Chancellor Bruno Kreisky has refused to dismiss Gen, Ernest Bernadiner, commander-in-chief of the Austrian army who was recently exposed as having been a leader of an outlawed Nazi military group which helped pave the way for the Anschluss before World War II.
Bernadiner, 63, admitted joining the Nationalsozialistische Soldatenring (National Socialist Soldiers Ring) in 1937, the year before Hitler annexed Austria, after the conservative news weekly Wochenpresse found his name on an old membership list. The name was misspelled, which apparently accounts for the fact that Bernadiner’s affiliation was unknown to the public until now, although it was known to the Austrian authorities after the war.
The Soldatenring consisted of Nazi-minded army officers and cadets who spread Nazi propaganda in the Austrian army, Bernadiner held the rank of “Grupenfuehrer.” He claims now that it was only an honorary title. Of 2,128 officers in the Austrian army at the time, only 219 belonged to this group which was branded illegal by the pre-war Austrian government.
Article 12 of the Austrian State Treaty after World War II bars former members of the Soldatenring from serving in the army. Bernadiner said he received an exculpation certificate in 1950 from the city of Salzburg and that the amnesty extended for former Nazis in 1957 nullified Article 12.
This is legally correct but morally questionable, according to Wochenblatt which noted that Bernadiner was responsible for drilling and indoctrinating recruits to the Nazi group and observed that a man with such a past cannot set a good example for democracy.
Kreisky said at a press conference last Friday that he had not been aware of Bernadiner’s membership in the Soldatenring when he was named commander of the army two years ago but “I admit it wouldn’t have bothered me if I had known it.” He noted that the general was only 18 when he joined the group and that he had been pardoned by law after the war.
Bernadiner admitted to the Wochenpress that he had found Nazi ideas attractive when he was 18. “But in 1942, at the latest, I realized the whole background of the Nazi story and I had a different view about it,” he said.
Kreisky’s position on the matter recalled his defense of Friedrich Peter, a leading Austrian politician and former member of a notorious SS brigade, when he was exposed by Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal in 1975. Bernadiner is a member of Peter’s rightist Freedom Party.
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.
