The Rehabilitated Austrians and the Borodajkewycz Affair

Abstract

Ladies and Gentlemen! Where are we living? What age are we living in? Is this the Democratic Republic of Austria or a part of the Third Reich? Have we got twenty years of reconstruction and new construction of our fatherland behind us, or do we stand before the year 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War Two? Has all the terror, all fright, completely bypassed such educators of the youth? Has nothing made an impression on them that would have changed them? Just as a Socialist parliamentarian spoke these words on 31 March 1965, an affair surrounding the Viennese University Professor Taras (von) Borodajkewycz culminated in the Second Republic's most violent street fights and allegedly sole political death to date. In the course of the early 1960s, the professor's antidemocratic references and nostalgic statements on the Third Reich in his lectures had also come to the attention of the wider public. Clashes in March between Rightist and Leftist students ensued, and the Borodajkewycz Affair finally reached its height when on that last day in March the right-wing student Günther Kümel delivered a deadly blow to a 67-year-old Communist.

Die Soziologie und der Nationalsozialismus in Österreich

“…Während der Fall »Boro« die größtmögliche Aufmerksamkeit erhielt (vgl. Kropiunigg 2015), blieb der latente und sich nur auf der Hinterbühne artikulierende Antisemitismus außerhalb des Fokus (Fleck und Müller 1992).…”

“…Studierende, unter ihnen der spätere Finanzminister Ferdinand Lacina, hatten unter anderem mit Hilfe des späteren Bundespräsidenten Heinz Fischer, damals Sekretär der sozialistischen Parlamentsfraktion, die offen antisemitische und nationalsozialistische Rhetorik publik gemacht, mit der Taras Borodajkewycz, ehemaliges NSDAP-Mitglied und nunmehr von der ÖVP protegierter Professor für Wirtschaftsgeschichte an der damaligen Hochschule für Welthandel, seine Vorlesungen ausschmückte (vgl. Kropiunigg 2015) (vgl. Hubenstorf 1989: 233-234;.…”