http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...=1094206566890
"Arnold ridiculed for Austrian history gaffe
FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
VIENNA, Austria — Austrian historians are ridiculing California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger for telling the U.S. Republican convention that he saw Soviet tanks in
his homeland as a child and left a "Socialist" country when he moved away in 1968.
Recalling that the Soviets once occupied part of Austria in the aftermath of the
Second World War, Schwarzenegger told the convention on Tuesday: "I saw tanks in the
streets. I saw communism with my own eyes."
No way, historians say, challenging Schwarzenegger's knowledge of postwar history —
if not his enduring popularity among Austrians who admire him for rising from a
penniless immigrant to the highest official in America's most populous state.
"It's a fact — as a child he could not have seen a Soviet tank in Styria," the
southeastern province where Schwarzenegger was born and raised, historian Stefan
Karner told the Vienna newspaper Kurier.
Schwarzenegger, now a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born on July 30, 1947, when
Styria and the neighbouring province of Carinthia belonged to the British zone. At
the time, postwar Austria was occupied by the four wartime allies, which also
included the United States, the Soviet Union and France.
The Soviets already had left Styria in July 1945, less than three months after the
end of the war, Karner noted.
In his convention address, Schwarzenegger also said: "As a kid, I saw the socialist
country that Austria became after the Soviets left" in 1955 and Austria regained its
independence.
But Martin Polaschek, a law history scholar and vice-rector of Graz University, told
Kurier that Austria was governed by coalition governments, including the conservative
People's party and the Social Democratic party. Between 1945 and 1970, all the
nation's chancellors were conservatives — not socialists.
Polaschek saw the moderate Republican governor's recollections at the convention as a
tactical move. Schwarzenegger, he said, was "using the old Communist enemy image for
Bush's election campaign."
"He did not speak as a historian, after all, but as a politician," Polaschek said.
Norbert Darabos, a ranking official of Austria's opposition Social Democratic party,
sharply criticized Schwarzenegger's "disdain for his former homeland."
"The Terminator is constructing a rather bizarre Austria image," he said."
now this is the Toronto star, Canadian newspaper where reporters still know how to
report. no where in US papers have I been able to find a similar story. Ingrid
(Bill Oliver) wrote:
In article ,
wrote:
I especially find Schwarzeneggers lies insanely funny. The guy was born in 47 two
years after the soviet union left the country ....
Do you just make this stuff up? Austrian independence occurred in 1955.
The last 40,000 troops left in September.
http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-813.html
billo
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