On December 6th at 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – A cannon “Made in Austria”, several mysterious deaths and a lot of money: these are the ingredients for one of the most explosive political affairs of the 1980s, which the ORF is addressing with an exclusive “People & Powers” documentary by Georg Ransmayr and Gregor Stuhlpfarrer on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, at 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2. At the center of the scandal: the Noricum arms manufacturer, a subsidiary of the state-owned Voest Alpine. Despite Austria’s neutrality, it exports weapons to warring countries. With the knowledge of high-ranking politicians, such as the heads of government Bruno Kreisky and Fred Sinowatz as well as other ministers. In order not to endanger business, politicians and Voest managers publicly told untruths for years. Until the assurances could no longer be maintained.
One of the most important witnesses to the Noricum scandal – the then Interior Minister Karl Blecha – is now making peace with the past. He says that according to his information, Herbert Amry, Austria’s ambassador to Greece, may have been murdered by a CIA splinter group. For decades Blecha had insisted that Amry died of a heart attack. Blecha’s statements “shed a completely new light on the Noricum affair,” says historian Thomas Riegler. Ambassador Herbert Amry died in July 1985 at an embassy reception in Athens. Before that, he had become aware of an illegal arms deal between Austria and Iran, which was at war at the time. He wanted to use his knowledge to stop the deal. But Amry died – and the deal continued until 1987.
The fact that the “Basta” journalists Burkhart List and Otto Grüner were able to photograph the GHN-45 guns in a Yugoslavian military port in August 1985 did not change this. “This is the starting point for uncovering the biggest scandal in the republic,” says Burkhart List in an ORF interview. The ORF was able to carry out extensive filming for “The Noricum Files – Austria’s Secret Weapons Deals” in the port of Ploče (formerly: Kardeljevo), which is now part of Croatia. And another secret person was interviewed: Gaan Eisenburger, the man who was looking for buyers for the Noricum cannons around the world. In the ORF interview he said about the deals at the time: “Chancellor Sinowatz came to us and said, you have to deliver cannons to Iran.”
“The Noricum file – Austria’s secret arms deals” shows that Austria’s Middle East policy was accentuated with the help of billions in arms exports. During the Noricum deal with Iraq, Bruno Kreisky and his Interior Minister Erwin Lanc made a wish to Saddam Hussein: Iraq’s head of state should give up his support for the terrorist Abu Nidal. After Iraq in 1982, Iran was also supplied with the Noricum guns from 1985. This business is even more explosive because Iran has been considered the archenemy of the West since the 1979 revolution.
The trial against the Voest managers began in 1989, and the politicians had to stand trial in 1993. However, there was no investigation of political responsibility, including an admission of guilt: “They didn’t want to discuss the fact that they had violated these gun laws, as in Austria you rarely want to get to the bottom of anything,” says Anneliese Rohrer, a long-time domestic policy journalist at the daily newspaper “Die Presse”, in an ORF interview. Karl Blecha now admits that he defended the illegal transactions out of reasons of state and party discipline. His statements give the Noricum scandal a new twist.