Our Federal President at steirischer herbst (II): How Kurt Waldheim Was “Rightly” Booed

18.7.25 / Herwig G. Höller

In this blog, steirischer herbst research fellow and journalist Herwig G. Höller shares his discoveries in the festival archive. They frequently reveal surprising connections between steirischer herbst and the world of—local as well as international—politics.

Between 1970 and 1987, almost every edition of steirischer herbst was opened by the federal president. The first part of this herbstleak focused on Franz Jonas (1965–74) and especially Rudolf Kirchschläger (1974–86), who grew increasingly skeptical of the festival, which led to heated debates and strange alliances behind the scenes.

Waldheim: 1986, 1987
Klestil: 1993
Fischer: 2004, 2007, 2015
Van der Bellen: –

The government officials in charge of steirischer herbst were greatly interested in the presence of Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger’s successor at the festival. A few days after Kurt Waldheim (1986–92) was sworn in, a member of Deputy Governor Kurt Jungwirth’s staff informed steirischer herbst that it could assume that the federal president would open the festival. The official confirmation came shortly thereafter.

As expected, representatives of the arts were less than pleased with this announcement; Waldheim had only recently been confronted with his Nazi past and alleged involvement in war crimes. “You have forgotten your past. We would like to forget that you are the Austrian Federal President. We request that you refrain from attending the opening of steirischer herbst,” read an open letter launched by writer Elfriede Jelinek and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger in late August 1986.

On 20 September, the federal president came anyway. His opening speech at Schauspielhaus Graz was “rightly accompanied by some boos,” as Waldheim had nothing more to offer than a few vague appeals, commented Bayerischer Rundfunk.

In 1987, Waldheim visited steirischer herbst again. Following protests by the youth organization of the Social Democratic Party of Austria in the run-up to the festival, the presidential office announced that there would be no “official opening speech.” The steirischer herbst Archive contains only a file note from Secretary General Paul Kaufmann dealing with protocol issues. “What happens after the theater? To the hotel, Waldheim wants to wash his hands,” it says, among other things.

Until the end of his term in 1992, the federal president was not seen at the festival again. The reasons for this are unknown. Relevant files from the presidential office are currently neither available there nor in the Austrian State Archives.

Hans Hollmann’s production of Friedrich Cerha’s Der Rattenfänger (The Pied Piper), which premiered at the Graz Opera on 26 September 1987, may have played a role. Cerha alluded to a statement by Waldheim in a lament of the Little Executioner: “And I didn't think anything of it because there were always the orders. And I always, always, always just did my duty.” During the 1986 election campaign, Waldheim had declared that he had merely done what hundreds of thousands of Austrians had done during World War II, namely fulfilling his duty as a soldier.

There is no evidence of more recent politically charged episodes like this in the steirischer herbst Archive. Files relating to later communication between the presidential office and steirischer herbst are also, for now, unavailable in the state archives. Moreover, the media paid noticeably less attention to opening speeches by federal presidents after Waldheim. In any case, the only appearance by Thomas Klestil (1992–2004) at steirischer hersbt in 1993 and two opening speeches by Heinz Fischer (2004–2016) in 2004 and 2007, who also attended the ORF musikprotokoll in 2015, were unspectacular.

For Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, in office since 2017, no connection with steirischer herbst is known. According to available information, he apparently did not attend an opening even during his time as party leader of the Greens—who are actually sympathetic to steirischer herbst—between 1997 and 2008. If Van der Bellen does not come by the end of his second term in 2029, he would be the very first federal president in the history of steirischer herbst never to attend a festival opening.