“We honour the memory of these heroes from the ranks of the Austrian working class and the Austrian people”

Speech by Lukas Haslwanter, Deputy Chair of the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA), at the liberation celebration at the former Mauthausen concentration camp, 10 May 2026

Speech by Lukas Haslwanter, Deputy Chair of the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA), at the liberation celebration at the former Mauthausen concentration camp, 10 May 2026

Dear comrades,

Today, one day after 9 May – the day of the great anti-fascist victory of the peoples over fascism – we stand here in Mauthausen at the memorial plaque dedicated to the 42 resistance fighters who were murdered here at the end of April 1945.

They were members of a resistance group of the Communist Party of Austria in Upper Austria, with more than 150 members in the municipalities of Ebensee, Gmunden, Gschwandt, Laakirchen, Lambach, Linz, Steyr, Stadl-Paura and Wels. In all these municipalities, workplace organisations were established in the most important factories. One of the leading cadres of the KPÖ in this resistance group was Josef ‘Sepp’ Teufl. Teufl is also one of the 42 who were murdered here in Mauthausen during the final gassing operation on 28 April 1945, on the direct orders of the Nazi Gauleiter of Oberdonau, August Eigruber. Afterwards, the gas chamber was dismantled and attempts were made to cover up the evidence. On 5 May, the first US tanks finally reached the concentration camp. For the camp resistance, which had already largely taken control of the camp, this was the signal to secure the concentration camp and the surrounding area militarily against roaming SS and Wehrmacht units until the arrival of the US Army.

These 42 resistance fighters stand as representatives of the heroic and self-sacrificing struggle waged by millions against the most brutal form of capitalism – against fascism.

It was not only here in Upper Austria that communists were at the forefront of the struggle against fascist barbarism. They were the organising and leading force in the resistance and partisan groups across all regions, and not least it was the Soviet Union and the heroic Red Army that made sacrifices numbering in the millions to crush fascism and finally hoist the red flag with the hammer and sickle on the Reichstag.

When Eigruber gave the order to carry out the massacres so that the Allies would find ‘no forces willing to rebuild’, the primary aim was to weaken the influence of the communists in post-war Austria. Even in the face of defeat, the fascists tried with every means at their disposal to prevent an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist perspective from gaining ground after the war.

We will not allow the history of the anti-fascist resistance, the history of the 42 martyrs we are commemorating here, to be falsified by the EU, the bourgeois governments and a handful of their academics and well-paid parrots. We will not allow those who were executed to be equated with their executioners, as the EU repeatedly attempts to do in various resolutions aimed at equating fascism with communism.

Dear comrades,

We honour the memory of these heroes from the ranks of the Austrian working class and the Austrian people, who bravely opposed fascist barbarism and foreign rule.

We honour their memory by gathering once again today under the red flag, organising ourselves, studying their history and experiences, and drawing lessons for the continuation of the struggle against capitalism.

Long live the anti-fascist resistance!

Long live the victory of the peoples over fascism!

For a socialist Austria!