"Right-wing extremist"

President of the National Council: NGO wants to prevent FPÖ candidate

At the suggestion of the Freedom Party, which emerged as the strongest force in the National Council elections, 62-year-old Walter Rosenkranz is to become President of the National Council.

(Bild: APA Pool/FOTO SULZER)

SOS Mitmensch is up in arms against the FPÖ's planned nomination of Walter Rosenkranz (62) for the office of First President of the National Council. A member of a right-wing extremist fraternity is unacceptable as President of the Austrian National Council and a political provocation, according to the accusation. The Third President of the National Council, Norbert Hofer (FPÖ), saw this as denigration.

The human rights organization is calling on the ÖVP, SPÖ, NEOS and Greens not to vote for the current Ombudsman Rosenkranz.

"Closeness to right-wing extremism"
"Only someone who is above any suspicion of being close to right-wing extremism should be appointed to one of the highest and most sensitive offices in our democracy. Anyone who feels more committed to a German nationalist association than to our democracy is unsuitable for the office of President of the National Council," emphasizes SOS Mitmensch spokesperson Alexander Pollak.

The high office of President of the National Council is not an experimental laboratory where one can calmly observe how a member of a German nationalist association belonging to the extreme right-wing spectrum exploits the power of the office as his way of playing.

Alexander Pollak, Sprecher von SOS Mitmensch

According to him, suspicion of proximity to right-wing extremist circles must be an absolute knock-out criterion for the office of President of the National Council.

Rosenkranz member of the "Libertas" fraternity 
 SOS Mitmensch points out that Rosenkranz is a member of the German nationalist fraternity "Libertas", which is deeply influenced by anti-Semitism and right-wing radicalism. This fraternity was one of the very first fraternities to introduce an anti-Semitic "Aryan paragraph" and has repeatedly demonstrated its closeness to right-wing extremism.

To this day, the fraternity is part of the far-right "fraternity community", reports SOS Mitmensch, citing information from the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance.

Rosenkranz: Proximity to the Identitarians?
As recently as 2009, the fraternity to which Rosenkranz belongs awarded a prize to the then neo-Nazi "Bund Freier Jugend". According to SOS Mitmensch, Rosenkranz was also an author of articles in the right-wing extremist magazine "Aula", which sympathizes with neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

In addition, Rosenkranz had appeared several times as a speaker at events involving the far-right "Identitarians". This was most recently the case in January 2023, when Rosenkranz appeared at an AfD event that was also attended by members of the "Identitarian Movement" and the "Burschenschaft Danubia München", both of which are classified as right-wing extremist organizations by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

SOS Mitmensch calls on the members of parliament from the ÖVP, SPÖ, Neos and Greens to give top priority to the protection of Austrian democracy and not to elect a president of the National Council who has close ties to right-wing extremism.

Hofer backs Rosenkranz
The Third President of the National Council, Norbert Hofer (FPÖ), sees the accusations against Rosenkranz as denigration. "I have known Walter Rosenkranz for decades. He is a democrat through and through. His heart beats for parliamentarianism," says Hofer.

I have known Walter Rosenkranz for decades. He is a democrat through and through. His heart beats for parliamentarianism. I am absolutely certain that he is the ideal candidate for President of the National Council - experienced, prudent, consensus-oriented and committed. He has already proven this several times in the course of his long political career.

Norbert Hofer (FPÖ)

Hofer: Rosenkranz did a lot for reconciliation with Israel
Hofer recalled the time of the turquoise-blue government. During this time, a great deal had been done for reconciliation between Austria and Israel - even more than in many previous governments. At the time, Rosenkranz was a member of the FPÖ parliamentary party and helped shape many of these measures. For example, the Shoah memorial was planned and erected. It was also under Turquoise and Blue that the descendants of victims of National Socialism were given easier access to Austrian citizenship in future.

"Walter Rosenkranz played a leading role in all of these achievements. To describe him as a right-wing extremist is completely unfounded," said Hofer.