The Ban on Nazi Songs in Austria and their Afterlife

In contrast to Germany, there is no “Index” in Austria—no list of named pieces of music whose performance, dissemination or broadcast is punishable by law.

However, people who perform or broadcast these Nazi propaganda songs —for example the Horst Wessel Song or Volk ans Gewehr [People to Arms]—may be prosecuted under the 1947 Prohibition Act . A conviction, however, will depend on the context of the case and, ultimately, on the opinion of the judge and jury members. One example of a borderline case are soldier songs and instrumental marches. While these have no explicit Nazi content, they were very popular during the Nazi period. Many of them became famous through their use in Nazi propaganda to justify and mobilise support for the German war of aggression. While official military bands—in Germany and Austria—are no longer allowed to perform these songs, they remain part of the brass band repertoire and are sometimes included on recordings. Soldier songs from the Second or First World Wars are also sung by German-nationalist fraternities, who often also sing songs that originated around the bourgeois revolutions of 1848 . In the neo-Nazi scene, it is possible to find antisemitic rewritings of certain text passages. However, these lyrics—which openly call for violent actions—are covered by the Prohibition Act.

Even without rewritten lyrics, songs dating from the 1848 revolution are used by far-right extremists—by taking them out of context. The song Gedanken sind frei [Thoughts are Free] was written in the early 19th century and portrayed the repression of student organisations by the police state. Yet it also played an important role in the history of the Scholl siblings’ resistance to Nazi rule and, in the second half of the 20th century, it was performed by popular stars such as Leonard Cohen, Nena and Konstantin Wecker. In the neo-Nazi and right-wing fraternity scene, the song is understood as a statement against the Prohibition Act and in favour of “freedom of opinion”, which these groups see as lacking in this context. Numerous far-right rock bands, as well as the German rock bank FreiWild from South Tyrol, have covered the song.