Vienna's a lovely city, a lot of Austrians are great people, yadayada.
I get the impression that, unlike Germany, it's a country that hasn't fully come to terms with its Nazi past. A lot of Austrians seem to be in denial about the Anschluss or how popular it was. Many will even argue that Austrians were victims, while ignoring that there was overwhelming popular support for the Anschluss at the time.
For example, my grandfather would often sarcastically remark that the Dutch resistance gained most of its members after 1944. To quote Adolf Eichmann on Dutch collaboration: "The transports run so smoothly that it is a pleasure to see."
In Belgium, you have a similar issue where some Flemish nationalists (sometimes disingeniously) minimize the extent of their relatives collaboration during the war, as it's politically incovenient and embarassing. Same thing in France with Vichy. Same thing in much of Europe, tbh.
German authorities are closely examining the possibility of an entry ban for the far-right Austrian whose master plan for the deportation of immigrants is at the heart of a storm gripping Germany over the rightwing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.
Martin Sellner, the founder of the so-called Identitarian Movement, which preaches the superiority of European ethnic groups, could be banned from entering Germany if he is deemed to pose a threat to German democratic stability, according to members of the interior affairs committee of the Bundestag.
Martina Renner, the anti-fascism spokesperson for the leftwing Die Linke and the party’s representative on the interior affairs committee, said she had raised the question this week as to whether the government of Olaf Scholz intended to take measures against Sellner to prevent his entry.
Another committee member, Philipp Amthor, of the conservative CDU, who backed the motion, said: “In our robust democracy we should in general not tolerate any agitation against our constitutional order, especially not from foreign extremists like Martin Sellner.
He also confirmed his intention of using the meeting to help construct rightwing extremist public support for identitarian ideas, with the help of influencers, in part to alter the “climate of opinion” towards the “decades project” of remigration.
In a letter to the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, he cited the increase in a “transnational network of rightwing extremist actors” and the “threat they pose for internal security in Germany”.
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