Mauthausen Committee Austrian Chairman Willi Mernyi – without naming FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl – probably referred to a controversial quote from his time as Interior Minister, according to which the law had to follow politics: “The Nazis were looking for a legal system in which their… Ideology reflected. The law was based on politics.”
The world’s largest concentration camp liberation celebration is traditionally attended every year by numerous international delegations and representatives from politics and society, who lay wreaths at the sarcophagus at the former roll call area and commemorate the victims. The presenters Mercedes Echerer and Konstanze Breitebner recalled that around 200,000 people were imprisoned, tortured and around half of them murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its over 40 sub-camps. “All of that was the law at the time.” On May 7, 1945, the concentration camp was liberated by the 11th Armored Division of the Third US Army.
- HONEY: Commemoration and Liberation in Mauthausen
Official Austria was represented on Sunday by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner and Constitutional Minister Karoline Edtstadler (both ÖVP) as well as Justice Minister Alma Zadic, Social Affairs Minister Johannes Rauch and Climate Protection Minister Leonore Gewessler (all Greens), and Upper Austrian Governor Thomas Stelzer ( ÖVP) took part in the memorial procession, numerous representatives of the National Council, Federal Council, ÖVP, SPÖ, Greens, NEOS and KPÖ, religious communities and international guests from the victims’ countries of origin paid their respects.
Picture gallery: Liberation and commemoration ceremony in Mauthausen
(Photo: FOTOKERSCHI.AT/HANNES DRAXLER) Bild 1/20
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“When we talk regarding law and justice, we are referring to a concept that is regarding fair treatment of people,” said Mernyi in his speech. It is regarding equality before the law, no one should be favored or disadvantaged, “independently of origin, of status”, but: “Under National Socialism, none of this was a reality. The Nazis sought a legal system in which their ideology was reflected. The law was based on a policy of racial madness, a policy of persecution.” , he said. “They even had a law for the murder of millions of people, the Nuremberg racial laws.”
- HONEY: “Law and justice” is still important today
Even today, the law is still being abused by authoritarian regimes. “The democracy we built following the end of fascism must not degenerate into an illiberal democracy,” warned Mernyi. “We owe it to the victims.”
History teaches that “political parties that enter into coalitions with anti-democratic parties out of lust for power ultimately strengthen them and pave the way for the abolition of democracy,” warned the President of the Comité International de Mauthausen, Guy Dockendorf, “this threatening development must finally be stopped to be taken seriously”.
- A memorial service also took place in Ebensee:
Picture gallery: Concentration camp liberation celebration in Ebensee
(Photo: Wolfgang Spitzbart) Bild 1/28
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At an ecumenical service in the memorial chapel, Linz Diocesan Bishop Manfred Scheuer emphasized the importance of law in curbing power, arbitrariness and inhumanity. National Socialism bent the law and replaced human rights with the law of the strongest. The Protestant Bishop Michael Chalupka also pointed out that National Socialism carried out a “politicization of the law” in order to consolidate the dictatorship.
On Thursday, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) and some black members of the federal government commemorated the liberation at a ceremony in Mauthausen, followed on Saturday evening by a joint celebration by the Mauthausen Memorial and the Gusen Memorial Service Committee at the site of the former Gusen concentration camp in Langenstein, among others National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka (ÖVP).
The traditional “Festival of Joy” on the anniversary of the surrender of the German Wehrmacht on May 8th will also focus this year on “Law and Justice in National Socialism”. The highlight is the speech by contemporary witness Rosa Schneeberger; the opening words at Vienna’s Heldenplatz will be spoken by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and Mernyi.
