Last month, Austrian police made a remarkable discovery. In a raid on a house in the town of Baden, they found an arsenal of weapons and 1,200 kilograms of ammunition – as well as Nazi paraphernalia and a large amount of gunpowder.
Altogether some 50 weapons, including submachine guns and pump-action rifles, were seized. According to a police statement, the house belonged to a 53-year-old man who is “suspected of national socialist Nazi activities,” including sharing numerous files on Internet forums.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said of the raid: “The consistent action against right-wing extremism is not only part of the historical responsibility, but also a clear advocacy of our democratic coexistence in Austria.”
It wasn’t the first action against alleged neo-Nazis in Austria this year. In July, police seized automatic weapons and hand grenades in coordinated raids against a biker gang whose leader planned to establish a “militia of the respectable” that would “overturn the system.”
Support for Nazism is a criminal offense in Austria. The most prominent neo-Nazi figure is Gottfried Kuessel, who was sentenced to a nine-year jail term in 2013 for propagating Nazism online. It was his second conviction.