotto, where more than 1000 people have been killed. Kärntner Nachrichten 14-2-1985