We Are All Basically Alone
“Today, November the 5th, I will begin my report.” A woman sits in one room of a small wooden hunting lodge, writing by the dim light of a candle. “…not because writing gives me pleasure, but because I realised that I must write, so I will not lose my mind. I am completely alone, and [...]
Draining the ‘Kellernazi’ Swamp
The Presseclub Concordia was packed when Hans-Henning Scharsach presented his new book Strache: Im braunen Sumpf (Strache: In the Brown-Shirt Swamp). Members of the Green Party were present, as well as many NGO representatives and civil society activists, as he talked about the roots of the now-popular FPÖ party leader. In 14 chapters, written over [...]
Caught In The Act
It’s a familiar scene in Vienna: Officers of the so-called foreigners’ police (Fremdenpolizei) take action against asylum seekers or illegal refugees, while anti-deportation activists stand by documenting the procedure on hand-held cameras. The police don’t like it, but what can they do? Plenty, it seems. In a dramatic recent case involving a family with a [...]
Austria’s Nazi Frat Boys?
It was 27 Jan. – the day that people across the West commemorated the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. This year, it was also the day that the Wiener Korporationsring (WKR), an association of German-nationalist student fraternities, held its annual ball at the Hofburg, Austria’s historical seat of power. The coincidence, the organisers claimed, [...]
Burschenschafter Ball: With the Demonstrators
On 27 Jan. around 5:00 in the afternoon at Christian-Broda-Platz next to Westbahnhof, only a few hundred had gathered for one of three demonstrations against WKR ball approved by the Vienna police – one more starting at the University of Vienna and marching towards Heldenplatz on the Ringstraße, the main one taking Place on Heldenplatz [...]
Werner Reisinger (30) is a Vienna based journalist, focussing on news, politics, society, and contemporary history. He has worked as an historian, TV editor, and recently as host of the internet-talk program “supertaalk”
The FPÖ and the Fraternities’ Ball
Every year at the end of January, a “happening” takes place on the streets of Vienna’s inner districts that might seem strange to the eyes of visitors (see TVR, Feb. 2012). While inside the Hofburg, right-wing politicians and friends are taking the floor at what until last year was called the Wiener Korporations-Ball, on the [...]
CommentaryMarch 5, 2013No CommentRead More