!!!Politischer Extremismus

Political extremism in Austria: 1) Right extremism: After the 
departure of the allied forces in 1955, some organisations 
increasingly developed from moderate German nationalism to outright 
neo-Nazism. At the "Schiller-Feier" (200%%sup th/%  
anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Schiller) in 1959 the Austrian 
public was for the first time confronted with the massive emergence of 
"nationalist" youth, culture and sport organisations. Around 
1960, during the South Tirol crises, when Austrian and German 
right-wing extremists (mainly students) committed acts of terrorism 
these forces gained more importance. The National Democratic Party 
(NDP), which was founded by N. Burger and prohibited in 1988, was the 
most important right-wing extremist organisation for a long time, but 
was gradually replaced by smaller, rivalling neo-Nazi groups. From 
1992 police action against the more radical groups resulted in a wave 
of arrests. Various  Assassinations with bombs or letter bombs were 
attempted between 1993 and 1995 and resulted in severely injuring 
their victims. In 1999 Franz Fuchs was sentenced as perpetrator 
responsible for these crimes and the most serious political crime of 
the Second Republic on February 4, 1995 a bomb attack in the 
vicinity of the Roma settlement of Oberwart (in the province of 
Burgenland), which killed four people.

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2) Left extremism: In the second half of the 1970s the German Rote 
Armee Fraktion (RAF) undertook a number of attacks in which Austria 
became involved. After a bank robbery in December 1976, the German 
terrorist W. Boock was arrested in Vienna. This was followed by 
several acts of terrorism in an attempt to force the authorities to 
free her. The kidnapping of the industrialist W. M. Palmers in 
November 1977, who was freed for a ransom of ATS 31 million, 
was also carried out by the RAF. The kidnappers were arrested a short 
time after their hostage was released. In 1995, two left extremists 
were killed as they tried to blow up a high-voltage transmission pylon 
at Ebergassing (Lower Austria).

!Literature
Dokumentationsarchiv des oesterreichischen Widerstandes 
(ed.), Handbuch des oesterreichischen Rechtsextremismus, 1993.


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