Jorg Haider is Dead

**KukriKhan** · 10-11-2008, 13:44

I don't yet find word of the man's funeral, so let us observe a 72-hour moratorium on criticising his career, out of respect for his survivors.

Open season, therefore Tuesday, 14 October, 1200 GMT.

**JR-** · 10-11-2008, 15:47

it is a shame he is gone from politics, because parties like his that effected the will of the electorate did more than anything to shine a spotlight on the poisonous conformist and PC nature of european politics.

**Kadagar_AV** · 10-11-2008, 15:57

I did not vote for him in the last election, but he has my respect. At least he always told the truth as it was. I am sad he is gone, as he really made this country more aware of political issues.

RIP

**Fragony** · 10-11-2008, 16:04

If what Luigi posted actually came from his mouth then we really don't need it, political correctness disgusts me but glorifying nazi's disgust me a whole lot more. Racism is an ugly thing that should never get in the way of the discussion we should be having.

**Louis VI the Fat** · 10-11-2008, 17:55

Originally Posted by Fragony

If what Luigi posted actually came from his mouth then we really don't need it, political correctness disgusts me but glorifying nazi's disgust me a whole lot more. Racism is an ugly thing that should never get in the way of the discussion we should be having.

I am unsure about whether to leave his politics for a few days or not. Then again, each man chooses his own actions and words. And we remember them at his death:

Born in the Upper Austrian town of Bad Goisern in 1950, Joerg Haider's parents were very early members of the Nazi party, who moved to Germany where they became party officials. Critics say Haider's views were shaped by this background, although he said his family seldom discussed the past.

Around the same time he became party leader, Haider inherited a controversial $16m estate in the southern province of Carinthia where he became governor in 1989. Barental, or Bear Valley, was bought during World War II by his great uncle from an Italian Jew who fled in 1940. Critics say the sale was illegitimately forced upon the Jewish owner by the Nazis, but Haider consistently denied this.

He amassed a formidable power base in Carinthia, but his first stint as governor in 1989 ended abruptly when he praised the employment policies of Nazi Germany and was forced to resign. He was re-elected, however, in 1999 and 2003.

Haider gained notoriety for his pro-Nazi comments. He described World War II concentration camps as "punishment camps" and said the Nazi SS was "a part of the German army which should be honoured".
He also compared the deportation of Jews by the Nazis to the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after the war.

No leftist blog. Just the obituary on the BBC.