ABSTRACT
Jorg Haider’s excursions into Pan-Germanic rhetoric deter voters rather than attract them. He appears to have cast off the aspect of his political rhetoric and presents himself as an Austrian nationalist. Haider almost overnight shifted from a long-nourished pro-European Community stance to opposing it. Haider himself urges for Austria’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership, which would translate into the definite abandonment of neutrality. Pan-Germans, also in Haider’s entourage, would certainly rejoice if they read in Tony Judt’s article that “there had never been an ‘Austrian’ nation,” and that “Austria’s new found identity effectively disappeared.” Judt’s attempts to prove Haider’s xenophobia and anti-Semitism are much less skillful than Haider’s scapegoating techniques. Haider’s political advance was clearly stopped at the elections of December 1995. As before in 1994, three-quarters of the Austrian electorate voted for parties that were distinctly anti-Haider. The Austro-megalomania and the “Haider business” have economic foundations.
