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"The Austrian army will no longer take part in the tribute to the Waffen-SS in Carinthia,” reports the Frankfurter Rundschau, adding sardonically that “that’s pretty good news”. Since 1958, a commemoration has been held every year atop the Ulrichsberg mountain by the Kameradschaft IV, an association of veterans from the Nazi organisation’s dreaded military wing. Several ultra-right-wing European celebrities regularly attend, including the daughter of SS chief Heinrich Himmler and the daughter of the Austrian Liberal Party’s late leader, Jörg Haider. “An event all the more inconceivable,” opines the Frankfurt daily, in that it was officially supported by the Austrian army, which provided the military band and the guard of honour. If Vienna has changed its mind about official attendance, the paper says ironically, it is because defence minister Norbert Darabos has finally found “there is not enough distance from Nazi ideology at an event like this”. So the military will not be allowed to attend in uniform any more – though of course they are perfectly at liberty to come in their “civvies”.
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