Born: 26 January, 1950, in Bad Goisern, Austria.
Died: 11 October, 2008, in Carinthia, Austria, aged 58.
JÖRG Haider catapulted his party into a powerful force in Austrian politics with a mix of folksy aphorisms, in-your-face attacks on rival
s and provocative praise of the Nazi era. His death has left Austria without the politician best known outside the country – although the governor of Carinthia province never held a post in the national government.
Although he was commonly labelled a rightist, Haider was more a populist who defied categorisation, often swiftly embracing positions at odds with his early reputation as an admirer of Nazi times and a hater of foreigners.
Haider achieved notoriety for past remarks that sounded sympathetic to the Nazis and contemptuous of Jews, a meeting with Saddam Hussein on the eve of the Iraq war and a friendship with Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi when Libya was still an international pariah.
He praised a member of Hitler's notorious Waffen SS convicted of eradicating the population of an Italian village as someone "who (only] did his duty". He lauded Nazis as creating "a good policy of employment". He condemned the "laziness of the southerners" – meaning immigrants south of Austria, describing their countries as "the place of criminality and corruption".
And in a mocking reference to the first name of Vienna's Jewish leader, which is also that of a popular detergent, Haider said: "I don't understand how someone called Ariel can have so much dirt on his hands."
But later in his political life he also endorsed European Union membership for Turkey – out of line with most Austrians. He apologised for some comments hateful of Jews and contemptuous of foreigners and stopped making others.
His indirect comparison in 2003 of George Bush to Saddam and Hitler outraged many members of Austria's political establishment while stirring consternation abroad. The year before, the US state department, which normally takes scant public notice of tiny Austria, linked Haider to electioneering comments that "could be interpreted as xenophobic or anti-Semitic".
Still, such sentiments, and his Freedom Party's anti-foreigner stance, played well with Austrians critical of the US, unrepentant about their country's role in Nazi atrocities and fearful of the growing influx of Islam and other outside cultures.
When Haider took over the party in 1986, it was a staid, middle-of-the-road fringe organisation polling well below 10 per cent nationally. By 2000, it was the number two force in the country, capturing 27 per cent of the vote and powered by Haider's sharp attacks on traditional political rivals and his bursts of xenophobia and immigrant-bashing. His party subsequently formed Austria's government in coalition with the centrist People's Party, prompting Israel to recall its ambassador in protest and the EU to impose unprecedented sanctions on a fellow member nation.
But for Haider, the balloon burst five years later – his party split and his faction sank nearly into inconsequence as the extreme radical wing of the party blossomed in popularity.
That trend was moderated this year after Haider took an active role in the fortunes of his splinter faction, renamed Alliance for the Future of Austria. The party took nearly 11 per cent of the vote last month, up from just over 4 per cent in the last election.
Haider was born in 1950, in the Upper Austrian town of Bad Goisern, to parents who were enthusiastic Nazi Party members. His father, a shoemaker, was forced after the war to unearth mass graves dug by the SS, while his mother, a teacher, was prohibited from working in her profession for several years.
His right-wing associations continued into high school, where he was a member of a duelling fraternity that is part of Austria's network for the country's extreme nationalists.
In 1974, he took over the leadership of the youth wing of the party he would later head, while studying for his doctorate in law at the University of Vienna.
A brief stint in the army was followed by work as a university lecturer before he turned to full-time political activities.
Jörg Haider is survived by his wife, Claudia, and two daughters. According to news reports, he was planning to celebrate his mother's 90th birthday over the weekend.
The full article contains 719 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
