Austria far-Right party dragged into fresh anti-semitic songbook row

The Austrian government has been rocked by a new scandal after the far-Right Freedom Party (FPÖ) was linked to an anti-Semitic songbook for the second time this year.

Herwig Götschober, a senior FPÖ official, heads a student fraternity that uses a songbook containing the lyric: “Once upon a time, two Jews went to bathe in a river... One drowned, as for the other one we can hope”.

Mr Götschober works in the office of Norbert Hofer, the current transport minister who narrowly failed to be elected president for the FPÖ in 2016.

The fresh controversy comes less than a month after another FPÖ politician was forced to resign over a separate songbook which contained lyrics glorifying the Holocaust.

It also comes a week after the party issued a statement rejecting Nazism and anti-Semitism and pledged to hold an inquiry to root out Nazi sympathisers among its ranks.

The FPÖ is junior coalition partner in the government of Sebastian Kurz, the world’s youngest elected leader. But it has been involved in repeated controversies since it joined the government in December.

The latest row, like the previous anti-Semitic songbook case, centres on the powerful and secretive student fraternities which dominate certain sectors of Austrian society, and to which many party members belong.

Udo Landbauer, another FPÖ politician, was forced to resign earlier this year after it emerged a fraternity he heads issued a songbook containing the lyric: “Step on the gas, you old Teutons, so we can make it to seven million”.

Mr Landbauer’s local chapter of the Germania fraternity was dissolved following that controversy, but many other fraternities are still in operation, including the chapter of the Bruna Sudetia embroiled in the latest controversy.

Mr Götschober, the politcian accused in the latest scandal, has refused to comment, but the fraternity has issued a statement in which it “vehemently” denies the allegations.

Some of the fraternities are known to support the Nazi annexation of Austria as a province of “greater Germany”, and the Freedom Party was forced to issue a statement earlier this month saying it “recognises without reserve the Republic of Austria, democracy, parliamentarianism and the rule of law”.

“We face the latent criticism that within the FPÖ Nazi and neo-Nazi ideas are tolerated,” Walter Rosencranz, a senior MP, said at the time.

“No, they are not tolerated and those who think they can impose such ideas on us have nothing to do in the party.”

The party has pledged to hold an inquiry to root out Nazi sympathisers but Mr Rosencranz said the fraternities are private organisations and cannot be made to cooperate.