Austria, Hitler’s Birthplace, Proposes Kosher Meat Restrictions and Registering Jews, Reminiscent of Nazi-Era

It should make the hairs on the back of the neck stand on end. Registering Jews while importing an army of Jew-haters.

“It’s like a non-Aryan clause.” An April 1933 ban on kosher slaughter was one of the first legislative acts of the Nazi regime.

Is this what Austria’s Freedom party is squandering their political capital on?

Austrian Jewish Leader Says Proposed Kosher Meat Restrictions Are Reminiscent of Nazi-Era

By Algemeiner, July 17, 2018:

The head of Vienna’s Jewish community has compared a proposal that would require Jews to register with the government in order to purchase kosher meat to Nazi-era legislation.

Oskar Deutsch, the president of the Jewish community organization in the Austrian capital, said that the plan hatched by a far-right politician in the Lower Austria region would entail compiling a list of Jews, harking back to the dark years of Nazi rule.

“That’s like a non-Aryan clause,” Deutsch told a meeting of the Jewish community in Vienna on Monday night, in comments reported by the Wiener Zeitung news outlet — a reference to the Nazi racial legislation imposed in Austria following the “Anschluss,” or union, between Austria and Hitler’s Germany in March 1938. An April 1933 ban on kosher slaughter was one of the first legislative acts of the Nazi regime.

The plan’s author is Gottfried Waldhäusl — a local cabinet minister and farmer who represents the far-right Freedom Party. Formed in the 1950s under the leadership of Anton Reinthaller, a former officer in the Nazi SS, the Freedom Party is a junior partner in Austria’s present coalition government.

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Claiming that his proposal is based in concerns about “animal welfare,” Waldhäusl has submitted a draft decree that would result in a ban on the sale of kosher meat to all except those Jews who have registered for an exemption permit.

Waldhäusl — a long-time opponent of both kosher and halal meat sales — said he was “checking whether the meat requirement can be linked to the place of residence.”

Speaking to the Wiener Zeitung, Waldhäusl added pointedly that Lower Austria was “not there to provide meat to the Viennese.” He said that it was “difficult to see why Viennese travel to Lower Austria and have thousands of animals slaughtered here.” The great majority of Austria’s 8,000 Jews live in Vienna.