Austrian Independents

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The lead paragraph of your October 14 editorial, entitled "The New Nazis," may have provided journalistic punch, but it also presented a distorted view of the Austrian League of Independents, which captured about 12 per cent of the votes in the recent Austrian elections.

By stating that it is "frankly totalitarian," you ignore the fact that a large part of its backing comes from others than ex-Nazis. P.W.'s recently returned from the U.S.S.R., younger voters, and persons who wish neither a communist "People's Democracy" nor the current clumsy bureaucracy set up by the arch-conservative forces of the Socialist Party-People's Party coalition, swelled the total gained by the League.

There is no evidence that the party, headed by the independent Salzburg publisher Kraus, has been taken over by Nazi elements. This charge was, of course, leveled at the League by the opposition during the election campaign. It attracted a large number of the votes of the so-called "less implicated" Nazis, who were granted the ballot in this election, although they did not vote in 1945. Your statement that "a large group of Austrians decided that they would like to have some Nazis running their country" is ironic when you consider that leading members of the Austrian People's Party conducted negotiations last spring with leading ex-Nazis and offered them a very substantial number of parliamentary seats in exchange for the "Nazi vote" for the People's Party.

Since the League of Independents ran on a more or less negative platform, it was itself perhaps surprised to have gained so large a percentage of the vote. We may say that it is pro-Nazi in the same sense that the other parties are pro-Nazi because they attempted to capture the vote of ex-Nazis. U. S. authorities in Austria, however, are reserving judgment as to its totalitarian nature until they can observe its action in Parliament. Perhaps the Europe-traveling editors of the CRIMSON might do the same. R. Gerald Livingston '53

One of the CRIMSON'S Europe-traveling editors did manage to get first-hand reports on a number of the League of independents' meetings in Salzburg this summer. At one meeting, the speaker was questioned on the Party's attitude toward the Jews. He replled that Hitler had temporarily eliminated the Jews in Austria, but the Party realized that democracy was impossible in a nation with a race minority. While the CRIMSON realizes that the League is a catch-all party, the editors feel that this and similar statements indicate that the leadership and program of the Party have clear Nazi inclinations and constitute far from a loyal opposition in the new government.--Ed.