Covertly shot video Mourners sing Nazi song at the funeral of FPÖ politician
September 29, 2024, 7:40 a.m. Listen to article
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A video is causing a stir in Austria shortly before the parliamentary election: It shows a Nazi song being sung at the funeral of an FPÖ politician. The parties react outraged.
A day before the parliamentary elections in Austria, a media report caused outrage that a Nazi song was sung at the funeral of a former FPÖ politician. As the newspaper “Der Standard” reported in its online edition, several members of the right-wing populist FPÖ took part in the funeral of the former FPÖ district councilor Walter Sucher on Friday. According to a video published by the newspaper, a version of a song that was part of the standard repertoire of SS members during the Nazi era was sung.
In the video leaked to the newspaper, funeral guests can be seen in a cemetery, standing around a grave and singing about “the holy German Reich.” Accordingly, the parliamentarians and election candidates Harald Stefan and Martin Graf were also present at the incident.
Parties across the political spectrum strongly condemned the incident. The Jewish student association JöH announced that it had filed a complaint against, among others, the FPÖ politicians present.
“Don’t be afraid of contact with right-wing extremists”
“The FPÖ proves once again that it is right-wing extremist,” said Justice Minister Alma Zadic of the Green Party. The conservative ÖVP explained on the online service In this context, the party emphasized again that there would be no cooperation with Kickl. She called on voters to “strengthen the center” by voting for the ÖVP on Sunday. The head of the social democratic SPÖ, Andreas Babler, told X that the incident showed once again that “a state cannot be created with such a party.”
The FPÖ, which could become the strongest force for the first time in Sunday’s election, told the Austrian news agency APA that it was not involved in organizing the funeral of “a private person”. She also condemned the “political abuse” of the funeral as “irritable and shabby.”
Sucher caused outrage in 2006 when he ended his speech to delegates at an FPÖ state party conference in Vienna with the Nazi greeting “Heil”. According to the APA, the FPÖ politician defended his appearance, in which he had, among other things, called for the protection of the German “people” by saying that one should not miss the opportunity to sing the song “When everyone becomes unfaithful” – which was now also sung at his funeral.
Austria will elect a new parliament on Sunday. In election surveys, party leader Herbert Kickl’s FPÖ recently received around 27 percent. It was two percentage points ahead of the conservative ÖVP, which was clearly ahead in 2019 with over 37 percent of the vote. The Social Democrats from the SPÖ are predicted to get a good 20 percent, the Greens, who currently govern with the ÖVP, around eight percent.
