Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen has become routine when it comes to swearing in: Karl Nehammer was now the sixth Federal Chancellor whom Van der Bellen swore the oath on Monday afternoon during his five-year term in office. Austria’s politics have been in turmoil since the Ibiza affair was exposed in May 2019. The Federal President has already seen more than 50 members of the government come and go, and a total of six positions have now been filled.
The new head of government had been Minister of the Interior for 23 months, and when he said goodbye to the employees, Nehammer, who usually appeared rather awkwardly, was unusually emotional. “There’s a lot of work waiting for you, dear Gerhard,” said Nehammer when he was handed over to his successor, Gerhard Karner. His “old friend”, stressed Nehammer, stands for “freedom, democracy and basic rights”.
In doing so, the Chancellor stood behind the 54-year-old politician, whose appointment had sparked heated debates even before he was sworn in. Because Karner was a close employee of the then Interior Minister Ernst Strasser, who had converted the ministry into an ÖVP stronghold with his loyal followers before moving to the EU Parliament and being convicted of bribery.
After his time in the Ministry of the Interior, Karner moved to Lower Austria and, as the state manager of the ÖVP, attracted attention with slogans that, among other things, also served anti-Semitic clichés. Karner spoke of the “gentlemen from America and Israel” and calls them “climate poisoners”. He described “the stupidity of the Greens” as “unbearable” – with whom the ÖVP has formed a coalition at the federal level.
Engelbert Dollfuß is revered in the ÖVP to this day
Even before he took office as Minister of the Interior, the Greens asked him to clarify how he felt about Austrofascism. Because Karner is also the mayor of Texing, where a museum was set up in 1998 for the most famous son of the community, Engelbert Dollfuss. Dollfuss is the leading representative of Austrofascism. The government of the Christian-social Chancellor Dollfuss switched off the parliament in 1933, Dollfuss created an authoritarian corporate state with the May constitution in 1934 and relied primarily on the Catholic Church, on the farmers and on the Home Guard. On July 25, 1934, he was murdered by the Nazis in the course of the July coup.
While some point out that he had workers shot, he is venerated in the ÖVP as a “martyr” and patriot. “Dollfuss was featured in the parliamentary club until 2017. According to historians, a kind of hero worship is also practiced in Texing , although Karner, who was not yet mayor at the time the museum was set up, promised critical treatment.
Karner did not directly address the current debate when he first appeared as Minister of the Interior, nor was there the clarification requested by the Green coalition partner. Karner only named the “fight against right-wing extremism, but also against political Islam” as the most urgent task.