Austria to rehabilitate World War II deserters

The Social Democrats and Austrian People's Party have agreed with the Green Party on the draft bill rehabilitating deserters from the Nazi army during World War II. Under the agreement Nazi-era decisions targeting homosexuals as well as decisions to force sterilizations of women or even abortions will also be annulled retrospectively.

Austria's far-right parties rejected a blanket rehabilitation of deserters, after a majority in Parliament agreed to revoke sentences passed during World War II. Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said “a collective acquittal for deserters would be a provocation for those who really should be respected.” Ewald Stadler of the far-right Alliance for the Future of Austria, founded by the late Jörg Haider, criticized that the planned law does not distinguish between resistance fighters and criminals, and said it might actually give war criminals who deserted a free pass.

An estimated 4,000 death sentences were handed to Austrians who fled the Wehrmacht, and between 1,200 and 1,400 deserters were executed. Hitler’s homeland Austria became part of the German Reich in March 1938, and 270,000 Austrians fought in the German army during World War II. Last month, the German parliament passed a similar rehabilitation law.