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<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Austria and the Pangermanic background 1. The ideology behind Haider We all hope that no responsible policy maker will ever pronounce the words "bomb Vienna". Yet hardly a year ago another European capital, Belgrade, was bombarded with a variety of "smart" and not so smart weapons. Granted, the human rights violations perpetrated by Serbia’s president and his patently undemocratic entourage are a far cry from what are up to now just the electioneering speeches on "Austria for the Austrians" of Joerg Haider, leader of the country’s "Freedom Party", recipient of an unprecedented censure by European Union governments. On the one hand there are ominous parallels: Milosevic was presented to public opinion as a "communist", "racist" and promoter of "ethnic cleansing", and therefore deserving to be bombed into submission, while a veil of silence was drawn over the ferocious acts committed by other protagonists in the Balkan scenario. Now the scene is being set for Haider: a "neo-nazi", "racist" and, "Euro-skeptic", the latter being a new category of the "politically incorrect" in today’s Europe. What is worrying is not so much (or not only) when Haider says things like "we were all nazis then" when referring to Austria in the 1930s; a statement which unfortunately is historically true, though, as in Germany, anti-nazi resistance did develop. It is disturbing that hardly any mention is made of the real roots of Haider’s policy, i.e. Pangermanism, a doctrine which developed long before nazism and has continued since. Its present-day form is regionalist Europeanism promoted by a variety of movements, mostly in the German-speaking countries but with allies such as Italy’s Northern League (see "I confini dell’odio" by Bruno Luvera’, Rome, 1999); but hardly any Italian politicians have focused on the fact that Haider’s ideological allies still are still promoting plans to somehow detach the Alto Adige region from Italy, though it has been part of the country since 1919. The concept of "Euro-regions", previously proposed by members of the right-wing Austro-German "conservative revolution" in the 20s and 30s, is now supported by well-funded organizations such as the EZM ("European Center for Minority Issues") and the FUEV ("Foederation europaeischer Volksgruppen"). "Balkanization" is the other side of the coin of regionalism; the destruction of former Yugoslavia, still under way, has been justified by the defense of the "inalienable rights" of the various nationalities involved. For these regionalist groups, not only the Balkans but the whole of Eastern and Western Europe (with the exception of Germany…) is seen as a patchwork of minorities such as the Basque, Welsh, Ladini and other less known groups, and a "problem" to be solved. A word to the reader: the aim of any critical analysis of Pangermanism and its present-day forms IS NOT to foster any anti-German sentiment but rather to help clarify trends in Western politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 2. Pangermanism: the background Pangermanism is a German version of the expansionist doctrines developed by the other major powers in the nineteenth century, e.g. the Monroe Doctrine in the US, the "white man’s burden" in the British Empire. Unlike other imperial policies, however, it does not view Europe or the world simply as a community of nations ranked by strength and resources, but rather as a "grand chessboard" (to use Z. Brzezinski’s expression) where the players are not so much states but ethnic or racial groups to be played off against one another, courted or persecuted according to circumstances. One of the best known early theorists of this view of history was Arthur-Joseph De Gobineau, the French aristocrat who liked to boast descent from a Viking pirate, and remembered as the "father of racism". With the failure of outright German military expansion in the two world wars, this world view currently sees Europe as a constellation of "minorities" (since the word "race" is taboo) orbiting around what is essentially the historical core of the German Reich. Pangermanism was formally organized in 1890 as the "Alldeutscher Verband". The pre-1914 theory had two major currents: the "grossdeutsch" ("great German") one aspiring to restore the hegemony of Catholic Vienna, and the "kleindeutsch" ("small German") one looking to Prussia and Berlin. After the defeat of the Central empires in 1918, Vienna was definitely relegated to a satellite role. Paradoxically, Austrian Pangermanism always tended to be more virulent than in Germany proper. Despite the predominance of ethnic Germans in the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German political and cultural role in the Hapsburg monarchy as a whole, the so-called "voelkisch" movements arose, warning against a threat represented by the other nationalities of the empire, especially the Slavs. Pangermanism came into conflict with Italian Irredentism in Trieste and in the Trentino area, with its Italian-speaking majority, in revolt against the official policy of "Germanization". However, the leading state of the German Empire, Prussia, also had a large Polish minority deriving from the partitioning of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century, leading to chronic problems in the definition of Germany's "natural borders" in the east. The Pangermanic League ("Alldeutscher Verband") had the declared aim of promoting the racial and cultural homogeneity of Germany, as well as "protecting" German-speaking minorities in Europe and throughout the world. It was asserted that expansionism was the "logical" step after Germany’s legitimate national unification had been achieved. After World War I and the fall of the monarchy in Germany and Austria, the last dynastic scruples among the conservatives regarding the unification of the Austrian part of the former Hapsburg Empire with Germany proper disappeared, and the controversy over the "Anschluss" dominated central European politics for the ensuing years. The idea had support in Austria before the nazi movement even existed, but was discouraged by the Entente powers. Politicians exploited the blatant contradiction between the nationality rights accorded to Czechs, Hungarians and Poles while being denied to German speakers. Meanwhile, in Germany the myth of the "stab in the back" fired nationalist resentment. The theory of "vital space"("lebensraum") though first coined early in the century, became tragically famous after its adoption by the national socialists. Tirelessly promoted by former general Karl Haushofer, Central and Eastern Europe were portrayed not as a group of independent states and peoples but rather as a sort of no-man’s-land inhabited above all by German minorities requiring "protection". The period saw a proliferation of "ethnic maps"(not only in Germany but also in the Balkan countries themselves) that for the rest of the century up to the present day were to play a major role in policy decision making. (to be continued) <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> www.ctrl.org</A> |
