Austrian far-right leader likens Turkish coup to Reichstag fire

VIENNA: Turkey´s failed coup and President Tayyip Erdogan´s subsequent purges of state institutions are reminiscent of the Reichstag fire in Nazi Germany and its use by Hitler to amass greater power, the head of Austria´s far-right Freedom Party said.

The blaze in the German parliament building in 1933 was portrayed by the Nazis as a Communist plot against the government, and they used it to justify curtailing civil liberties, consolidating Adolf Hitler´s grip on Germany.

Austria´s Freedom Party (FPO) leader Heinz-Christian Strache said he saw parallels in Erdogan´s use of the July 15 coup by a faction within the Turkish armed forces to crack down on his opponents in the army, civil service, academia and the media.

"One almost had the impression that it was a guided putsch aimed in the end at making a presidential dictatorship by Erdogan possible," Strache told the daily Die Presse in an
interview published on Saturday.

"Dramatically, we have experienced such mechanisms elsewhere before, such as with the Reichstag fire, in the wake of which total power was seized," Strache said.

"And now, too, one has the impression that a bit of steering occurred," he added. Erdogan has angrily rejected suggestions that he or the government might have been behind the coup, which he has blamed on the followers of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric.

Erdogan narrowly avoided capture and possible death on the night of the putsch. Turkey´s foreign minister called Austria the "capital of radical racism" on Friday after Chancellor Christian Kern suggested European Union leaders discuss ending Ankara´s EU accession talks, citing democratic and economic deficits.

Kern´s centrist coalition government is under pressure from Strache´s resurgent FPO, which is currently leading in opinion polls.