Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

in Paris, I represented Austria and Vienna in the international bid.
Contacts with Hungary grew stronger. I still well remember a journey
through Vienna with Gyula Horn, Hungarian Foreign Minister,
who outlined quite openly in the car the plans for a fundamental
transformation of the Hungarian political scene. Subsequent developments
in Hungary as well Viennese wariness of such a major
event prevented the joint world fair ever taking place. The plans
were, however, useful for the further development of the area of the
Danube around Vienna.
At the same time the Hungarian Communist Party, the Hungarian
Socialist Workers’ Party, was also establishing its contacts in the
West. So it was that I represented the SPÖ at a meeting in Budapest
where the leading reform Communists, chiefly Imre Pozsgay,
put forward new ideas for a liberal multi-party system. Valentin Falin,
a prominent Soviet foreign affairs politician, was also present. Only
the representatives of the German Democratic Republic lived up to
their reputation as unwavering supporters of the pure doctrine of
Marxism-Leninism.
Things then began to move faster than even the reform Communists
wanted. During one of the public inquires I led on primary and
strategic planning alternatives in the Festival Hall of the Vienna City
Hall, my press officer gave me news that brought tears to my eyes.
After the events at the border between the two Germanys and between
Austria and Hungary, the Iron Curtain had now also fallen in
Czechoslovakia and in its place a normal border was created. A
short time later I drove through my native country to Bratislava as a
guest at one of the country’s first post-Soviet open discussion
events, organised by an Austrian newspaper. We needed a police
escort to get us through the queue of cars returning from a trip to
the West! When I introduced myself to my Slovakian discussion
partners, they said: ‘We know you from Austrian television, because
we have always watched the Austrian news’.
In my role as the member of the Viennese Provincial and City Government
in charge of town planning and urban design, I was involved
in erecting two memorials commemorating the horrors of
the Nazi regime. Immediately after I took office, the long-awaited
Monument against War and Fascism was erected in the centre of
the City of Vienna despite an intense media campaign against the
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