Although András Schiff is commendable for his piano playing and his passion (Hungarians must face their Nazi past, not venerate it, 11 December), he does not seem to know much about the last 20 years in Europe. Criticising the christening of a new statue of Admiral Horthy in Budapest, he writes: “There are no Hitler statues in Germany, and in Austria they are constitutionally forbidden. The same is true of Mussolini in Italy, Pétain in France, Ion Antonescu in Romania or Josef [sic] Tiso in Slovakia. None of them is being commemorated and extolled.”
These assertions are all wrong, whether mildly or wildly, except with regard to France. There are countless Hitler statues left in Germany and Austria – just not in public. Austria bans glorifications of Hitler, but not neutral or negative statues; the same law’s punishments were weakened in 1992, amid a neo-Nazi revival, by President Kurt Waldheim, who won the Iron Cross in Russia and of whom the late Austrian politician Fred Sinowatz said: “Let us acknowledge that Waldheim did not serve in the SA, only his horse did.”
There are countless Mussolinis in Italy, whether in cellars, in enclosed villa gardens, or at Termini station in Rome, where a 2011 statue of Pope John Paul II was so widely described as Mussolini in pontifical dress that the face was replaced. As for Jozef Tiso in Slovakia, the Archbishop of Trnava celebrated a memorial mass for him in 2008, and many have urged Tiso’s sainthood.
more: theGuardian
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