Austria’s ‘fight against Islam’: How a Freudian ‘slip’ exposes its racist legacy

erminology is crucial for clear, concise communication, especially when addressing the legacies of racist ideologies that continue to shape societies like Austria’s today.

The term “Nunzis” derives from the Bosnian phrase Naci-Unuci/Nunci, which translates as “Nazi Grandchildren”.

It refers to descendants of Nazis who believe they have undergone denazification but have, in fact, failed to confront their inherited ideologies.

Despite perceiving themselves as having moved beyond their ancestors’ legacy, they remain unaware of the continued influence of those beliefs, thus perpetuating a generational cycle of denial.

This term is necessary to better understand what is happening in Austria and the West more broadly.

Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the governor of Lower Austria and a politician from the Austrian People’s Party (OVP), recently declared in an interview on ORF, Austria’s national broadcaster, that the country must “fight against Islam”.

Her statement was made in the context of defending her party’s sudden shift in stance towards Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, with which the OVP had previously ruled out forming a coalition due to the severe corruption scandals that had tainted their earlier partnership.

The Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis and SS members after World War Two, was long seen as a party created by Nazis for Nazis.

In her televised interview, Mikl-Leitner rejected the need for new elections and suggested that a government could be formed with the Freedom Party, led by Herbert Kickl – a politician who has openly embraced the title “Volkskanzler”,  or “People’s Chancellor”, a term historically associated with Adolf Hitler.

As recently as last year, Freedom Party members attending the funeral of a long-time party figure were heard singing a song glorifying the “Holy German Reich”, a piece of music widely popularised during the Nazi era.

Yet, for Mikl-Leitner, Islam appears to present a greater threat than Nazis.

Targeting Islam

The governor’s statement was left unchallenged during and after the broadcast, exemplifying the normalisation of Islamophobic discourse within Austrian society.

Hundreds of media professionals – producers, editors and journalists – had opportunities to question or condemn Mikl-Leitner’s rhetoric, yet the silence was deafening.

Such passivity from the network is not merely a failure of journalistic integrity but a tacit endorsement of the dangerous ideologies her words represent.

This complacency mirrors Austria’s pre-Holocaust era when hateful rhetoric against Jews was allowed to fester unchecked.

Then, as now, the media’s complicity – whether through active support or passive indifference – played a pivotal role in legitimising hate.

Mikl-Leitner’s comments are not an isolated case; they are part of a broader societal shift in which discriminatory language and policies are a political norm.

She claimed her remark was a “slip of the tongue“, asserting that she meant “political Islam”, but the clarification did little to mask the underlying prejudice.

The concept of a Freudian slip – where unconscious thoughts inadvertently surface – has particular poignancy here, especially given Austria’s historical ties to Sigmund Freud himself.

Freud, an Austrian Jew, fled his homeland in 1938, a victim of the very institutionalised racism that Mikl-Leitner’s rhetoric now echoes.

Then, the target was Judaism; today, it is Islam.

The parallels are striking and alarming. Both antisemitism and Islamophobia are rooted in dehumanisation, portraying targeted groups as existential threats to society’s cultural and political fabric.

‘Deeper malaise’

Mikl-Leitner’s remarks, far from being a simple “slip”, reveal a deeper malaise within Austria’s political and cultural landscape.

The president of the Islamic Religious Community in Austria (IGGO) demanded clarification from the governor for her anti-Islam remarks. Hakan Gordu, chairman of the left-leaning Social Austria of the Future party (SOZ), called for an immediate apology.

Mikl-Leitner not only refused to apologise but doubled down, stating: “Anyone who walks through our country with open eyes will see that too many immigrants in Austria put their religion above our customs and laws. And I do not accept that.”

Unlike some of its European neighbours, Austria has been free of public Quran burnings, thanks to its robust legal framework that protects religious freedom by prohibiting the defamation of religion and incitement, and paragraph 189.

Paragraph 189 of the Austrian Penal Code explicitly criminalises actions that obstruct or disrupt religious practices through violence or threats of violence.

Violators face up to two years in prison, underscoring the country’s commitment to safeguarding faith communities.

Statements promoting a “fight against Islam” clearly represent a threat of violence. It remains to be seen whether the laws Mikl-Leitner mentions will hold any weight, as she now faces legal action from several organisations and individuals for her inflammatory remarks. Gordu has confirmed that his party took legal action because she refused to apologise.

Dark legacy

Brigitte Hamann’s Hitler’s Vienna provides a chilling lens through which to view Austria’s current trajectory.

The book delves into Hitler’s formative years in Vienna (1906–1913), revealing how the city’s toxic ethnic tensions and pervasive racist ideologies profoundly shaped his world view.

While Vienna at the turn of the century is often remembered for its cultural brilliance – the intellectual ferment of Freud, composer Gustav Mahler and the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein – Hamann exposes the city’s underbelly: a cauldron of fear, ethnic rivalry and proto-fascist thought that would later inform Nazi ideology.

This same deep-seated racism, Hamann shows, not only shaped Hitler’s early world view but also drove Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, to envision a homeland for the Jewish people. Herzl’s experiences of antisemitism in Vienna shaped his determination to escape the bigotry that suffused Austrian society.

Yet, over a century later, the targets of such hate have shifted rather than disappeared. Today, Islam and Muslims have become the scapegoats in a narrative eerily reminiscent of the antisemitic conspiracies that once gripped Austria and Europe.

Austria’s entanglement with systemic hate is well documented. Despite making up only 8 percent of Nazi Germany’s population, Austrians accounted for 14 percent of SS members and 40 percent of extermination camp personnel. 

This complicity continues to shape Austria’s political and cultural landscape, with echoes of Nazi-era prejudices against Jews now directed at Muslims and other minorities.

Austria’s institutional response to hate has been equally troubling. Consider the case of a University of Vienna professor who publicly denied the Srebrenica genocide.

The university’s appalling reaction – a faceless, unsigned statement with no accountability – highlights a broader culture of denial. When the Mothers of Srebrenica sought an apology in an open letter for the professor’s denialism, their appeals were met with silence.

Such refusal to confront uncomfortable truths reflects Austria’s persistent struggle with acknowledging its own historical failures.

Further compounding this troubling pattern, the Austrian president recently awarded the nation’s highest honour to Peter Handke, a denier of the Srebrenica genocide.

By elevating a figure who has openly engaged in historical revisionism and genocide denial, Austria sends a disturbing message: an Islamophobic genocide denier is being celebrated as a national role model.

Institutionalised discrimination

Austria has distinct laws governing various religions.

The Austrian Islam Law, first enacted in 1912 following the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, officially recognised Islam as a state-recognised religion. However, a 2015 revision introduced sweeping state controls, including the power to close mosques, financial disclosure requirements and severe fines.

The law also imposes unique restrictions on Islam, such as a ban on foreign funding, and state oversight of imam training – measures not applied to any other religion. For example, while churches in Austria can receive donations from Bosnia, Bosnian mosques cannot.

Additionally, religious instruction is typically reserved for teachers of the same faith – Protestants must be taught by Protestants, not atheists or Catholics. Yet this principle does not extend to Muslims, highlighting the unequal treatment they face.

No other religious community in Austria is subjected to such restrictive measures.

In 2017, Austria introduced a “Burqa Ban”, effectively targeting Muslims by criminalising the wearing of full-face veils in public. Although framed as a general ban on face coverings, the law exclusively targets Muslim women.

Ironically, clowns protested the law, claiming it hindered their performances. They were granted an exemption, illustrating the absurdity: in Austria, clowns have more rights than Muslim women.

Notably, the only prohibited coverings are those worn by Muslims.

The creation of the “Islam Map” by the University of Vienna – mapping Islamic institutions and even private addresses – represents another example of institutionalised Islamophobia in Austria.

Since its introduction in 2021, racist attacks and the stigmatisation of Muslims have increased.

The Council of Europe urged Austria to revoke the map, calling it harmful and counterproductive. While combating extremism is important, the council argued, the map fuels prejudice and is seen as discriminatory by many Muslims.

Austria’s Muslim Youth Organisation also launched a legal campaign to remove the addresses. After nearly four years, their efforts succeeded, with Austria’s Constitutional Court ruling that parts of the map violated data protection laws.

However, the University of Vienna has appealed, and the map remains online.

Following the 2020 terrorist attack in Vienna – one that Austrian authorities had been warned about by Slovak officials and whose perpetrator was already on their watch list – Austria introduced a controversial law requiring the compulsory registration of Muslim imams.

The attack occurred just a week before Operation Luxor, an Islamophobic police operation that had been in planning for nearly two years to “root out political Islam”.

While the law has been widely criticised as discriminatory, some have even suggested extending it across the entire European Union.

Racist euphemisms

The term “political Islam” has become a convenient euphemism for stigmatising Muslim communities.

By framing Islam as a political ideology rather than a faith, this narrative casts Muslims as conspiratorial threats rather than equal participants in society.

This rhetoric mirrors the antisemitic tropes that once depicted Jews as part of a shadowy global cabal, perpetuating stereotypes that dehumanise and marginalise them.

Additionally, the construct of “political Islam” allows the Nunzis to shift the responsibility for the Holocaust onto Muslims, characterising Islam as a form of fascism.

In doing so, they avoid confronting their own Nazi past and the process of denazification while simultaneously assuming a moral superiority – similar to the one their ancestors once claimed through racial theory.

This new moral superiority is now expressed not through racial narratives but through cultural ones, as seen in the emergence of the concept of Leitkultur, or leading culture, in Germany and Austria.

This term implies the cultural superiority of the dominant group over minorities, further marginalising Muslim communities and legitimising discrimination based on cultural grounds.

At a crossroads

Will Austria uphold its laws impartially, or have Muslims already been relegated to second-class citizenship?

Failure to enforce equality under the law would mark a dangerous shift towards systemic inequality, signalling Austria’s drift into an apartheid-like state.

This case also tests Austria’s commitment to secularism, requiring both separation of religion from government and governmental non-interference in religion.

If laws are to be applied fairly, they must also extend to leaders whose rhetoric incites hostility against a particular religion – such incitement undoubtedly constitutes interference.

This is not just a challenge for Mikl-Leitner but a defining moment for Austria’s democratic and secular identity.

The parallels between Austria’s past and present are undeniable.

Herzl died in Lower Austria, the region now governed by Mikl-Leitner. The racism that once gave rise to Hitler and the toxic ideology of Nazism remains a pervasive undercurrent.

Herzl sought to escape it, but as history shows, escaping racism does not solve it. Confronting it does.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sunna Files Website.