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Reclaiming the political centre after National Socialism: the discursive repositioning of the far right in Austrian (party) politics, 1949–60

ABSTRACT Beginning in 1947, the growing reintegration of former National Socialists (Ehemalige) into Austrian post-war society also facilitated attempts at far-right political reorganization. The protagonists of this reorganization had to realign their position within the political field and adjust their self-presentation to the new democratic context. Yet, ideological continuities can be detected. The idea and the reclaiming of the ‘centre’ (Mitte) were crucial concepts in the political struggles for repositioning and legitimization in Austrian democratic institutions after 1945. This article adopts several approaches. First, it reconstructs the manifold aspects of the concept of the ‘centre’ in political discourse before and after 1945. Second, it then examines the argumentative strategies referring to this specific concept during parliamentarian speeches by representatives of the two far-right parties explicitly representing former National Socialists in post-war Austria: Verband der Unabhängigen (League of Independents) and Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria). This political reintegration and discursive repositioning in parliament also exhibited a spatial dimension, since the representatives moved from the very right margin of the semicircle to the centre of the plenary assembly. The normalization of former National Socialists and far-right positions within a democratic context succeeded, as will be argued, at least partly thanks to the (strategic) appropriation and redefinition of the concept of the centre.