Austrian Nativist Leader Dies in Car Crash
Xenophobic leader dies, and a long-held secret spills
Jörg Haider, the longtime leader of Austria's anti-immigrant and Nazi-sympathizing Freedom Party, died in a car accident on Oct. 11, at age 58. Investigators said Haider's high-powered Volkswagen sedan careened off a road in southern Austria, hitting a concrete barrier before rolling over several times.
An autopsy indicated Haider had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit and the speedometer in his wrecked car was stuck at 88 mph, more than double the road's posted speed limit.
"Jörg Haider died as he lived," wrote Österreich, an Austrian newspaper. "Always full of gas, always over the limit."
The son of former Nazi party officials, Haider put himself in the center of controversy throughout four decades in politics by defending Nazi soldiers and Third Reich policies. He was forced to resign as governor of the Carinthia province in 1989 after stating, "In the Third Reich, they had an orderly employment policy." In December 1996, he was filmed speaking at a ceremony honoring World War II veterans as he praised SS officers for "sticking to their convictions despite the greatest opposition." Haider later added: "The Waffen SS was a part of the Wehrmacht [the German Defense Forces] and hence it deserves all the honor and respect of the army in public life."
Haider rose through the ranks of Austria's extreme-right and neofascist circles in the 1970s before assuming leadership of the Freedom Party in 1986. At the beginning of his tenure in the 1980s, the party received only 5% of the vote.
Over the next decade, Haider built the party's support through populism, staunch anti-immigrant platforms and his own glib, charismatic personality. By 1999, the party received an unprecedented 27% share of the vote, enough to make it part of Austria's power-sharing coalition government. In protest, the European Union imposed sanctions against Austria and Israel recalled its ambassador from Vienna in 2000.
Following several years of infighting, in April 2005, Haider and other former Freedom Party leaders formed a new political party called Movement for Austria's Future, which they promoted as having more centrist views. A month prior to his death, Haider's new party won 10.7% of the vote in a national election. But Haider's sudden death brought new troubles to the fledgling party.
"For us, it's like the end of the world," said Stefan Petzner, Haider's hand-picked successor, after news broke of Haider's fatal car accident.
Haider's death proved to be the end of Petzner's world in particular. Toward the end of October, party officials removed the 27-year old after he admitted to reporters that he'd been romantically and sexually involved with Haider for years. Haider, who was married with two children, had long been rumored to be gay. After his death, newspapers published photos of Haider in gay bars surrounded by young men. Still, more than 30,000 Austrians thronged the streets to attend his funeral in the southern Austrian city of Klagenfurt.
