Vienna Jewish community leaders expressed concern today to Interior Minister Josef Afritsch over activities of neo-Nazis in Austria and were assured strict action would be taken.
The leaders cited the vandalizing of 40 Jewish headstones in the Innsbruck Jewish cemetery, and an anonymous telephone call warning that the Innsbruck synagogue would be blasted. The Minister said that the Austrian Government would act with “the greatest emphasis and severity” against those responsible for such acts.
Police officials said today that an evaluation of material found during the arrests of eleven leaders of a neo-Nazi organization indicated that an Austrian neo-Nazi ring which received orders from centers in Munich and Nuremberg had been smashed. The arrests took place just before the start of a planned new propaganda campaign slated to begin in the first week of December, the police added.
The police said they found a complete nine-point program ready for distribution to 1,000 recipients to launch a nationwide smear and placard campaign against Jews. The texts of the confiscated placards contained such Hitler slogans as “Jude Verrecke,” (Jews Perish!) The mimeographed programs provided detailed instructions on where to smear the anti-Semitic slogans, how to affix the placards to surfaces, and what to do if police intervened.
Police officials established the orders were identical with those developing from Nazi underground activities before World War II. The campaign documents also called for a conference in Vienna of “all countries concerned” where other neo-Nazi activities were to be discussed. The Austrian Interior Ministry promised the sternest possible measures to deal with the new neo-Nazi program.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
