Yesterday evening Andreas Khol was once again a guest on “Im Zentrum”, ORF’s most important discussion program. He was President of the National Council and candidate for Federal President and is now chairman of the senior citizens’ union of the Austrian People’s Party. He is considered the “veteran” of conservatism in our country.
Andreas Khol became known a generation ago as the architect of the coalition with the far-right FPÖ, although he had called it “outside the constitutional arc” shortly before. He justified his ideological swing back then with a quote from Friedrich Schiller: “Truth is a daughter of time.”
This recourse to the freedom fighter Friedrich Schiller is strikingly reminiscent of Alexander Gauland, the parliamentary group leader of the German far-right AfD. Alexander Gauland justified his rejection of the lockdown measures of the government of Angela Merkel also with this German poet: “Life is not the highest of goods,” he quoted from Schiller’s “Bride of Messina”, and then added: “The highest of goods is freedom.”
Andreas Khol and Alexander Gauland are both spearheads of the “right” camp in the German-speaking area. Both are undoubtedly “extremely conservative”. Both are ideologically extremely firm. Both polarize in an extraordinary way. And neither have any fear of contact with fascism.
When you listen to both of them, you immediately ask yourself, What is driving these men? What are these men actually trying to tell us?
Alexander Gauland and Andreas Khol were both born in 1941, Alexander Gauland on February 20 in Chemnitz and Andreas Khol on July 14 on Rügen. They were both born at a time when the German Reich under Adolf Hitler was at the height of its power. All of Europe was allied with or occupied by the Germans. Only the United Kingdom under its Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood in the resistance against the German Reich.
1941 was the decisive year in world history. National Socialist Germany had subjugated all of Europe and was on the verge of world domination. At this point, Adolf Hitler decided to put all his eggs in one basket. On June 22nd he gave the order to attack Russia.
Only four years later, little Alexander Gauland and little Andreas Khol had to witness how the Russian soldiers raped the mothers of their kindergarten friends en masse. Under the motto “the German woman is outlawed” it came to the most cruel violent crimes by men against women. The paradise of little Alexander Gauland and little Andreas Khol was suddenly over, their laughter was gone for the rest of their lives.
Eighty years later, little Alexander Gauland and little Andreas Khol are now in the public eye as grandfathers. Alexander Gauland refers to Schiller’s “freedom”, Andreas Khol refers to Schiller’s “truth”. To this day, they have done this in a highly competent manner, and formally in a doggedly uncompromising way. What are they trying to tell us all?
Alexander Gauland and Andreas Khol cannot be understood without their life story. Both are driven by disgust for “left” ideas. Both experienced the horrors of communism in the Soviet Union, one up close, the other from a distance. Both know where a totalitarian ideology leads.
Both therefore put up bitter resistance to “left” ideas. Both do this without compromise, at almost any price. Both defend “freedom” and “truth” with the youthful spirit of Friedrich Schiller into old age. They neglect the fact that even their “freedom” and their “truth” have limits. In their bitter struggle against totalitarianism, the two become totalitarian themselves.
Interestingly, the anger of the two against everything “left” is directed especially against women. “We will hunt her down!” Alexander Gauland exclaimed in the direction of Angela Merkel, while Andreas Khol recommended that Pamela Rendi-Wagner “should be slapped,” for which he later had to apologize.
One would like to call out to both of them with Schiller: “It doesn’t bring good fruit when hatred meets hatred. That’s the spirit of grey hair talking. A much wiser version befits the age.”
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Vienna Calling 