Jewish students prevent Austrian far-right speaker from laying Kristallnacht wreath

VIENNA — Jewish students in Vienna on Friday prevented the first far-right speaker of Austria’s lower house of parliament from laying a wreath in remembrance of the Nazis’ 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, arguing he was abusing the memory of its victims.

After the euroskeptic, Russia-friendly Freedom Party (FPO) won the most seats in a parliamentary election for the first time in its history in September, the new lower house elected FPO nominee Walter Rosenkranz as its speaker two weeks ago.

Rosenkranz faces widespread criticism for being a member of a far-right student fraternity known for its strident pan-German nationalism. The country’s main Jewish organization has ruled out participating in events with him.

Protesters including members of the Austrian Union of Jewish Students held hands to form a cordon around a Holocaust memorial in the historic center of Vienna where Rosenkranz had been due to lay a wreath in his official capacity. They held a banner that read: “The word of those who honor Nazis is worthless.”

In a tense standoff, a protester told Rosenkranz: “We do not want you to spit in our ancestors’ faces,” to which Rosenkranz replied: “You are insulting me” as his police escort looked on.

After initially asking the protesters to make way, Rosenkranz said: “I will yield to your violence. You are forcibly preventing me from approaching.”

Rosenkranz — visibly agitated — then left.

The Austrian Union of Jewish Students, in a post to social media platform X that included a video of the encounter, wrote that Rosenkranz “tried to exploit the commemoration of the November pogroms at Judenplatz. Despite his threats to evict us, we resolutely and peacefully blocked his path.”

FPÖ-Rosenkranz hat heute versucht, das Gedenken an die Novemberpogrome am Judenplatz zu instrumentalisieren. Trotz seiner Drohungen uns zu räumen, haben wir ihm entschlossen & friedlich den Weg versperrt. pic.twitter.com/9tXrDHpXvd

— Jüdische österreichische Hochschüler:innen (@joehwien) November 8, 2024

Videos of the incident were shared on social media and aired by public broadcaster ORF.

Wir haben Walter Rosenkranz heute klar gemacht, dass für ihn kein Platz bei Gedenkveranstaltungen für die Opfer der Shoah ist. pic.twitter.com/r7XuAlKyoV

— Bini Guttmann (@Bini_Guttmann) November 8, 2024

Since the Jewish Religious Community (IKG), the body that formally represents Austria’s Jews, has long refused to hold meetings with FPO officials, Rosenkranz did not attend a separate Kristallnacht ceremony around the same time at another Holocaust memorial.

Its president said it was “impossible to remember the victims together with such a person.”

After being elected parliamentary speaker, Rosenkranz has vowed to continue the country’s fight against antisemitism, dismissing accusations he posed a threat to the Jewish community as a “lie.”

Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass, known in Austria as the November Pogroms, was a coordinated wave of intense, deadly, violence against Jews across the Nazi Third Reich. Vienna was a major center of that violence, with dozens of synagogues and prayer houses destroyed and thousands of Jewish shops looted.

It began on Nov. 9, 1938, roughly eight months after Nazi Germany annexed Austria.

Friday’s protest took place as the party that came second in September’s election, the conservative People’s Party, is holding coalition talks with the third-placed Social Democrats with a view to forming a three-party government excluding the FPO, which has branded that plan a “coalition of losers.”

The FPO was founded in the 1950s under a leader who had been a senior SS officer and Nazi lawmaker. It has frequently faced accusations of antisemitism, which it denies.