Statements by ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) in an interview with the Swiss tabloid Blick on the situation in Ukraine, according to which every war eventually ended with negotiations, caused astonishment today.
The “Kronen Zeitung” (online edition) headlined “Historical Holler”, military analyst Gerald Karner stated simply on the short message service Twitter: “If you let an imaginary uneducated explain the world. The Second World War ended with an unconditional surrender.”
“There is no simple solution. The situation is too busy,” Kurz said in the interview, among other things. “But the good news is that every war has ended in negotiations at some point,” said the former chancellor. A number of observers of political events did not want to let that stand. The writer Julya Rabinowich tweeted: “The negotiations with Hitler were excellent!” NEOS MP Helmut Brandstätter wrote: “One can only now guess that Kurz is uneducated. But it might also be noticed earlier.”
The political scientist and Green MP Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic explained on Twitter: “No, not every war ended in negotiations. If he already knew in 2014 what Putin was thinking, why didn’t he become active as foreign minister?” The deputy head of the SPÖ club, Jörg Leichtfried, made a comparison with 1944: “At least the Allies didn’t come to Normandy to negotiate.” Others led such as the wars in the former Yugoslavia, in the Gulf and in Afghanistan.
