National Journal, first published: 12/08/2009

Must this man go behind bars for having mistaken opinions?

DEUTSCHE STIMME recently spoke with controversial writer and World War II Veteran Herbert SCHWEIGER. Born in Spital/Semmering in Austria’s Steiermark in 1924, SCHWEIGER joined the WAFFEN SS (SS = SCHUTZSTAFFEL or “protective echelon”, the elite international branch of the German armed forces during World War II) when he was 17 years old.

Following his release from internment as a prisoner of war, he initially joined the VdU (VERBAND DER UNABHÄNGIGEN = Organization of Independent Voters) and then the FPÖ (FREIHEITLICHE PARTEI ÖSTERREICHS = Austrian Freedom Party.) In 1980, as a member of the Association for the Election of a National German-Austrian he was instrumental in electing a German-Austrian as President.

On several occasions he has been arrested for the crime of WIEDERBETÄTIGUNG (re-activation) of National Socialist opinion. He is the author of several books.

For many years SCHWEIGER has been a popular guest speaker in Germany and Austria. His publications include WAHRE DEIN ANTLITZ: POLITIK, LEBENSGESETZE UND DIE ZUKUNFT DES DEUTSCHEN VOLKES (Preserve Your Integrity: Politics, Rules for Living and the Future of the German Nation) in 1963; DEUTSCHLANDS NEUE IDEE: NATIONALES MANIFEST FÜR DEUTSCHLAND & EUROPA (Germany’s New Idea: A National Manifesto for Germany and Europe in 2004; and MYTHOS WAFFEN-SS. MILITÄRISCHE LEISTUNG UND WELTANSCHAULICHES FUNDAMENT EINER EUROPÄISCHEN ELITETRUPPE (The Myth of the Waffen-SS: Feats and Philosophical Foundation of an Elite European Military Branch) in 2007.

The Interview: Translated by J M Damon

Herbert Schweiger

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
Mr. SCHWAIGER, several weeks ago you were tried in Klagenfurt District Court for so-called WIEDERBETÄTIGUNG (revival or reactivation of National Socialist opinion) and sentenced to two years in prison. It is possible that in a few weeks you will have to begin serving your sentence. With what precisely were you charged – and what do you say to the charges?

SCHWEIGER:
My indictment reads as follows: “...In consideration of the foregoing, Herbert SCHWAIGER is charged with composing, publishing and distributing the books DEUTSCHLANDS NEUE IDEE. NATIONALES MANIFEST FÜR DEUTSCHLAND UND EUROPA and WAHRE DEIN ANTLITZ – LEBENSGESETZE, POLITIK UND DIE ZUKUNFT DES DEUTSCHEN VOLKES. It is clear that in his activities as lecturer, he wanted to revitalize and propagate specific aims and goals of the National Socialist German Workers Party in Austria... He has committed the offense listed in Section 3 of VERBOTSGESETZ both subjectively and objectively.”

The indictment takes sentences from my books out of context in order to fabricate grounds for silencing me. My “crime” consists of discussing World War II with the present generation, which after more than sixty years of anti German brainwashing has a very sketchy understanding of that War. As a member of the generation that experienced it, I am able to tell young people what it was really like, and for this reason the powers-that-be feel they must take me out of circulation. The Germans in Germany are unaware of the extent to which patriotic German Austrians are being persecuted. My whole trial has been a procedure for persecuting loyalty to our VOLK.

In 1996 I was arrested on account of my book DIE EVOLUTION DES WISSENS (The Evolution of Knowledge). In 1997 I was convicted by the Leoben Court of WIEDERBETÄTIGUNG (Reactivation) and sentenced to 16 months in prison with a minimum of 4 months before eligibility for parole. My first conviction had been in 1959, when I was jailed for three months on account of lectures I gave in Germany. In 1962 I assisted the freedom fighters in South Tyrol by sharing my wartime experiences as a sapper with the LEIBSTANDARTE ADOLF HITLER (Hitler’s bodyguard) during the War. We completed demolition exercises, for which I was jailed several weeks. In 1989 I was jailed several months for writing and circulating the article RECHT AUF WAHRHEIT (The Right to Truth.)

As for my present sentence - I don’t have to begin serving it until the Fall. I told the judge: “Go ahead, lock me up! My wife is dead, and this way someone will serve me breakfast every morning. I am looking forward to using the prison library. In my free time I can write a new book. After all I have been through, you can’t scare me.” [There is very little the System can do to an 85-year-old man who still has his wits and whose will is intact.]

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
Let’s talk about your life history. You volunteered for the WAFFEN-SS and remained with it until the end of the War. Why did you join the SS, and to what extent did your experiences with this organization form and influence your later life?

SCHWEIGER:
First of all, you would have to understand and be familiar with the defining experiences of my generation, the generation born in the 1920s. We experienced severe hardship and deprivation in Austria following World War I, as a result of Allied treachery at Versailles. The victorious powers, you will recall, violated all the assurances they had given the German and Austrian Empires at the time of the Armistice. There were a million unemployed, of whom a third were the so-called “AUSGESTEUERTE” who received no assistance whatsoever from the State. They did not get a penny! It was all they could do to put soup on the table. When I was a lad, half of my classmates came to school hungry, without breakfast. A hungry child cannot concentrate on his lessons. This situation continued until the ANSCHLUß in 1938. Another factor that influenced the prevailing mood in those days was the anti German policy of clerical Austrian fascism. After Austria joined the Reich in 1938, the terrible deprivations ended almost immediately. The VOLKSGEMEINSCHAFTSGEDANKE (concept of ethnic community) provided a basis for solving our national and social problems, and it made us enthusiastic adherents of National Socialism. Thanks to my personal observations of how National Socialism solved the critical problems of the common people, I too was inspired to become politically active. I joined the HITLERJUNGEN (Boy Scouts for Hitler) and soon became a leader of 400 youngsters. For me, the Waffen-SS represented the military and spiritual power of a fresh new movement, a national renaissance of which I wanted to be part.

Let me emphasize, as a graduate of the Braunschweig JUNKERSCHULE (SS officer candidate school), that WELTANSCHAUUNG (world-view or philosophy of life) was the principal subject we were taught.
I say this in response to the eternal alibi of certain irresolute individuals who insist that we were “soldiers like all the others.” Our head instructor was Konrad Lorenz, who later became a renowned professor and ecologist and Nobel Prize winner. At that time he was head of the Psychology Department at Königsberg in East Prussia. It was made very clear to us that we were struggling for the survival of Western Civilization. Europe’s future, if it had a future, depended on our ability to overcome both Bolshevism and the rule of GROSSKAPITAL or “Globalism” as it is now called. Our instructors emphasized that since 1917, Bolshevism had liquidated fifty million peasants, artisans, aristocrats and intellectuals; and that Stalin was propagating world revolution and world conquest as his strategic goal. The training I received at the Junkerschule has inspired me all my life.

Upon graduation I was promoted to SS-UNTERSTURMFÜHRER (lieutenant) in the First Pionierkompanie (Sappers) of the First SS-PANZERDIVISION LEIBSTANDARTE ADOLF HITLER. I began my duties on the Eastern front in July 1941 and was wounded three times, the last time at Plattensee.
The Americans captured me while I was recuperating in a military hospital. Then it was hands up, tattoo blood type on left arm and straight to the notorious Altheim prison camp Later I was at Ebensee camp, where after half a year I was able to escape under the barbed wire to relative freedom.

Friedrich Nietzsche has always fascinated me.He influenced me more than any other philosopher. Thanks to Nietzsche as well as numerous other Western philosophers beginning with pre-Socratic Greeks I have developed my inner self so that I am able to experience WELTANSCHAUUNG as a kind of religion. It is not a religion in the sense of a particular confession, but rather a metaphysical connection to a higher plane of existence. You could say that for me, religion is the worship of Life itself.

The comradeship of the front lines contributed greatly to forming my character, along with my basic political and philosophical convictions, The realization that we were fighting for the survival of Europe and the Reich against both Bolshevism and Globalism inspired us strongly. We were bound by a comradeship that today’s youth cannot imagine. [The increasingly international character of Waffen-SS is seldom taken into account. By the end of the War, most of its members were no longer German. They came from every country in the world, especially France and Scandivavia.]

After 1945 the puppet government began its vicious attacks on our honor, which we defended as best we could. After being “liberated” by our enemies, 700,000 German Austrians lost their jobs overnight for having been members of the Party. Along with other persecuted returnees I became active in the HEIMKEHRER HILFS- UND BETREUUNGSSTELLE (Organization to Assist Returnees.) The Verband der Unabhängigen (Association of Independents) und then die Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austin Freedom Party) then developed from the Heimkehrer Hilfs- und Betreuungsstelle.

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
Your involvement in contemporary politics is not limited to “reactivating National Socialism.” You have published several books dealing with questions of appropriate policies and programs for our time. Can you briefly outline your idea of the policies that would enable Germany and Europe to cope with the problems of the present?

SCHWEIGER:
The parameters of a scientifically sound world-view are defined by evolution, genetics and behavioral science – that is, VOLK UND RASSE. There is no such thing as universal equality of mankind. This has nothing to do with value judgments of the relative merits of individual peoples or races, which may be truly great or even unique. The simple truth is that nations, peoples and races vary greatly in every respect. Politics and policies are determined by natural laws, not the other way around. Politics cannot determine natural laws! This is the demonstrable truth, even though our pathetic and shortsighted politicians keep trying to convince us otherwise.

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
You have experienced the War and postwar period as well as the decades since then. When you survey such a long period, do you have the feeling that all is lost? Or, to express the question differently: where can you find hope?

SCHWEIGER:
Our hope is in the younger generation, especially the young people in the former DDR. [This is because what was called East Germany during the Cold War was less Russianized than West Germany was Americanized, and the national spirit survived better in the East. In this respect the former East Germany has been compared to a woman who suffers the eternal fate of women in a conquered land whereas West Germany has been compared to a woman who prostitutes herself.] The DDR agitation against Capitalism had a positive effect on German youth, despite or because of the collapse of Communism. Today’s youth in the former DDR is nationalist, socialist and anti capitalist, as was my generation [the “Greatest Generation” as American authors like to say.] Despite formidable difficulties and dangers, I see great opportunities ahead.

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
In concrete terms, what would Germany and Austria have to do in order to be able to offer future generations hope for the future?

SCHWEIGER:
There are real alternatives for Europe as a whole. The national socialism of the National Socialist German Workers Party has given way to a European-wide movement. In considering our future prospects, we must consider the biological point of view. The scientific discoveries of recent years have made it ever more clear that biology is life. A nation that ignores the laws of life and nature and violates biological imperatives can have no stability in the long run. It causes its own downfall. Geopolitically, the only thing that can protect us from demographic inundation by the overwhelming population masses of Asia and Africa is partnership with Russia.

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
As you look back and take stock from the vantage of your long life, do you feel that you have been able to pass on some part of your convictions and legacy?

SCHWEIGER:
Yes, I believe I have. I have done my utmost for the enlightenment of coming generations with lectures and book publications, which are directed toward the younger public.

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
The last question: what are your sentiments in case the Klagenfurt verdict is upheld and you are compelled to serve your prison sentence? Do you have any regrets?

SCHWEIGER:
I bear no hatred and I feel no anger. As individuals, I absolve those who persecute and convict me. They were born into the Zeitgeist (spirit of the age) that made them what they are. With no sense of VOLK, they are unable to resist the psychology of occupation, subordination and “multiculturalism” imposed on all Europe by our victorious enemies. They are all too human! Whether they suffer from lack of character and intelligence or whether they simply succumb to opportunism, they are unable to escape the dictates of UMERZIEHUNG (Re-education) [or “De-education” as the case may be] that the victors of World War II imposed on us.I cannot absolve certain judges and prosecutors, however. This is because our Reich is still occupied both physically and spiritually, in violation of international law. Some of these judges and prosecutors are actively serving the interests of the occupiers, for their own personal gain.

As for draw a balance and suming up my life - if I could live it over again, I would live it exactly as I have done. I regret none of my choices or actions. When my father lay on his deathbed he said “I have never been untrue to myself!” I am able to say the same thing. Furthermore if a person is able to exhibit a clear countenance (“ANTLITZ BEWAHREN”) his enemies will respect him. The greatest mistake one can make is to apologize for a fundamental and deeply held conviction.

DEUTSCHE STIMME:
Herr SCHWAIGER, we thank you for this interview and extend our best wishes!

The interview was conducted by our editors Henrik Ostendorf and Adrian Preißinger.