[Deutsche Version]

Two days ago, a Vienna newspaper called the Kurier reported that California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed in his speech last Tuesday that Austria was a “socialist” country, and that he had seen Russian tanks as a child growing up in the Austrian province of Styria. Both reports are incorrect. The first was the result of an understandable error in translation. The second was, simply put, a lie.

In German, it would be incorrect to describe Austria as a “socialist” country; it certainly wasn’t one in the sense that Hungary, the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) or former East Germany. The phrase works in English, however. In the U.S., it is not unusual to use the word “socialist” when describing the politics of social democrats, a concept which, by American standards, includes all of Europe. If we Americans are talking about a truly socialist state, we’re more likely to use the word “communist” than “socialist.” Arnold’s speech did not cause a single American to believe that Austria was on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. Only the Austrian Minister of the Interior, Ernst Strasser, confused the American concept of “socialism” with the Austrian one, which Mr. strasser then described as an understandable mistake on the part of Mr. Schwarzenegger. It was an understandable mistake indeed, but the mistake was his own, not Mr. Schwarzenegger’s.

Let’s now focus on Arnold’s second “mistake,” namely his alleged claim he had seen Russian tanks in Styria. On this topic, Graz historian Stefan Karner had this to say:

“Fact is, as a child, he never could have seen a Russian tank in Styria.

Neat-o. Fact is, he also never claimed to have seen a Russian tank in Styria as a child. Quite the contrary, he said this in Tuesday’s speech:

When I was a boy, the Soviets occupied part of Austria. I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes. I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Soviet sector.

It should be obvious that you can’t cross “into the Soviet sector” from Styria if Styria itself were part of the Soviet sector. Despite that (or perhaps because of that?) the Kurier left this quote out.

Mr. Karner later acknowledged the possibility that Schwarzenegger had crossed from one sector to another as a child:

Everyone had to produce an I.D. at the checkpoints. Those were pretty menacing.

Which is exactly the way Arnold described his experiences there. It would have been best if the article had ended here. Instead, they screwed things up once again:

But most likely, Schwarzenegger succomed to a “group memory.” “Most Austrians never saw a single Russian, but were very scared of them anyway.” Ultimately, about 100 people were abducted from the Soviet sector. “The source of his fear was the general attitude toward the Soviets, which had been handed down from generation to generation.”

That too jibes with Schwarzenegger’s speech. On this topic, Mr. Schwarzenegger had this to say:

It was a common belief that Soviet soldiers could take a man out of his own car and ship him off to the Soviet Union as slave labor.

Simply put, a Kurier article purporting to debunk Schwarzenegger’s comments about Austria really just beat up a strawman. It didn’t refute any of Schwarzenegger’s real arguments; in fact, it actually confirmed some of them.

Now, the same newspaper is reporting that Mr. Schwarzenegger has rejected his criticism from Europe. This is what he had to say in response to the allegations of the Austrian press:

That’s total and complete nonsense. I never claimed to have encountered Russian occupiers in Styria. I remember very clearly: we crossed the Semmering Pass in my uncle’s VW Bug into the Russian sector. There, as a little boy, I saw the Soviet tanks.

Unfortunately, he did not further elaborate and point out that he had clearly stated this in his speech on Tuesday (although admittedly, he did not mention Styria, the Semmering Pass, or any other specific part of Austria by name). Or maybe he did; they have to cut everything, right? I’m sure no one meant to fool the readers; it’s just that there wasn’t enough space in the newspaper to print the entire interview. Right?

UPDATE: Die Zeit, a respected German newspaper, makes the same error on the “socialism” bit, but does not imply that Arnold saw Russian tanks in Styria.