Far Right Is Joining Austria Government

Shrugging off intense foreign pressure, Austria’s president said he will swear members of the far-right Freedom Party into national government today after its leader, Joerg Haider, signed a declaration accepting the country’s responsibility for Nazi crimes during World War II.

President Thomas Klestil, forced to choose between threatened diplomatic sanctions and the prospect of rejecting the center-right coalition’s democratic claim to power, announced Thursday that he would accept the new government.

The declaration, aimed at blunting international criticism of Austria, fell far short of mollifying its partners in the European Union, who announced that they would immediately make good on threats to isolate Vienna.

Dickering went on throughout Thursday in the president’s office at Vienna’s Hofburg palace, from which the Hapsburgs ruled much of Central Europe for centuries before the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in the ruins of World War I. The Austria Press Agency said Klestil rejected the Freedom Party leader’s choice for ministers of finance and defense, and Haider replaced them.

Wolfgang Schuessel, head of the conservative People’s Party, is to become chancellor in the new government. Haider will not hold a Cabinet post; he will remain governor of the southern province of Carinthia.

Earlier Thursday, Haider and Schuessel signed a manifesto drafted by the president that states, “Austria accepts her responsibility arising out of the tragic history of the 20th century and the horrendous crimes of the National Socialist [Nazi] regime.

“Our country is facing up to the light and dark sides of its past and to the deeds of all Austrians, good and evil, as its responsibility. Nationalism, dictatorship and intolerance brought war, xenophobia, bondage, racism and mass murder,” the declaration added.

“The singularity of the crimes of the Holocaust, which are without precedent in history, are an exhortation to permanent alertness against all forms of dictatorship and totalitarianism.”

Adolf Hitler annexed Austria, his homeland, to Germany in 1938 prior to the start of World War II. Many Austrians regard their country as Hitler’s first victim. Critics say Austria never has come to grips with the fact that many of its people welcomed and supported Hitler.

EU Not Appeased by Manifesto

Calling the declaration a “preemptive political strike,” Schuessel said that “it deals with the fears of many friends at home and abroad.” But he also repeated that Austria is misunderstood and is “not a developing country on democracy and human rights.”

The declaration did nothing to stem EU criticism. Portugal, which currently chairs the European Union, said diplomatic sanctions will be imposed on Austria as soon as the new government is sworn in.

“As from tomorrow, the measures agreed by the 14 [other EU] countries will take effect,” Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

The 14 countries have threatened to suspend political contacts with Austria if the Freedom Party is allowed to share power, and they warned that they would not support any Austrian candidates for jobs in international organizations.

Earlier Thursday, the parliament of the European Union voted overwhelmingly to condemn any government that would include the Freedom Party, warning that its presence in power “would legitimize the extreme right in Europe.”

Louis Michel, Belgium’s foreign minister, hinted that a way might be found to suspend or terminate Austrian membership in the EU--a measure that is without precedent and may not be juridically feasible.

“It’s too simplistic to say that we must keep Austria in Europe at all costs,” Michel said in a radio interview. “Europe can very well do without Austria. We don’t need it.”

Before Klestil announced his decision, France’s top rabbi said a conference of European rabbis that was to be held in Vienna next month would be moved to neighboring Slovakia in protest.

Israel has said it would recall its ambassador to Austria if Haider’s party joined the government.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said that the United States will keep a close watch on the new coalition government and that its concerns remain despite Thursday’s declaration. Any suggestion that “our concerns would evaporate simply on the basis of a statement is not credible,” said spokesman James B. Foley.

The new Austrian government promised to carry out “a self-critical scrutiny” of its Nazi past, clarify and expose “the structures of injustice” and transmit “this knowledge to coming generations as a warning for the future.”

It will also “endeavor to arrive at objective solutions” to demands for compensation by World War II survivors forced to do slave labor for Austrian businesses, “while having regard to the primary responsibility of the companies concerned.”

Haider’s many critics will wonder what his signature is worth on a piece of paper that contradicts the many kind words he has had over the years for the Nazis.

In 1991, Haider praised the Third Reich’s “orderly employment policy” and in 1995 described Hitler’s genocidal concentration camps as “punishment camps.”

He has frequently apologized for or tried to explain away those and other remarks seen as minimizing Nazi atrocities. But his harsh views toward immigrants have convinced many that he is a racist demagogue.

The 1,100-word statement that he and Schuessel signed, titled “Responsibility for Austria--A Future in the Heart of Europe,” also commits the new federal government to work “for an Austria in which xenophobia, anti-Semitism and racism have no place.”

“It will take vigorous steps to counter every way of thinking which seeks to denigrate human beings, will actively combat the dissemination of such ideas and is committed to full respect for the rights and fundamental freedoms of people of any nationality irrespective of the reason for their stay in Austria,” the document says.

President Couldn’t Ignore Majority

Klestil, a former diplomat faced with the most painful decision in his two terms as president, would rather not have seen Haider’s party share power but said he couldn’t ignore the coalition’s majority in parliament.

In elections Oct. 3, Viktor Klima’s Social Democrats finished first with 65 seats in the 183-seat lower house of parliament--not enough for an outright majority. He finally abandoned attempts to form a coalition with Schuessel’s conservative party last week.

That left Schuessel with only one choice if the Austrian foreign minister was to rise to chancellor: Schuessel had to make a deal with Haider. Both men’s parties had won 52 seats, which together give the coalition a comfortable majority.

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Times staff writer John-Thor Dahlburg in Paris contributed to this report.