[datek23]

This is a weird incident especially if anyone knows anything about Austria politics, current situation and former leaders. Basically Does anyone remember Austria Former President several years ago? His name is Joerg Haider. He was known as a Nazi Supporter and step down after the heat was on him back around 4 years ago. Now the Austria Government is trying to put on a straight face and put all the blame on one person David Irving. This is a ultimate cover up and shame on Austrian government trying to conceal their true intentions. Why not go after Haider? THis is a shocking story and nothing but a country trying to look innocent and finally found a scrapegoat to blame everything on. Even if David Irwing is a true ass punk, who is the Austria government trying to fool. Below is the article of David Irwing

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060220/...locaust_denial

VIENNA, Austria - Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty Monday to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison, even after conceding he wrongly said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
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Irving, handcuffed and wearing a navy blue suit, arrived in court carrying a copy of one of his most controversial books — "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the Holocaust.

"I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving told the court before his sentencing, at which he faced up to 10 years in prison.

He also expressed sorrow "for all the innocent people who died during the Second World War."

But he insisted he never wrote a book about the Holocaust, which he called "just a fragment of my area of interest."

"In no way did I deny the killings of millions of people by the Nazis," testified Irving, who has written nearly 30 books.

The court said Irving had three days to appeal his sentence. His lawyer did not immediately say whether he planned to do so.

Irving, 67, has been in custody since his November arrest on charges stemming from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he was accused of denying the Nazis' extermination of 6 million Jews. He has contended that most of those who died at concentration camps such as Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than execution.

The convicted Irving after his guilty plea under the 1992 law, which applies to "whoever denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media."

Irving's trial came amid new — and fierce — debate over freedom of expression in Europe, where the printing and reprinting of unflattering caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad has triggered deadly protests worldwide.

Irving's lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, said last month the controversial Third Reich historian was getting up to 300 pieces of fan mail a week from supporters around the world and was writing his memoirs in detention under the working title "Irving's War."

Irving was arrested Nov. 11 in the southern Austrian province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989. He was charged under a federal law that makes it a crime to publicly diminish, deny or justify the Holocaust.

Irving had tried to win his provisional release on $24,000 bail, but a Vienna court refused, saying it considered him a flight risk.

Within two weeks of his arrest, he asserted through his lawyer that he had come to acknowledge the existence of Nazi-era gas chambers. Before the trial began, Irving told reporters he now acknowledges that the Nazis systematically slaughtered Jews during World War II.

"History is like a constantly changing tree," he said.

In the past, however, he has claimed that Adolf Hitler knew little if anything about the Holocaust, and he has been quoted as saying there was "not one shred of evidence" the Nazis carried out their "Final Solution" to exterminate the Jewish population on such a massive scale.

Vienna's national court, where the trial is being held, ordered the balcony gallery closed to prevent projectiles from being thrown down at the bench, the newspaper Die Presse reported Sunday.

It quoted officials as saying they were bracing for Irving's supporters to give him the Nazi salute or shout out pro-Hitler slogans during the trial.

In 2000, Irving sued American Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt for libel in a British court but lost. The presiding judge in that case, Charles Gray, wrote that Irving was "an active Holocaust denier ... anti-Semitic and racist."

Irving has had numerous run-ins with the law over the years.

In 1992, a judge in Germany fined him the equivalent of $6,000 for publicly insisting the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz were a hoax.



THis is news from their former president.

http://www.adl.org/backgrounders/joerg_haider.asp or just read on

oerg Haider: The Rise of an Austrian Extreme Rightist

Updated: March 9, 2004
Introduction

Known for his dubious statements about Jews, his praise of Nazism, his embrace of Saddam Hussein, and for his personal charisma, far-right politician Joerg Haider led his moribund Freedom Party to a surprise victory in the March 7, 2004 elections in the Austrian province of Carinthia. Political analysts viewed this win as a come-back for the beleaguered Haider. The party garnered 42.2 percent of the vote, beating the rival Social Democratic Party which finished with 38 percent. The party did less well in the Salzburg regional election, with the party losing up to half of its previous support. However, with the strong showing in Carinthia, Haider is likely to once again vie to be a player on the national political stage, preparing for the 2006 federal elections.

Labeled by his critics as a "yuppie fascist" and the "Austrian David Duke," Joerg Haider is one of Austria's most prominent and controversial leaders. To his supporters, Haider is a breath of fresh air, promising job security, social benefits, and a new breed of politician who follows through on his election promises. The charismatic populist promises to eliminate corruption, curtail abuses of the welfare state, and protect Austria's national interests from being overrun by illegal immigrants and unchecked global markets.

To his opponents, Haider is a dangerous right-wing extremist who exploits Austria's disenchantment with the perennial ruling parties to advance his xenophobic, racist and intolerant policies. Throughout his public career, Haider has consistently parried accusations of anti-Semitism. His record, however, reveals numerous statements utilizing Holocaust terminology and legitimizing Nazi policy and activities.

Political Life

A lawyer by profession, Haider lives with his wife and two children in an inherited 38,000 acre estate. The estate was once owned by Jews who were forced to sell the land after the 1938 German annexation of Austria.

Joerg Haider was born in 1950 in Upper Austria to parents with direct links to the Nazis. His father joined Hitler Youth in 1929 and the Nazi SA storm troops a year later. The senior Haider reportedly traveled to Munich with Adolf Eichmann and Alois Brunner in 1933 as a member of the Austrian legion. Haider's mother belonged to the Nazi Paty's League of German Girls. When asked to comment on his parents' wartime activities, Haider remarked: "In retrospect one is always wiser. As a descendant, one should not be so arrogant as to say, 'I would have known better.'"

Since the age of twenty, Haider has held various positions in the right-wing Freedom Party, including as a member of parliament from 1979 through 1983. In 1986, Haider was elected party leader. Three years later, saying he would use provincial politics as a springboard for the chancellorship, Haider became the governor of Carinthia. In 1991, Haider was forced to resign from this post after publicly praising Nazi labor policy (see below), and became Deputy Governor. Haider re-entered the national parliament in March 1992.

Haider's success in the October 1994 national elections astounded political observers. In 1986, the Freedom Party received 5% of the vote. Only eight years later, in the 1994 elections, Haider and his party garnered 22.6% of the vote, up from 16.5% from 1990, achieving the dubious distinction of gaining more votes in a parliamentary election than any other European far-right party. In the 183 seat parliament, the Freedom Party jumped from thirteen to forty-two seats. Political analysts credited the Freedom Party's success to a receptiveness to Haider's anti-foreigner message, as well as with a wide-spread disgust for the stodginess and patronage of the Social Democrats and the Austrian People's Party.

Haider's rise caused the two mainstay parties of Austrian politics to suffer losses they had not experienced in their forty-nine year reign. The Social Democrats garnered only 35% of the vote, a drop of 8%, receiving only 66 seats. Their coalition partner, the conservative Austrian People's Party, dropped 4.4% to 28% of the vote, receiving only 52 seats. The coalition continued, until its breakdown in October 1995, with both party leaders refusing to welcome Haider as a coalition partner.

In October of the following year, Austria's first direct election for Members of the European Parliament took place. In this election, the Social Democratic Party (SPO) suffered serious electoral setbacks, in contrast with both the Austrian People's Party (OVP) and Haider's Freedom Party (FPO), which increased their share of the vote. One of the principal factors that contributed to the Freedom Party's success in this election was its anti-European stance. In gaining 27.6% of the vote, Haider's party broke through the projected 25% "natural ceiling" that had until then been assumed for the European far right.

In local provincial elections, Haider's party gained great popularity. The FPO emerged as the strongest party in the provinces of Salzburg and Carinthia, and a similar trend emerged in the elections to the municipal assembly of Vienna, which is Austria's most important local council. In these elections, the SPO lost the majority it had held without interruption since 1918 (except during 1934-1945). Compared to the performance of Austria's two biggest parties, the FPO increased its share of the vote from 22.5% to 28%.

In 1997, Haider's party captured 28% of votes in elections to the European Parliament; the Freedom Party's total was 6 percentage points higher than what it scored in December's general elections. The results placed the Freedom Party in third place, behind the People's Party, the junior coalition party that scored 29.6 % of the vote, and the governing Social Democratic Party, which gained 29.1 % of the vote.

Haider was re-elected to governor of Carinthia by a landslide in 1999. Later that year, the Freedom Party finished second in general elections with a stunning 27 percent of the vote. With the political leverage gained from the 1999 election, in 2000, the Freedom Party succeeded in joining the new Austrian government as a coalition partner. This development lead to an outcry from many in Austria, the international community as well as Jewish and non-Jewish organizations around the world, and finally culminated in Israel's recalling its ambassador from Vienna. The European Union imposed sanctions on Austria. While Haider resigned as head of the Freedom Party in 2000, he continued to be a major influence behind the scenes, and retained his position as Governor of Carinthia. In November 2002, Haider's machinations lead to early elections, and support for the party fell precipitously to 10%. Although the Freedom Party remained a "junior partner" in the governing coalition, Haider and the Party's influence was greatly diminished.

The 2004 campaign in Carinthia was seen as a major test of Haider's viability as a politician. With polls predicting a Freedom Party loss, and pundits highlighting his embrace of Saddam Hussein in the lead-up to the war and other questionable policy choices, Haider was expected to get under 30% of the popular vote. He surprised analysts in the days before the election by moving up in the polls, and in the end, retained his governorship and his level of popular support.

The Freedom Party

The Austrian Freedom Party, founded in 1956, is the heir to the League of Independents. Formed in 1949, the League was the direct descendant of the faction that promoted pan-German nationalism for Austria both under the Habsburgs and in the years following World War I.

Initially reluctant to welcome the terms of Austrian independence, especially the neutrality clause of the State Treaty, the Freedom Party chose instead to take a pro-European position as a substitute for identification with Germany. As the only political group espousing free-market, pro-(Western) Europe views in Austria, the Freedom Party also included a liberal wing resembling the Free Democrats of the Federal Republic of Germany. The two tendencies were always uneasy with each other, and the party's origins were never wholly abandoned. The first two leaders of the Freedom Party were respectively a former member of Chancellor Arthur Seyss-Inquart's post-Anschluss (unity) Nazi cabinet of 1938 and an ex-SS officer.

Until the 1990's, the Freedom Party was a marginal part of Austrian public life. In the elections of 1949 and 1953, the Freedom Party's predecessor scored around 10 percent; thereafter, the Freedom Party received between four to seven percent of the national vote. Under Haider's leadership, support for the Freedom Party has increased at an incredible rate.

The Freedom Party's agenda continues to be nationalist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Europe.

Defending Nazi policy and Nazis:

Haider has a long public record of defending the policies of Nazi Germany and of justifying individual actions during those years. Haider has utilized terminology reminiscent of the Nazis, announcing, for example in October 1990 a "final solution to the farm question." Upon his election to the leadership of the Freedom Party, Haider rejected comparisons with the German Nazi Party, saying "The Freedom Party is not the descendant of the National Socialist Party. If it were, we would have an absolute majority."

Indeed, Haider first gained international attention in March 1986 during the controversy surrounding the return of Walter Reder, an Austrian born former major in the Nazi SS, who was freed by Italy from a life sentence he was serving for his role in the mass killing of Italian civilians in 1944. For Haider, the controversy was ridiculous, as Reder was "a soldier who had done his duty." Dismissing Reder's wartime activities, Haider stated: "If you are going to speak about war crimes, you should admit such crimes were committed by all sides."

Haider's most infamous comment came during a July 1991 debate in the Carinthia provincial parliament, when Haider, then governor, declared: "An orderly employment policy was carried out in the Third Reich, which the government in Vienna cannot manage." In face of a national and international uproar, Haider apologized for his remarks, but said "What I said was a statement of fact: that in the Third Reich a large number of workplaces were created through an intensive employment policy and unemployment was thereby eliminated." Haider, who resigned over the controversy, did not mention to particulars of Nazi labor policy, including military buildup, forced labor, and concentration camps. Haider has defended his 1991 statement, claiming he was referring to Nazi policy between 1933 and 1936.

In May 1992, while the government was embroiled in a scandal involving a provincial government's decision to honor a gathering of Wafen SS veterans, Haider defended the decision. Haider instead accused the Interior Minister in Parliament of engaging in "primitive attacks" on "respectable" war veterans, while turning a blind eye to immigrant perpetrated crime.

Haider spoke out against the Austrian government's plans to compensate 30,000 Austrian victims of Nazi rule, including Jews, Communists and homosexuals, claiming that Austrian victims of the allies, such as civilians who fled Austria's occupation by US, Soviet, French and British troops, should also be compensated. As he told an elderly Austrian audience in April 1995, "It is not fair if all the money from the tax coffers goes to Israel." However, when the Parliament voted in June to set up a $50 million compensation fund, Haider voted in its favor. Still insisting on the need for compensation for victims of the allies, Haider explained, "But we do not intend to be petty. Even though you will not join us to widen the scope of the fund we will not vote against the bill. We too want to draw a line under a chapter we are also responsible for."

In May 1995, the Freedom Party was the only major Austrian political party absent from ceremonies at Mauthausen death camp marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the liberation of the camp. Just before the anniversary, Haider had referred to Mauthausen as a "punishment camp," implying that those interred there were criminals.

During a ceremony commemorating World War II veterans which is known to attract former SS officers and neo-Nazis, Haider called the crowd, including an array of former SS officers, "decent people of good character" and applauded them for "sticking to their convictions despite the greatest opposition." While addressing the reunion of Waffen-SS veterans, Haider declared that the reason people opposed them was "simply that in this world there are decent people who have character and who have stuck to their beliefs through the strongest headwinds and who remained true to their convictions until today." Haider's appearance at the ceremony was revealed when an amateur videotape of the gathering was broadcast on German television in December 1996.

Following these revelations, Haider defended his appearance at the event, saying: "The Waffen SS was a part of the Wehrmacht and hence it deserves all the honor and respect of the army in public life." "Everything I said in that video was completely acceptable." "I participated in this event and I don't see any reason not to. While I reject National Socialism, I certainly do not approve of the wholesale disparagement of the older war generation. I stand by this generation and I fight against the way it is disparaged."

In a television interview following the event, Haider claimed he did not know the Waffen SS had been branded a criminal organization by the post-war Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, adding: "It doesn't interest me in the least."

During a parliamentary debate in July 1998 on a proposed new law requiring applicants for Austrian citizenship to prove knowledge of German, Franz Larfer, an MP of the Freedom Party, used the word Umvolkung. This term was used by the Nazis to define the forced change of the ethnic composition of a population by immigration or compulsory transfer. This happened in Eastern Europe during the Nazi-period leading consequently to the annihilation of the inhabitants. The term is comparable to the expression ethnic cleansing. In reaction to the use of this expression, members of the Austrian parliament booed and shouted and the session had to be interrupted. After Heinz Fisher, the president of the Austrian parliament, explained to Larfer the meaning of this word, Larfer returned to the microphone apologizing for applying it. As the media reported extensively on this incident, Haider defended Laufer's use of this term, and reiterated in a press conference the following day that his colleague was right in using this expression, explaining that the government applying a liberal immigration policy allows for extensive "foreign infiltration," which subsequently leads to Umvolkung.

Attempts to Improve Image

Over the past decade, Haider has taken a number of public steps in an attempt to redeem his international image. During a 1994 visit to the United States, Haider visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., declaring afterwards: "I think that even those individuals who don't know much about history will realize that we must do everything to enforce tolerance, everything to enforce human rights and everything to strengthen democracy."

In May 1995, Haider and four companions visited the Simon Weisenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. The visit came in the midst of a Freedom Party advertising campaign opposing a plan to make Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal (in whose honor the Center is named by who is unaffiliated with the organization) an honorary citizen. Haider and the Freedom Party claimed the Museum was questioning Austrian democracy by hanging the democratically elected Haider's photo alongside those of Idi Amin, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. In fact, Haider's photo hung alongside politicians described by the Center as "right-wing demagogues," including Jean-Marie Le Pen and David Duke. Haider's request for a meeting with the Center's leaders was rebuffed.

In 1996, Haider appointed Peter Sichrovshky, a Jewish Viennese journalist, as his number 2 candidate for the European elections in October. Many attributed Sichrovsky's appointment to a move by Haider to avoid criticisms of anti-Semitism. Sichrovsky, in response, maintained that such accusations were themselves anti-Semitic: rather than accepting him as a parliamentarian, commentators could only remark on his religion. Haider denies that Sichrovsky was only selected as the Freedom Party's deputy leader because he is Jewish. On October 16, 1996, Sichrovsky was elected as one of six members of the European Parliament on the Freedom Party ticket. Sichrovsky split with Haider in 2002 over internal party politics.

In an attempt to appear more conventional, Haider has blunted his sharp rhetoric. He has avoided bad company since his 1996 meeting with SS veterans. His 2004 campaign in Carinthia avoided much of the sensationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric of past campaigns, and instead focused on economic and governance issues.

Conclusion

Haider has fended off accusations of anti-Semitism since the 1980's, but his insensitivity to Nazi brutality and a refusal to appreciate the suffering endured by those who lived under Nazi rule is well documented. Haider's recent attempts to promote a more moderate political agenda, for the purposes of attracting votes from the center and gaining acceptance from the international community, do not erase his record of xenophobic policies.

As his political fortunes rise and fall, Joerg Haider has demonstrated that he continues to be a force in Austrian politics.


More articles on Haider

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/464260.stm or just read on


Austria's most controversial politician, Joerg Haider, has more than once said he wants to be the country's leader.

His resignation as head of the far-right Freedom Party just weeks after it entered government would seem to be a surprising way of going about it.

But analysts are already saying Mr Haider's latest move is part of a masterplan to give his party greater power and eventually propel him to the top spot.


... in the Third Reich they had an orderly employment policy ....

Joerg Haider, June 1991
Mr Haider's rise to prominence has horrified many around the world and in Austria who regard him as an ambitious, racist opportunist.

But to his supporters he is a patriot who has dared to speak uncomfortable truths.

Unlike many rightwing rabble-rousers, Mr Haider is educated, and he has charisma. Commentators say he works a room like Bill Clinton, embracing supporters and using the familiar 'du' form of address.

Nazi parents

Mr Haider was born in the Upper Austrian town of Bad Goisern in 1950.

His parents were very early members of the Nazi party, who moved to Germany where they became party officials.


"The Waffen SS was a part of the Wehrmacht (German military) and hence it deserves all the honour and respect of the army in public life."

Joerg Haider, December 1995
After the war they were punished for their affiliations and forced to take up menial work.

Critics say Mr Haider's views are shaped by this background, although he himself says there was little discussion of the past.

Power

After school, where he was reportedly almost always top of the class, Mr Haider studied law in Vienna and joined the Freedom Party in 1976.

He became its leader 10 years later, when the party was barely securing 5% at the polls.

In the last 14 years, he has increased that support to 28%.


"In the past, some remarks have been attributed to me in connection with Nazism which were certainly insensitive or open to misunderstanding."

Joerg Haider, November 1999
Around the same time he became party leader, Mr Haider inherited a controversial estate in the southern province of Carinthia, valued at $15.8m.

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 has consistently denied this.

Nazi praise

Mr Haider has amassed a formidable power base in Carinthia, where he has been re-elected governor.

His first stint as governor in 1989 ended abruptly when he praised the employment policies of Nazi Germany and was forced to resign.

A few years later, 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".


I unequivocally made the point that this remark was not made with the meaning understood by you. If it reassures you then I take back the remark with regret.

Joerg Haider, after his "employment policy" comment caused uproar in the Carinthian provincial parliament
He has also compared the deportation of Jews by the Nazis to the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II.

In more recent times he has apologised for saying such things but the suspicion remains that his real views have not changed.

Europhobe

Mr Haider himself has always denied being an extremist and even likes to compare himself politically to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But whatever his current thinking about the Nazis, his opinion of foreigners is not exactly friendly.

During last October's Austrian election campaign, Mr Haider whipped up feeling against immigrants and suggested that without them the government's austerity budget would not be necessary.

He tried to stop Austria joining the European Union in 1995 and attempted to force a referendum on whether to join the single currency. On both issues he failed.

But his anti-EU views are still alive and kicking. He is opposed to plans to let in new countries and has called it a ''declaration of war against all working and upstanding people".

His views on the EU are unlikely to have been changed by the decision of its members to isolate Austria after the Freedom Party joined the new coalition government.

As a man who enjoys the limelight, Mr Haider's move away from centre stage may not be easy for him.

But analysts say it is designed to take international pressure off Austria and will give him more time to plan for his return.



In my oponion its seems like Austria is trying to cover up something. Putting blame on Irwing and why not on Haider? Even if Irwing is a known racist why not go after Haider especially with his former rmarks on Nazism and Jews. Bunch of pure BS. Austria finally found a scrapegoat and try to look like they really care. I am glad I have a good memory and knew something was very fishie when I read this especially from a country like Austria.

[datek23]

I have another story of an incident dealing with Austria. I looks like Maria Altmann former Holocaust Survivor gets back the painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt. This painting is worth millions upon millions of dollars. In todays USA today there is an another article specially dealing with Austria once again. This country sure knows how to make news one way or another. In todays paper they mentioned her family will get back five paintings worth 300 million. This is big news. Below is a brief summary what I have found on the net detailing the situation. There are more updated links, but this is good for now.

Here is a link dealing with Maria Altmann

http://financialservices.house.gov/banking/21000blo.htm

Stolen from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and never returned!

Gustav Klimt’s famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is just one of six paintings by that artist which were taken from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer by the Nazis after March 1938 and never returned. Ferdinand’s niece and heir, Maria Altmann (age 84), has actively been trying to recover the paintings for the past two years. This is her story.

Contents

Summary 3

Before 1938 4

Escape from Austria 4

The Looting 5

Post-war Hostility 6

Attempts at Restitution 7

The Extortion 9

The Revelation 11

Promised Restitution 12

The Opposition 13

The Decision 14

The Law 15

Political Pressure 16

Lawsuit 17

The Treaty 17

Conclusion 18

Summary

Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a prominent Jewish Viennese businessman, head of the Austrian sugar industry and a lifelong collector of art, commissioned the well known painter and founder of the Austrian Secession Movement, Gustav Klimt, to do several portraits of his wife Adele. He bought two of these in addition to four landscapes by the same artist. In 1936 he donated one of the landscapes to the Austrian Gallery. The five remaining paintings were hanging in Ferdinand’s home until the day that the Nazis seized its entire contents.

Adele died in 1925 when the bacillus of the Nazi plague was still dormant. She left a will requesting her husband to leave the Klimt paintings in his will to the Austrian Gallery in Vienna. Ferdinand declared himself willing to do so when his time would come. However, in 1938 when the Nazis invaded the Austrian territory, he fled for his life to Switzerland, leaving of course, all his possessions behind. He died in exile in 1945 having revoked all previous wills. The reason for this is obvious; he had lost all of his Austrian possessions and therefore the possibility to dispose of them. The Austrian Government now takes the position that the request of Adele Bloch-Bauer's will has the force of a legacy. This, of course, is absurd.

The paintings belonged to her husband who had commissioned them and paid for them. Under this flimsy pretext the Austrian Government has refused to turn over the stolen paintings to the last surviving member of the Bloch-Bauer family, Maria Altmann. An attempt to take legal action against the Austrian Government was stifled by its demand of a prior deposit of $500,000. And so, the Klimt paintings are stolen again: the first time by the Nazis in 1938, the second time at the end of World War II when the Austrian Government forbade the export of "Austrian Art", the third time now by a flagrant perversion of the law.

Before 1938

Maria Altmann was born into an affluent Jewish family in Vienna, Austria in 1916. Every Sunday she and her four older siblings would have brunch over at the beautiful palais owned by her uncle Ferdinand and aunt Adele. The palais, a large building on one of the finest streets in Vienna, was gorgeously decorated with fine artworks, tapestries, porcelain and furniture. When Adele died suddenly of meningitis in 1925, Ferdinand created a memorial room for her with her two full-length portraits by Klimt and four landscapes. A seventh Klimt painting was in Ferdinand’s bedroom.

When Adele died, she left behind a short will that asked that her husband donate the two portraits and four landscapes to the Austrian Gallery after his death. Although the paintings belonged to Ferdinand, and not his wife, Ferdinand allegedly stated that he intended to fulfill his wife’s wishes although he was not legally required to do so. In 1936, at the request of the Austrian Gallery, Ferdinand donated one of the landscapes to the museum.

Escape from Austria

In December 1937, Ferdinand’s niece Maria (age 21) was married. Her husband Fritz Altmann was the younger brother of the cashmere sweater manufacturer Bernard Altmann. As a wedding gift, Ferdinand gave Maria a diamond necklace and earrings that had once belonged to Adele. After just two months of marriage, in March 1938, the Nazis annexed Austria. Fritz was arrested and sent to Dachau as a hostage to force his brother, who had escaped to France, to sign over his business to the Nazis. The Gestapo took Maria’s jewelry, sending her diamond necklace to the Nazi leader Hermann Göring as a present for his wife.

Ferdinand fled first to his summer home in Czechoslovakia, a large castle and estate outside Prague. When the Nazis took the Sudetenland, Ferdinand fled to Zurich, Switzerland, and his estate was used as the principal residence for the Nazi commander of the so-called Protectorate, Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich, one of the principal architects of the Nazi’s "Final Solution" was leaving Ferdinand’s castle when he was assassinated in 1941.

After several months in prison, Fritz was ransomed by his brother and released from Dachau. Maria was taken by the Gestapo to Berlin to seal the deal. Although Fritz was subsequently placed under house arrest, he and Maria managed to escape on the way to a doctor’s appointment. With Bernard’s help, they fled over the border to the Netherlands where they were met by Bernard and flown to Liverpool, England, where the British had invited Bernard to build a new sweater factory. Maria and Fritz soon came to the United States and in 1942 reached Los Angeles, where Maria has resided ever since. Maria became a U.S. citizen in 1945.

The Looting

In exile in Switzerland, Ferdinand was cut off from his family and all his possessions. The sugar company he directed was aryanized, and Ferdinand’s shares held in Swiss banks were handed over to the Nazis. Ferdinand’s palais was bought by the railroad for its new headquarters. The artworks were plundered. In early 1939, a large group of Nazi and museum officials met in Ferdinand’s palais to discuss dividing up the enormous art collection. His famous 400-piece porcelain collection was auctioned off, with the best pieces going to Vienna’s museums. Some of his 19th century artworks by Austrian masters were taken and given to Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring. Others were bought for Hitler’s planned museum in Linz. Erich Führer, the Nazi lawyer liquidating the estate, was allowed to take a few paintings for his own collection.

The Austrian Gallery expressed an interest in the Klimt paintings, ultimately obtaining three of them from Führer, including the famous gold Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. One landscape was bought by the City of Vienna and another was kept by Führer. The portrait in Ferdinand’s bedroom ended up in the hands of an art dealer.1

In his second-to-last will, dated Oct. 8, 1942, Ferdinand wrote while in exile in Zurich: "In an illegal manner, a tax penalty of one million Reichsmarks was imposed and my entire estate in Vienna was confiscated and sold off." Indeed, when the war ended in 1945, Ferdinand was almost penniless. He died in November 1945, never having recovered any of his property. Not surprisingly, in his last will written in October 1945, Ferdinand made no provision for the donation of his property to any Austrian museums.

Post-war Hostility

The government of Austria in the post-war period after 1945 was extremely hostile to restitution claims by exiled Jews. For example, at the end of the war, in April 1945, Dr. Karl Renner, a noted legal scholar, chancellor and president of Austria (and, incidentally, formerly an intimate friend of Adele Bloch-Bauer), wrote:

Restitution of property stolen from Jews, this [should be] not to the individual victims, but to a collective restitution fund. The establishment of such and the following foreseeable arrangements is necessary in order to prevent a massive, sudden flood of returning exiles. A circumstance, that for many reasons must be paid very close attention. . . . The restitution to the victims cannot follow naturally. As soon as the property of the fund, which shall serve to compensate collectively all of the robbed individuals, is established, shares will be given out, for each pro rata based on the suffered damages -- not by the measure of whether a person's property is completely, partially or not at all recoverable; this collective procedure naturally provides that claims can only be satisfied in relation to the recovered property and only after the completion of investigation, prosecution and return of valuables (that is after years!). . . . Basically the entire nation should be made not liable for damages to Jews.

This overwhelming hostility to the claims of Jews on the part of the Austrian government carried over from the Nazi period into the post-war period and placed every Jewish family with claims against the government in a very precarious position. If a claimant was to have any success at all, deals had to be made to assuage the government ministers and their cohorts, who in most cases were as anti-Semitic as their Nazi predecessors.

Attempts at Restitution

Ferdinand had no children and left his entire estate to Maria and her older brother Robert and sister Luise. Luise was stranded in Yugoslavia, where she had survived the war with two young children. Her husband was arrested by the communists and executed for being a "capitalist." Maria’s brother Robert, who had fled to Vancouver, Canada with his two other brothers, took up the task of attempting to retrieve Ferdinand’s property.

After the war, a family friend and lawyer in Vienna, Gustav Rinesch, attempted to recover the Klimt paintings and other artworks and property. The Allies had collected looted artworks and held them in the Art Collecting Point in Munich. However, individual applicants were not permitted to retrieve their property directly. Rather, the artworks would only be returned to their country of origin, which was then responsible for determining whether the artworks should be restituted. Austria used this procedure and laws against exporting cultural items to obtain and hold Nazi-looted artworks hostage. The Austrian Federal Monument Office routinely demanding donations to federal museums before it would permit any artworks to be returned and exported to their former owners, most of whom remained outside Austria.

One of the Klimt landscapes was retrieved by Rinesch from Führer, who was imprisoned for Nazi activities. It was kept in an apartment in Vienna pending a request for export permits. The City of Vienna agreed in 1947 to return another landscape painting to Ferdinand's heirs, but demanded a return of the purchase price. But the Austrian Gallery refused to return the three paintings it had taken from Ferdinand's collection during the war, claiming instead that the paintings had been given to the Austrian Gallery in 1925 by Ferdinand's wife Adele. This claim was inconsistent with Adele Bloch-Bauer's will of 1923, which makes only the legally unenforceable request that her husband donate the paintings after his death. The heirs and their attorney, however, did not have access to Adele’s will or other court documents, which were taken out of the court files by the Austrian Gallery.

The Director of the Austrian Gallery, Karl Garzarolli, realized the invalidity of his museum’s claim to the Klimt paintings, as he very revealingly confided to his Nazi-era predecessor, Bruno Grimschitz, on March 8, 1948:

Because there is no mention of these facts [the purported donation of the Klimt paintings by Adele or Ferdinand] in the available files of the Austrian Gallery, i.e. neither a court-authorized nor a notarized or other personal declaration of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer exists, which in my opinion you certainly should have obtained, I find myself in an extremely difficult situation. . . . I cannot understand why even during the Nazi era an incontestable declaration of gift in favor of the state was never obtained from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. . . .

In any case, the situation is growing into a sea-snake . . . I am very concerned that up until now all of the cases of restitution have brought with them immense confusion. In my opinion it would be also in your interest to stick by me while this is sorted out. Perhaps that way we will best come out of this not exactly danger-free situation.

The Extortion

Meanwhile, despite his reservations, Garzarolli took an aggressive stance against the heirs and prepared to sue them to obtain the other Klimt paintings that were not yet in the Austrian Gallery. On April 2, 1948, Garzarolli wrote to Otto Demus, head of the Austrian Federal Monument Office, expressing his strategy with regard to the Klimt paintings and other artworks in Ferdinand's collection:

I ask that the acquisition and trade proposals only be made when the attorney general has given the okay; in other words, for tactical reasons a delayed procedure is requested.

Demus immediately telephoned and met with Rinesch on April 3, informing him that the Austrian Gallery desired a number of artworks from Ferdinand's collection, including the Klimt paintings. He told Rinesch that none of the paintings would be allowed to be exported if the heirs disputed the Austrian Gallery’s ownership of the Klimt paintings. Based on this meeting, Rinesch decided (without first obtaining the informed consent of his clients, and obviously under extreme duress) to agree to "donate" the Klimt paintings to the Austrian Gallery in order to get the absolutely necessary support of Garzarolli and Demus for export permits for the other works recovered from Ferdinand’s collection, many of which were being held at the Munich Art Collecting Point. Rinesch met with Garzarolli to confirm this deal on April 10, 1948 – the same day he first saw Adele's will and concluded, "This is not in the form of a bequest." On April 13, Rinesch sent his five-page request for export permits for the rest of the Bloch-Bauer collection to Demus, with a copy to Garzarolli adding, "I rely on your sense of justice."

In this underhanded way, Austria managed to avoid having to return the Klimt paintings to Ferdinand’s heirs. In the end, the heirs were required to donate additional paintings, drawings and porcelain, and trade several other artworks, in order to obtain export permits for the remnants of Ferdinand’s once enormous collection. Still fighting for export permits in July 1949, Rinesch wrote:

The Bloch-Bauer heirs have, to document their interest in the public Austrian collections, in the most loyal way agreed that the major works of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt from the Bloch-Bauer collection may remain at the Austrian Gallery as a bequest. Even if this bequest was originally already foreseen in the will of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer’s deceased wife, the heirs certainly had the ability to prevent the fulfillment of this bequest, because in the meantime the financial circumstances of the testatrix’s family had changed catastrophically and also the remaining conditions of the bequest had fallen away through the experiences of the Third Reich.

He enlisted the support of Garzarolli, who now agreed to approve lifting the export restriction on several remaining works, based on the donation of the Klimt paintings:

The Austrian Gallery has recently studied the question again and believes that for the following reasons approval of export can be recommended for both paintings without exception. Namely, the heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer have immediately agreed to acknowledge and accept Ferdinand’s declaration that in the event of his death he wished to follow the wishes of his deceased wife to donate the paintings by Gustav Klimt to the Austrian Gallery, despite various transactions by Bloch-Bauer’s attorney during the Nazi era that extremely worsened the situation of the Austrian Gallery, and thereby established a way for the Austrian Gallery actually to receive this bequest.

The government continued to fight the heirs in other ways, dragging out the negotiations over the return of Ferdinand’s sugar factory for over ten years. The heirs and their attorney finally gave in, settling for a payment of just $600,000 from the sale of the sugar factory. As part of the settlement, they were forced to give up the beautiful palais, which to this day houses the offices of the Austrian railroad. They also had to sell a number of the returned artworks to pay taxes the government said was due from the factory. Nothing was ever retrieved from Czechoslovakia. Most of the fabulous porcelain collection was never returned, and pieces continue to show up at auction – the owners immune from suit under Europe’s "bona fide" purchaser rules.

From Ferdinand’s once enormous personal estate, little or nothing remained. The post-war restitution process in Austria had turned the old maxim on its head – to the defeated went the spoils.

The Revelation

In early 1998, in the wake of the seizure of two paintings by Egon Schiele that had been loaned to the Museum of Modern Art in New York by a government-supported Austrian foundation, the Austrian federal minister for education and culture, Elisabeth Gehrer, opened up the old archives to permit researchers to prove that no looted artworks remained in Austria. Thereafter, and much to her surprise, an Austrian author and journalist, Hubertus Czernin, published a series of articles exposing the fact that Austria’s federal museums had profited greatly from the extortion of artworks from exiled Jewish families after the war. Principal among these artworks were the collections of the Bloch-Bauer, Rothschild and Lederer families. Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which all the museum publications represented as having been donated to the museum in 1936, was revealed to have been transferred to the museum only in 1941 with a letter from the Nazi lawyer Führer signed "Heil Hitler." The revelations were devastating.

Gehrer responded by closing the Ferderal Monument Agency archives and ordering a thorough investigation by a committee of archivists from the various federal museums and headed by the director of the Federal Monument Agency, Ernst Bacher. The researchers essentially confirmed Czernin’s stories and reported to Gehrer that indeed many valuable artworks had not been restituted to their owners after the war and in many cases donations were coerced by government officials. In many cases, such as with the Klimt paintings from the Bloch-Bauer collection, the provenance had been falsified to hide the fact that the paintings had been stolen during the war.

Promised Restitution

In response, in September 1998, Gehrer proposed a new restitution law, designed to return artworks that had been donated to federal museums under duress in exchange for export permits, or obtained by the federal museums despite having a provenance which suggested that they were never properly restituted to their pre-war owners. The law was unanimously approved by the Austrian parliament and signed into law by the President in December 1998. The new law created a committee made up of government officials and art historians which was to advise Gehrer which artworks should be returned and to whom. Rudolf Wran, the section chief for culture under Gehrer, was selected to head this committee.

In January, 1999, the government permitted Czernin to copy the documents in the Federal Monument Agency files. Czernin provided copies to Maria Altmann’s attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg. It was at this time that Altmann first learned that the Austrian Gallery had lied to her brother’s attorney about the contents of Adele’s will, and had swindled her out of her inheritance.

In early February, the committee announced its first recommendation to return hundreds of artworks to the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family. Later that month, Minister Gehrer responded to parliamentary inquiries regarding a long list of suspect artworks by concluding that "the connection between the donation of the Klimt paintings and the export permit law is evident." The Austrian press reported in big headlines that the Klimt paintings would have to be returned.

The Opposition

But Wran and the other committee members had other plans. Most of them were greatly distressed by the prospect of returning these icons of Austrian art to Ferdinand’s heirs. The Rothschild collection, while certainly very valuable, did not include any significant Austrian artworks. As valuable as it was, the entire Rothchild collection, which was auctioned off in July 1999 for $90 million, was probably worth only about half as much in today’s market as Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer’s Klimt paintings that were at the core of the Klimt collection at the Austrian Gallery, Vienna’s most popular museum. Certainly in terms of their importance to Austria, Ferdinand’s Klimts were in a class by themselves.

Anticipating possible opposition from the very conservative committee, Schoenberg obtained an opinion from an Austrian expert on probate and estate law, Andreas Lintl, on the significance of Adele’s will. Lintl concluded (as had Garzarolli and Rinesch in 1948) that the statements in Adele’s will were of no legal consequence and that the heirs had not been required to give the paintings to the Austrian Gallery. This meant that the paintings were donated solely in exchange for export permits and would have to be returned under the new restitution law. Schoenberg sent the opinion to Wran. He met with Wran in late April, but Wran refused to discuss the specifics of the case.

In March, Bacher’s research committee submitted a report on the Bloch-Bauer collection to Wran’s committee, and sent a copy to Schoenberg. The report omitted key documents, gave only a partial view of the story, and made several incorrect conclusions. Schoenberg wrote to Wran and Bacher correcting the report and asked that his letter and further documents be shown to Wran’s committee. Unbeknownst to Schoenberg, this request was not honored and the rest of the committee was forced to rely on an incomplete and misleading report.

Wran forced the decision on the Bloch-Bauer collection to be pushed off by the committee until the end of June. In the meantime, he and one of his compatriots on the committee, Rudolf Kremser, a government attorney, drafted a legal opinion contrary to the one submitted by the heirs. Not knowing the conclusions of the government attorney’s opinion, Schoenberg requested by telephone and in writing that he be given an opportunity to read any contrary opinion and to address the committee and respond to any arguments made against restitution. This request was refused by Wran and Kremser. Having heard from the press that opposition was brewing, but in the dark as to what Kremser had written, Schoenberg submitted a further opinion from Lintl again concluding that neither Ferdinand, nor his heirs, were legally required to donate the paintings to the Austrian Gallery.

The Decision

On June 28, 1999, the committee met and quickly affirmed the recommendation of Wran and Kremser that the Klimt paintings not be returned. The committee did agree to return 16 Klimt drawings and 19 porcelain settings that had been donated by the family in 1948 as part of the consideration for export permits. Gehrer simultaneously announced her adoption of the committee’s recommendations.

The other members of the committee were not given copies of the two opinions by Lintl, nor were they given any of Schoenberg’s letters or informed of his request to see and respond to Kremser’s opinion. Wran confirmed this when he informed Schoenberg of the committee’s decision. The Bloch-Bauer heirs and their attorney had been purposely excluded from the entire decision-making process.

Not all of the committee members were in accord with Wran’s tactics. Ilsebill Barta-Fliedl abstained from the vote and questioned the judgment and motives of the other members. Before the committee even discussed the matter she had been ordered by her boss, one of the government ministers, not to vote in favor of restitution in the Bloch-Bauer case. Apparently, the committee vote was predetermined by the Austrian government before the committee had even discussed the Bloch-Bauer matter. The vote was a sham. At the end of the year, Barta-Fliedl resigned from the committee in protest. She has stated that it was clear from the first couple of meetings that the attitudes of the other members of the committee were inconsistent with the purposes of the committee. The committee was made up of people who opposed art restitution in general and were especially hostile to the claims of Ferdinand’s heirs.

The Law

Kremser's legal opinion, and therefore the committee's decision, was premised on the false assertion that Adele’s will gave the Austrian Gallery an ownership interest in the paintings. In coming to this conclusion, however, Kremser expressly disagreed with all of the leading Austrian legal experts who have written on this precise legal issue in the last several years (before the Bloch-Bauer case arose). In his 1994 article on "The Legacy of an Object Not Belonging to the Estate," Prof. Rudolf Welser concluded:

That the testamentary disposition of an object not belonging to the estate is valid when the object belongs to an heir, does not apply in the case when the testator sets forth that the heir should upon his own death leave an object from his own separate property to a third party.

Adele's will reads as follows:

I ask my husband after his death to leave my two portraits and the four landscapes of Gustav Klimt to the Austrian Gallery.

In the estate files is a declaration dated January 1926 from Gustav Bloch-Bauer (Ferdinand’s brother), the attorney for the estate, stating:

It should be noted that the referenced Klimt paintings are not the property of the deceased testatrix, but of her husband.

Thus, it is clear that Adele's request in her will was a "Legacy of an Object Not Belonging to the Estate" directing her husband Ferdinand to dispose of his own property in a certain way after his death. This wish, according to Prof. Welser and the other Austrian legal scholars, is and was unenforceable. To enforce such a request against the terms of Ferdinand’s last will would violate the and circumvent the strict laws regarding testamentary dispositions. And yet Kremser and Wran led the commission members to believe the exact opposite so that there would be no opposition to the government’s pre-ordained decision not to return the paintings.

Political Pressure

Schoenberg wrote to Gehrer to inform her of the committee’s grave error and the denial of due process to Ferdinand’s heirs. He recommended an arbitration process to resolve the dispute over the legal significance of Adele’s will. Gehrer rejected this approach, stating that if the heirs believed the decision was wrong, their only remedy was to go to court. Gehrer also stated, contrary to all the facts that were available to her and in clear denial of what had transpired during the Nazi era, that "The paintings were not stolen from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer."

Clearly, even the one government minister who had proposed the new law, now found it politically impossible to continue. Her party, the conservative People’s Party, faced difficult elections in October, where her party eventually came in third, behind even the far-right Freedom Party led by Jörg Haider, known for praising Nazi SS leaders as "men of character," and referring to Nazi death camps as "penal institutions." By rejecting the Bloch-Bauer’s claims to the Klimt paintings, Gehrer joined in the Holocaust denial and revisionism that has reigned in certain circles in Austria since the end of the war. It is no surprise that she was rewarded for her "loyalty" and reappointed as a prominent minister in Austria’s new right wing coalition government.

Lawsuit

In September, Maria Altmann announced that she would file a lawsuit in Austria to vindicate her claim. However, the government had more in store for her. First, it was necessary to apply for a waiver of the enormous court costs required to bring a lawsuit in Austria. These court costs are based on the value of the recovery that is sought and in this case would total several million dollars, far beyond what Mrs. Altmann, who still works as a dress designer at age 84, can afford.

However, in November, the Austrian court granted Mrs. Altmann and the other heirs only a partial waiver, and ruled that they were required to spend $400,000 or all the assets at their disposal – essentially their entire life savings – in order to proceed. This is in addition to the risk of paying costs to the opposing side more than $500,000 if the heirs lose the case before an Austrian judge. Not content with even this impossible ruling, in December the Austrian government appealed the court’s decision, arguing that the amount Mrs. Altmann and the other heirs should have to pay should include the value of the porcelain and drawings that were finally returned to them, after lengthy bureaucratic delays, in November. Despite Gehrer’s earlier invitation, Austria clearly is behaving as if it does not want the Bloch-Bauer case decided in a court of law.

The Treaty

In Article 26 of the Multilateral Austrian State Treaty of May 15, 1955, Austria promised:

In so far as such action has not already been taken, Austria undertakes that, in all cases where property, legal rights or interests in Austria have since 13th March, 1938, been subject to forced transfer or measures of sequestration, confiscation or control on account of the racial origin or religion of the owner, the said property shall be returned and the said legal rights and interests shall be restored together with their accessories.

Austria has failed to live up to its treaty obligations. It is incumbent upon the United States to assert its rights under the 1955 treaty and insist that Austria provide due process to the victims of Nazi persecution, especially those like Maria Altmann who have been loyal U.S. residents and citizens since they fled from Austria over 60 years ago.

In his May 15, 1959 letter regarding the settlement of Article 26 claims for restitution, U.S. Ambassador to Austria H. Freeman Matthews concluded:

My Government has instructed me to advise you that it may approach the Austrian Federal Government in the future in connection with the settlement of individual claims asserted under Article 26 of the State Treaty which are not presently known to my Government and do not fall within the classes and categories of claims enumerated in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Section A of your note.

In other words, the U.S. reserved the right to assert unknown claims, such as the ones for the Bloch-Bauer's paintings. The fact that the Austrian government had lied to the heirs and had falsified the provenance of the paintings was not revealed until last year, so these claims fall within the category of claims "not presently known" in 1959.

Conclusion

The Bloch-Bauer case and others like it could be easily resolved if Austria was willing to submit to neutral arbitration. It is a fundamental maxim that in the event of a legal dispute, claimants should be afforded a reasonable opportunity to prove their claims before a neutral tribunal. Today, more than half a century after the defeat of the Nazis, it is time that these matters be resolved and settled fairly and quickly. Unfortunately, given the current political situation in Austria, it seems that without U.S. intervention on behalf of its citizens, these wrongs will never be righted.
Dated: February 4, 2000

[datek23]

A told you everyday there is something weird going on in Austria and everyday life. Now the coach wants to kill himself.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/tor...v=ap&type=lgns

Banned Austrian coach says he can't understand being targeted for drug raids

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer

TURIN, Italy (AP) -- The disgraced Austrian ski coach who set off a doping scandal at the Turin Games said he cannot understand why he was targeted for drug raids, and acknowledged he was trying to kill himself when he crashed into a police roadblock during a bizarre flight from the Olympics.
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Walter Mayer, whose presence among Austria's biathletes and cross country skiers at the Olympics triggered Italian police raids and International Olympic Committee scrutiny, told an Austrian magazine he was the victim of "a plot" linked to his ongoing battle with the international skiing federation.

NEWS, an Austrian newsweekly, reported Wednesday that Mayer panicked when he heard on the radio he was being sought by Italian police. The magazine quoted Mayer as saying he became suicidal when he saw the police roadblock shortly after crossing the border into Austria.

"I was completely shattered, I couldn't think clearly. When something like that happens to you, you are in an extraordinary mental situation. I wanted to take my own life, because my world had been destroyed. I wanted to end my life with the car," Mayer was quoted as saying.

Mayer insisted he was in Turin as a private citizen to see the Olympics, and that he "had no medical equipment with me."

"I had done nothing and was suddenly suspected and being searched for in another country," he said. "It was only a private trip. The only thing that was in the car was my brother's tool for electrical repairs. Nothing else."

Mayer's lawyer, Herwig Hasslacher, denied the coach had any link to doping.

"My client did not have anything illegal with him," Hasslacher told Austrian TV network ORF. "He didn't have any banned substances with him, he didn't have any syringes."

The head of the Austrian ski federation said Tuesday that two athletes admitted they "may have used illegal methods" at the Winter Games. Police seized unlabeled drugs, a blood transfusion machine and dozens of syringes in a surprise sweep of Austrian athletes' living quarters over the weekend.

And investigators say they found more syringes in the rented living quarters of Mayer, who fled following weekend police raids on Austrian athletes' lodgings.

"It is indeed a saga," International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said. "Not even Hollywood could come up with a scenario like it."

The IOC said it will set up a special panel to investigate the Austrian Olympic committee, ski federation, athletes and coaches, likely after the Olympics end, he said. The IOC could sanction the Austrians even without any athletes testing positive for banned substances.

"To find somebody guilty of doping you don't necessarily need urine and blood samples," Rogge said. "It can also be based on circumstantial evidence."

The Olympic drug-testing lab was still analyzing samples taken from 10 Austrian biathletes and cross country skiers in last weekend's raids, the IOC said Wednesday morning. Spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the results should be known by the end of the games Sunday, but didn't rule out the possibility the process could stretch beyond then.
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"They are testing against the full range of prohibited substances, including EPO," she said. "This can take time."

The scandal could hurt Austria's bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Salzburg is considered one of the favorites among the seven cities bidding for those games. The host city will be selected in July 2007 at an IOC meeting in Guatemala City.

In Saturday's raids, police seized about 100 syringes, unlabeled medicine bottles, boxes of prescription drugs and a blood-transfusion machine, a person with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The person asked not to be identified because the investigation was ongoing.

Austrian ski federation president Peter Schroecksnadel said two athletes who bolted the games after the raids -- and since have been kicked off the team -- confessed to a team official they may have used "illegal methods."

Schroecksnadel said at a news conference Tuesday that Wolfgang Perner and Wolfgang Rottmann made the admission to team sports director Markus Gandler. Schroecksnadel did not elaborate, but said the federation would investigate.

Schroecksnadel also acknowledged it was "a mistake" for the team to have allowed Mayer to coach in a private capacity at the Turin Games. He was banned from the Olympics for links to blood doping in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

An Italian prosecutor found more syringes Monday night when he inspected the private home that Mayer had rented for the Olympics in the mountain hamlet of Pragelato, said Mario Pescante, an IOC member and government supervisor for the games.

The seized materials were still being analyzed by Italian authorities, and no test results were announced as of Wednesday morning.

Five-time Olympian Ludwig Gredler, a member of Austria's biathlon team, said the team has no choice but submit to the searches.

"These are the laws of Italy and we have to follow them," he said. "Team Austria is a small group and we live in close proximity to each other, but naturally I can't know what happens in other rooms. I know I'm clean and have taken nothing, but I can't speak for my teammates."

Mayer fled the Turin area and headed for his native Austria sometime after the weekend raids. He resurfaced the next night when he crashed his car into a police blockade just 15 miles inside the Austrian border with Italy, some 250 miles from Turin.

Schroecksnadel said police took Mayer to a psychiatric facility, where he was staying because it was feared he might attempt suicide. Mayer pleaded guilty to charges of civil disorder, assault and damage to property in an Austrian court Tuesday.

AP sports writers Nesha Starcevic, Naomi Koppel, Erica Bulman, Janie McCauley, Arnie Stapleton and Stephen Wilson contributed to this report.

Updated on Wednesday, Feb 22, 2006 11:40 am EST

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