Jewish student group decries revamp of statue of antisemitic Vienna mayor who inspired Hitler
VIENNA — The removal of a statue of an antisemitic former Vienna mayor to renovate it and then replace it at an angle drew protests this week.
The statue in downtown Vienna of Karl Lueger, who inspired Hitler, has drawn long-standing public debate and repeated vandalism, including paint thrown on it and “shame” sprayed on it with graffiti.
The statue was removed on Thursday to clean it and will be placed again on its pedestal titled by 3.5 degrees to “contextualize” it under an art project chosen in 2023.
But rights group Aufstehn says that the four-meter (13-feet)-high bronze statue should not be put back.
“Survivors of the Shoah and Jews have spoken out in favour of removing the monument,” the group says on Bluesky, referring to the Holocaust.
The project — for which the city has allocated a budget of 500,000 euros ($595,000) — is a “slap in the face” to the Jewish community, the Jewish Austrian Students (JoeH) says in a statement.
JOeH co-president Lia Guttmann says it’s incomprehensible to “polish” the image of a “declared antisemite” and primary “role model” for Adolf Hitler.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday, unknown activists veiled the monument, which was erected in 1926, in black demanding its demolition.
Viennese artist Klemens Wihlidal, who came up with the project, says he wants to break the statue’s “heroic” aura through visual irritation.
Lueger, a social democrat who was Vienna mayor from 1897 until his death in 1910, employed systemic antisemitism as a central political strategy to mobilize voters and secure power, according to historians.
Hitler used Lueger as an early role model and cited him approvingly in “Mein Kampf.”