Thomas Klestil, former Austrian president

Thomas Klestil died this past week at age 71, just two days before he was scheduled to leave office after two 6-year terms as Austria’s president.

I had a great deal of respect for Klestil, who distinguished himself as Austrian president by dealing forthrightly with the heritage of the Third Reich period in Austria and more especially by establishing restraints on the anti-democratic tendencies of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) led by Jörg Haider.  He was also a strong advocate of the European Union in Austria.

Some of the English-language obituaries I’ve seen, like that by the Associated Press and even the Financial Times described the Austrian Presidency as largely a “ceremonial” post.  But actually, Austria’s presidency has more constitutional authority than many other European heads of state, such as Germany’s president.  Austria’s constitution is actually very similar to that of the German Weimar Republic, which degenerated into an increasingly authoritarian system in its last couple of years thanks to the abuse of presidential powers.

Guarding Democracy

Klestil made good use of the substantive powers of his office in 2000, when the conservative (Christian-democratic) People’s Party (ÖVP) under Wolfgang Schüssel wanted to form a national government with the Haider-dominated FPÖ.  Haider himself had become notorious for various statements implicitly (and sometimes more than implicitly) praising Hitler and the Third Reich.  During the 1990s, Haider was the envy of other far-right European politicians, because his brand of “yuppie fascism” was far more successful than its counterparts in other EU countries.

Klestil insisted on a statement of democratic principles from the new ÖVP/ FPÖ coalition.  He also refused to accept two proposed cabinet-level FPÖ ministers because of statements that had made that he decided were inappropriate for ministers in a democratic government.

It’s in no small part thanks to Klestil’s handling of the new coalition that now, four years later, it requires some effort for most people to recall what the fuss was all about.  The other EU states imposed “diplomatic sanctions” on Austria for including Haider’s party in the government.  The literally amounted to not much more than not inviting Austrian diplomats to the standard round of tedious dinner parties for a few weeks.  To see the headlines in the Austrian press, though, you would think the country was being shamelessly persecuted.

Klestil himself was Austria’s most important diplomatic resource at that time.  He reassured the rest of the world, and especially the other EU members, that Austria would remain democratic.

Since then, Haider’s has gone from being a potential new Engelbert Dollfuss (Austria’s version of Mussolini in the 1930s) to being the clown prince of Austrian politics.  Some of the details actually are interesting.  But the bottom line is that Haider has repeatedly promoted upheavals in the party so that they have been largely ineffective at the national level, and their standing in the polls and performance in elections has dropped dramatically.

They have done some real harm.  And I wouldn’t want to minimize the nastiness of Haider and many of this followers.  But it turns out that Haider is more of a narcissist who likes to generate publicity and see himself in the news than he is an up-and-coming dictator.  But to have any real aspiration to be the latter, Haider would have had to have some significant degree of collaboration and at least sympathetic neutrality from the Austrian president.  He did not get it from Klestil, nor is he likely to get much of it from the new Social Democratic President Heinz Fischer.

Symbolic Substance

Klestil had enjoyed a distinguished career as an Austrian diplomat before he became the ÖVP’s candidate for President in 1992.  He succeeded one-term Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, whose past history as an officer implicated in war crimes during the Second World War became an international scandal when he had run for the office in 1986.  Waldheim was banned from making visits to most countries of the world, including the US, because of that history, a considerable embarrassment for the Austrian head of state.

Klestil presented a much better image to the world.  And he consciously set out to undo some of the harm to Austria’s reputation that had been caused by the surly Waldheim, who had all the warmth and charm of a Dick Cheney.  Klestil used his position as head of state to spoke out Austrian complicity in the Third Reich, including in a speech to the Israeli Parliament.

In 1986, many Austrians exhibited what could generously be described as a knee-jerk patriotic reaction to international criticism of Waldheim’s role in the Second World War.  But in the years since, Austria has seen a much more discussion of the Third Reich period than it ever had before.  (The 1933-1938 era of “Austrofascism” is now a more touchy historical discussion in Austria than the Third Reich.

Klestil caused a stir of a different kind by having an affair with a woman in the Foreign Ministry.  Unlike our hysterical Republicans of the Ken Starr variety, the public in European countries tend to assume affairs on the part of their high officials as a matter of course.  Klestil’s situation was a little different, because his wife separated from him while he was in office.  This gave rise to a joke:  “What’s the difference between Kurt Waldheim and Thomas Klestil?  Waldheim can’t go abroad, and Klestil can’t go home."

Eventually, Klestil divorced his wife andmarried his girlfriend.  In Austria, the Catholic Church and the civil government don’t formally recognize marriages performed by the other.  So Klestil had a civil ceremony only for the second marriage, sparing the effort and embarrassment of a Church nullification.

The funeral and mourning

Klestil received a state funeral on Saturday.  Vienna Archbishop Christoph Schönborn eulogized him as a “passionate Austrian patriot” and an exemplary citizen of the world.

The Oberösterreichische Nachrichten reports that „never before in the history of the [postwar World War II] Second Republic” were so many heads of state in Austria as for the funeral of Thomas Klestil Saturday. Die Welt erweist Klestil die letzte Ehre 07/11/04.

Fidel Castro declared a day of official mourning for Klestil in Cuba, with flags to be flown at half mast.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger represented the US at Klestil’s state funeral, giving Schwarzenegger a couple of days respite from some bitter partisan rangling over the state budget in California.  Vice Presidents stereotypically represent the US at such state funerals.  But maybe Dick Cheney is starting to worry about getting busted for war crimes if he travels abroad, due tohis office's role in the Iraq invasion and the torture issue.