Heil, Haider?

A MAN named Joerg Haider is at the center of a storm reverberating throughout Europe, an artificial storm, but dangerous all the same. He is from Austria, a country that rarely rates headlines. But who is Haider, what is he?

An unsavory piece of work, to be sure. Born in 1950, the son of minor but enthusiastic Nazi officials, he grew up in the atmosphere peculiar to postwar Austria, in which people steadfastly avoided coming to terms with the country’s recent devotion to Adolf Hitler, its favorite prewar son. In a tacit conspiracy, the ruling elites in the conservative People’s party and the Social Democratic party— known respectively as the Blacks and the Reds—pretended that Austria had been an innocent victim of Nazism, with nothing to atone for. The truth, of course, was that Austrians had contributed more than their fair share to the Nazi cause. Nearly fifty years were to pass before a government accepted the obligation to apologize and make restitution, by which time few of the victims were still alive to benefit. Rejection of responsibility for Nazism, coupled with at least a measure of unspoken defiance, has generated moral and intellectual evasion in the man on the Austrian street, and Haider particularly speaks for him.

About the Author

David Pryce-Jones

David Pryce-Jones (1936–2025) was a British author and commentator and served as a senior editor of National Review.

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A MAN named Joerg Haider is at the center of a storm reverberating throughout Europe, an artificial storm, but dangerous all the same. He is from Austria, a country that rarely rates headlines. But who is Haider, what is he?

An unsavory piece of work, to be sure. Born in 1950, the son of minor but enthusiastic Nazi officials, he grew up in the atmosphere peculiar to postwar Austria, in which people steadfastly avoided coming to terms with the country’s recent devotion to Adolf Hitler, its favorite prewar son. In a tacit conspiracy, the ruling elites in the conservative People’s party and the Social Democratic party— known respectively as the Blacks and the Reds—pretended that Austria had been an innocent victim of Nazism, with nothing to atone for. The truth, of course, was that Austrians had contributed more than their fair share to the Nazi cause. Nearly fifty years were to pass before a government accepted the obligation to apologize and make restitution, by which time few of the victims were still alive to benefit. Rejection of responsibility for Nazism, coupled with at least a measure of unspoken defiance, has generated moral and intellectual evasion in the man on the Austrian street, and Haider particularly speaks for him.