Austria's Haider dies in accident

Tabnabs

Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider has been killed in a road accident, police say.

Mr Haider suffered severe head and chest injuries after his car came off the road in Carinthia, his political base.

Police investigating the crash said he had been driving alone.

The 58-year-old was leader of the Alliance for Austria's Future, and was known for his anti-immigration and anti-EU policies.

The Alliance was one of two right-wing parties which did better than expected in general elections last month, fuelling speculation of a possible role in a ruling coalition.



He had reportedly been due to attend his mother's 90th birthday celebrations later in the day.

"For us this is the end of the world," the deputy leader of Mr Haider's Alliance for Austria's Future, Stefan Petzner, told Austrian news agency, APA.

Austria's President Heinz Fischer said Mr Haider's death was a "human tragedy", while Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer described him as someone who had shaped Austria's domestic and political landscape over decades, according to the Associated Press news agency.

EU sanctions

Mr Haider was a divisive figure, who gained notoriety after he became leader of the Freedom Party in 1986.

In 1991, his term as governor of the province of Carinthia was interrupted, after he made comments praising employment policies of Nazi Germany.

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Mr Haider speaking about immigration in September

But he was re-elected in 1999 and 2003.

In 2000, the EU imposed sanctions against Austria in a protest over his party's role in government.

In 2005, Mr Haider left the Freedom Party and founded the Alliance for Austria's Future, which scored its best result so far in elections last month, gaining 11% of the vote.

This was, however, well below the 27% which the Freedom Party won under his leadership in 1999 - a high mark in Mr Haider's electoral career at national level.

"With his passing, Austria has lost a great political figure," said Heinz-Christian Strache, who had taken over as leader of the Freedom Party after Mr Haider left.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7664846.stm

Published: 2008/10/11 08:45:18 GMT

djpbarry

No loss.

tallus

djpbarry wrote: »

No loss.

Seconded.

stovelid

Dyflin wrote: »

Mr Haider suffered severe head and chest injuries after his car came off the road in Carinthia, his political base.

If I was a tabloid headline writer in Austria, I'd be toying with something like Haider finally veers to the left.

dante18

Sad news. He seemed like a good man who had his country's best interests at heart.

My sympathies to his family and to the people of Austria.

dante18

djpbarry wrote:

No loss.

tallus wrote:

Seconded.

That's not a nice thing to say about a man who just lost his life in a car crash. You might not see his passing as being any great loss but I'm sure his 90 year old mother probably feels differently.

It's very un-Irish to speak so callously of a man's death like that.

sickpuppy

In the not to distant future i think ireland will have our own party like this mans.
One with astrong anti immigration policy would go down well with the general population i think.
He had his countrys best intersts at heart too hence he was popular regardless of his supposed racism.

genericgoon

The problem is that his new party, BZO, were only founded in 2005 and he was really the spearhead of their party. Without him, it will be interesting to see how they fare. If they aren't able to recover from the loss of their star man, it could be interesting to see how they relate to FPO in the future. Possible merger? Don't forget the FPO is even further right than BZO and the BZO to a large extent split the far right vote, something it most certainly couldn't have achieved without Haider persona and his loyal support. People, forget that Haider has toned down his anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric significantly in recent years and could possibly have acted as the man to bring the far right away from its pretty much racist,unappealing standpoint to a much more mainstream movement. Of course, he may have just been hiding his true colours to gain favour with mainstream politicians in Austria and EU but there were definite signs of a softening of his position.

However, a merger would be fairly unlikely since the party has plenty of disillusioned former FPO and I doubt they have any yearning to go back.

galwaybabe

tallus wrote: »

Seconded.

Thirded

Imposter

genericgoon wrote: »

The problem is that his new party, BZO, were only founded in 2005 and he was really the spearhead of their party. Without him, it will be interesting to see how they fare. If they aren't able to recover from the loss of their star man, it could be interesting to see how they relate to FPO in the future. Possible merger? Don't forget the FPO is even further right than BZO and the BZO to a large extent split the far right vote, something it most certainly couldn't have achieved without Haider persona and his loyal support. People, forget that Haider has toned down his anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric significantly in recent years and could possibly have acted as the man to bring the far right away from its pretty much racist,unappealing standpoint to a much more mainstream movement. Of course, he may have just been hiding his true colours to gain favour with mainstream politicians in Austria and EU but there were definite signs of a softening of his position.

However, a merger would be fairly unlikely since the party has plenty of disillusioned former FPO and I doubt they have any yearning to go back.

Haider's stance was toned down in the media but never really changed. It will be very interesting to see what will happen now in Austria especially in the short term in trying to form a new governemnt.

The popularity of the BZÖ and the FPÖ in the recent election was largely a protest vote against the 2 more centrist, traditionally bigger parties who's constant fighting caused the collapse of the grand coalition after 18 months. The other major factor in the success of both the FPÖ and the BZÖ was the personalities of both Haider and Strache. The other parties just didn't have leaders with the star qualities of Haider and Strache. What will happen to the BZÖ now is anyones guess. A merger of both far-right parties is definitely a possibility and perhaps easier without Haider but there is bound to be some serious problems given the reasons for the split in the first place.

As for Haider's death as one of his opponents was quoted in the media it is a human tragedy. Personally I don't see it as a political tragedy for Austria and hopefully his death will lead to less of the intolerance which is all too common here at the moment.

JWAD

One less antisemite/racist/xenophobe in the world.
Never a bad thing to see skinheads crying their blinkered eyes out although when a racist politician shifts their mortal coil, said tearful skinheads tend to put immortalise them.

mumhaabu

Wow, I love the responses from the bleeding heart left-wing liberals. So much for tolerance and respect for opinions. The man was a genius and successfully had led Austria (birthplace of Adolf Hitler) back to the right. He will be well missed in their country and was a family man, he stood up to the EU and they did not have the balls to take him on.

Austria like alot of countries are fed up with having immigrants shovelled in their by the lorryload. There is nothing racist is trying to preserve you identity and culture, the real racists are those on the left trying to destroy it.

Haider's party and its offspring have taken major leaps forward in Austria and will soon be the majority there.

Ireland will soon have a right wing party and it will take seats, as the economic depression worsens having Irish people forced to leave while thousands come here is not acceptable one bit, charity begins at home, and I think Ireland needs a Jörg Haider more now than ever before. I also consider it interesting how he crashed, I would not rule out an assassination one bit at all as he rocked the boat in Austria and this goes squarely against the EU plot of unrestrained immigration and Social engineering.

RIP. Jörg Haider, those people applauding his Death make me sick.

Imposter

mumhaabu wrote: »

Ireland will soon have a right wing party and it will take seats, as the economic depression worsens having Irish people forced to leave while thousands come here is not acceptable one bit, charity begins at home, and I think Ireland needs a Jurg Haider more now than ever before. I also consider it interesting how he crashed, I would not rule out an assassination one bit at all as he rocked the boat in Austria and this goes squarely against the EU plot of unrestrained immigration and Social engineering.

RIP. Jurg Haider, those people applauding his Death make me sick.

Do some more reading - apparently he was doing 142km/h in a 70km/h area (and 100m from a 50KM/h area) - in fog - link.

While you're at it you might also learn to spell his name properly.

Dirk Gently

He left a nightclub, got into his car and drove home at double the speed limit. No info yet on if he was drinking but by driving at 142km/h in a 70km/h zone I think it's a well deserved Darwin award. Thankfully he didn't take any innocent people with him.

Sonnenblumen

clown bag wrote: »

He left a nightclub, got into his car and drove home at double the speed limit. No info yet on if he was drinking but by driving at 142km/h in a 70km/h zone I think it's a well deserved Darwin award. Thankfully he didn't take any innocent people with him.

So do you think he died on the right side of the road?

Sesshoumaru

People voted for him because he stood up against uncontrolled immigration and the destruction of indigenous culture. Something that will get you labeled a racist by most mainstream parties. I didn't like his sympathies for the Nazis, but he seemed to be becoming more mainstream in his old age. I think his death will see more hard core Nazis rising to the fore.

Ziggurat

"And nothing of value was lost."

the_syco

mumhaabu wrote: »

Ireland will soon have a right wing party and it will take seats, as the economic depression worsens having Irish people forced to leave while thousands come here is not acceptable one bit, charity begins at home, and I think Ireland needs a Jörg Haider more now than ever before. I also consider it interesting how he crashed, I would not rule out an assassination one bit at all as he rocked the boat in Austria and this goes squarely against the EU plot of unrestrained immigration and Social engineering.

I'd say we'll have one like him in 3 or 4 years.

dante18

mumhaabu wrote: »

Austria like alot of countries are fed up with having immigrants shovelled in their by the lorryload. There is nothing racist is trying to preserve you identity and culture, the real racists are those on the left trying to destroy it.

Ireland will soon have a right wing party and it will take seats, as the economic depression worsens having Irish people forced to leave while thousands come here is not acceptable one bit, charity begins at home, and I think Ireland needs a Jörg Haider more now than ever before.

Seconded.

JWAD

mumhaabu wrote: »

Wow, I love the responses from the bleeding heart left-wing liberals. So much for tolerance and respect for opinions. The man was a genius and successfully had led Austria (birthplace of Adolf Hitler) back to the right. He will be well missed in their country and was a family man, he stood up to the EU and they did not have the balls to take him on.

Austria like alot of countries are fed up with having immigrants shovelled in their by the lorryload. There is nothing racist is trying to preserve you identity and culture, the real racists are those on the left trying to destroy it.

Haider's party and its offspring have taken major leaps forward in Austria and will soon be the majority there.

Ireland will soon have a right wing party and it will take seats, as the economic depression worsens having Irish people forced to leave while thousands come here is not acceptable one bit, charity begins at home, and I think Ireland needs a Jörg Haider more now than ever before. I also consider it interesting how he crashed, I would not rule out an assassination one bit at all as he rocked the boat in Austria and this goes squarely against the EU plot of unrestrained immigration and Social engineering.

RIP. Jörg Haider, those people applauding his Death make me sick.

Pardon me for disliking an antisemite. 'Wings' have nothing to do with reasons why I feel no sympathy for him.
As for assassination conspiracies and since you're speculating, try the DUI 'theory' instead.

dante18

JWAD wrote:

Pardon me for disliking an antisemite.

Jörg Haider was not an anti-semite. Can you find any quote of his where he said anything bad about the Jews?

JWAD

dante18 wrote: »

Jörg Haider was not an anti-semite. Can you find any quote of his where he said anything bad about the Jews?

Referring to the death camps as "penal" camps for a start then his incessant campaign to slander the organisation which was involved in reclaiming Jewish property, assets and debts owed which were plundered during the Nazi years.

Do you think he was just misguided with supporting the divisions of the SS or conspiracy theories about the 'American East Coast'?

gandalf

The quotes below are from this link

At a WW2 Veterans meeting.

Our soldiers were not criminals, at most they were victims.

... in the Third Reich they had an "orderly" employment policy ...

During a parliamentary debate, Mr Haider referred to "the punishment camps of National Socialism" - implying that concentration camp inmates had been guilty of crimes.

The Waffen SS was a part of the Wehrmacht (German military) and hence it deserves all the honour and respect of the army in public life.

Interesting piece here

He definitely had a positively slanted view of the Third Reich and their crimes.

To be honest he is no loss at all. He died by his own hand breaking the law in a reckless manner and we should be happy he didn't take any one with him. It will be interesting to see if he had any drink on him as well.

Imposter

JWAD wrote: »

...then his incessant campaign to slander the organisation which was involved in reclaiming Jewish property, assets and debts owed which were plundered during the Nazi years.

I'm guessing that has something to do with the estate he fell-in for from his uncle in Kärnten which was worth something like 16m. There was a dispute about how his uncle came to own it.

gandalf wrote:

It will be interesting to see if he had any drink on him as well.

I think it was in one of the bbc articles I read but the police spokesperson refused to answer a question about that.

From reading ORF (Austrian tv) just now it seems that no blood tests are done when someone dies in an accident unless someone else is involved (or if they were a foreigner ). There's also reports from people who were at the party that he wasn't drinking but that was from a rag that's a definite bias towards the political right.

djpbarry

dante18 wrote: »

That's not a nice thing to say about a man who just lost his life in a car crash.

I can’t think of anything nice to say about the guy.

dante18 wrote: »

You might not see his passing as being any great loss but I'm sure his 90 year old mother probably feels differently.

I’m sure she does, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was a prick.

dante18

JWAD wrote:

his incessant campaign to slander the organisation which was involved in reclaiming Jewish property, assets and debts owed which were plundered during the Nazi years.

It's possible to hold negative views about organisations acting on behalf of Jews without holding negative opinions about Jews in general. In the same way someone can be critical of Israel without holding negative views about all Jews.

JWAD wrote:

Do you think he was just misguided with supporting the divisions of the SS

He was not supporting the divisions of the SS. He was honouring the men who served in the SS, most of whom were not involved in war crimes and most of whom fought bravely on behalf of their country.

JWAD wrote:

conspiracy theories about the 'American East Coast'?

I don't know what conspiracy theories he held about the American East Coast but isn't the American East Coast the home of the liberal WASP elite in America? Maybe he was an anti-WASP rather than an anti-semite?

gandalf wrote:

At a WW2 Veterans meeting.

Most of it sounds fairly harmless to me. For someone who was supposed to have been a hardcore antisemite and closet-nazi I would thought they would have been able to dig up something a bit more extreme than those.

Our soldiers were not criminals, at most they were victims.

Which is true. They were victims. They were soldiers obeying orders and were made to endure sacrifices and hardships at the hands of the nazis. The fact that he called them victims suggests that he didn't approve of the actions of the people victimising them.

... in the Third Reich they had an "orderly" employment policy ...

I think it's possible he was being ironic but even if he wasn't what's wrong with praising the third reich's employment policy? Whatever else you say about the nazis they at least got millions of people back working and ended the depression in Germany. Can people not say anything positive about any of the Nazi's policies that didn't relate to race or the Jews or foreign policy?

During a parliamentary debate, Mr Haider referred to "the punishment camps of National Socialism" - implying that concentration camp inmates had been guilty of crimes.

It's obvious that was an innocent slip of the tongue. And if it wasn't, does it really make much of a difference referring to a concentration camp as a punishment camp? Just because someone is punished doesn't mean they are deserving of punishment. It's a fact that many people who spent time in concentration camps were treated as though they were being punished for something. Nobody would now claim that they deserved to be punished but I think it's not altoghether inaccurate to compare their treatement to a form of punishment.

The Waffen SS was a part of the Wehrmacht (German military) and hence it deserves all the honour and respect of the army in public life.

People who serve in the army are deserving of honour and respect in public life. Even if that army has committed war crimes, the soldiers who risk their lives in the service of their country without committing war crimes deserve to be honoured by their descendants. Politics should not get in the way of that.

gandalf wrote:

He definitely had a positively slanted view of the Third Reich and their crimes.

I think he had a positively slanted view of the people who lived and fought under the Third Reich which is a different thing.

I think if you were to quote more extensively from what he said throughout his career as a politician you would find that the number of negative things he said about nazism far outweigh anything positive he said about them.

For example, here's a statement he signed when his party were in government in Austria

"nationalism, dictatorship and intolerance brought war, xenophobia, bondage, racism and mass murder... [They] are an exhortation to permanent alertness against all forms of dictatorship and totalitarianism."

In the media coverage of his death, I wonder how many times they'll repeat that quote?

JWAD

dante18 wrote: »

It's possible to hold negative views about organisations acting on behalf of Jews without holding negative opinions about Jews in general

It was a Jewish organisation reclaiming Jewish possessions plundered.

dante18 wrote: »

He was not supporting the divisions of the SS. He was honouring the men who served in the SS, most of whom were not involved in war crimes and most of whom fought bravely on behalf of their country

So you're in the 'They wuz duped or following orders' camp then.

dante18 wrote: »

I don't know what conspiracy theories he held about the American East Coast but isn't the American East Coast the home of the liberal WASP elite in America? Maybe he was an anti-WASP rather than an anti-semite?

So you've never heard the term used before then? Ok-doke. Its a generic term which certain 'commentators' use to refer to American Jews

dante18 wrote: »

I think it's possible he was being ironic but even if he wasn't what's wrong with praising the third reich's employment policy? Whatever else you say about the nazis they at least got millions of people back working and ended the depression in Germany. Can people not say anything positive about any of the Nazi's policies that didn't relate to race or the Jews or foreign policy?

It did relate to the Jewish people of the time. Prior to the Race Laws in Germany of 1935, laws had been passed forbidding Jews from many professions such as teaching, law and medicine since 1933. The dehumanisation of entire demographs of the country's own people had already begun in the employment sector before the ghettoisation and slaughter.

dante18 wrote: »

It's obvious that was an innocent slip of the tongue. And if it wasn't, does it really make much of a difference referring to a concentration camp as a punishment camp? Just because someone is punished doesn't mean they are deserving of punishment. It's a fact that many people who spent time in concentration camps were treated as though they were being punished for something. Nobody would now claim that they deserved to be punished but I think it's not altoghether inaccurate to compare their treatement to a form of punishment

No, it is not obvious as a slip of the tongue.
Also yes it does make a difference in its reference. You can muck about with semantics all you like but it doesn't disguise any of his reference made over 60 years after the camp system was busted. Using the term all this time afterwards and not retracting, antagonises if not excuses.

jimmi08

I was sorry to hear of the death of Mr. Haider. He was one of the few politicians who I would respect as he was not afraid to speak his mind and he also stood up to the dictators running the EU. The man was a true nationalist and patriot and placed the needs of the Austrian people before anything else.
R.I.P.

dsmythy

The lack of compassion (or at least neutral thoughts on his death) coming from the left certainly proves their alleged compassionate nature just isn't so. And to think i nearly joined the socialist party when i was younger! Clare Daly nearly fooled me.

[QUOTE=JWAD;57558278
So you've never heard the term used before then? Ok-doke. Its a generic term which certain 'commentators' use to refer to American Jews


s.[/QUOTE]

Is that like when people say "the west of Ireland",they mean the polish?:rolleyes:

JWAD

dsmythy wrote: »

The lack of compassion (or at least neutral thoughts on his death) coming from the left certainly proves their alleged compassionate nature just isn't so. And to think i nearly joined the socialist party when i was younger! Clare Daly nearly fooled me.

Why do people like you have always have stick a little tagger on those who might think on the contrary of your point of view?
"The left"?
:rolleyes: