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The story of the FPÖ hero did not have a happy ending. And it is not yet clear who will write the next chapter.
On May 8 there is something completely different: Austria celebrates the anniversary of Hitler’s Germany surrender. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi regime. However, it’s worth taking a look at how the FPÖ celebrates the day. It says a lot about the state of the party, a year after the Ibiza video was released.
The FPÖ will meet this Friday on private property at Mölker Bastei 16 in Vienna. Since 2018 there has been a monument to the “women of rubble,” criticized by the city government and historians, sponsored by the Cajetan-Fields Institute, affiliated with FPÖ. Party leader Norbert Hofer puts on a flower wreath in the morning. “On this day, we want to commemorate the victims of World War II on the one hand, but at the same time express our gratitude for the debris women’s performance,” he later wrote on Facebook.
Heroes’ Square, where freedom activists and fraternities used to celebrate the highly controversial “monument to the dead”, has been reserved by the Mauthausen Committee for the “Festival of Joy” since 2014. Later, as part of the government, the Freedom Party had official celebrations. And this year? Well, a bronze figure in the first district. Like the FPÖ, it sends mixed signals. Because the story of the “women of rubble” as heroin has been viewed by experts as shortened.
For the past twelve months, freedoms have had to painfully experience that heroic stories are often exactly that, stories, in fact. They had supported and celebrated Heinz-Christian Strache as party leader for 14 years. The break came on May 17, 2019 at 6 p.m. Not only because the Ibiza video excerpts were published at the time. But also because Strache was no longer available to its most important employees. Norbert Hofer learned of the recordings not from Strache, but from Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP). President Manfred Haimbuchner was sitting on the lawn mower when the latest news came. Defense Minister Mario Kunasek prepared for the Styrian state party conference, to be held the following day. In the end, according to his own statements, the then Interior Minister Herbert Kickl said to Strache: That was it.
It was not mainly Ibiza that shook the party. After all, the FPÖ received 17.2 percent of the vote in the EU elections shortly after the coalition broke down. Freedom activists also held steady in the National Council election campaign. But then came the expense scandal, and with it the reproaches with the Strache couple. The result: 16 percent of the vote. In 2017 it was 26 percent. The FPÖ lost supporters in two directions: ÖVP and the non-electoral field.
