The first biography of FP chairman Herbert Kickl has been available in bookstores since Monday. The “profil” editors Gernot Bauer and Robert Treichler have written an insightful portrait of the politician whose party is currently in first place in the polls and who aims to become “People’s Chancellor”. The approximately 250-page book “Kickl and the Destruction of Europe” provides previously unknown insights. Through condensation, the authors succeed in drawing a comprehensive picture of Kickl, a loner who basically distrusts people.
The authors went in search of clues in Kickl’s homeland: Kickl grew up as an only child in Radenthein near Lake Millstättersee. The grandfather was an illegal Nazi, the father was an enthusiastic footballer at WSG Radenthein. The parents worked at the magnesite factory and are described as apolitical.
Canceled training courses
Kickl ended his one-year training with the army prematurely, as well as his studies. The philosophy professor Franz Ungler, who was born in Wels, became “almost a father figure” for Kickl during these years. “I can’t do anything, but I can learn everything,” said the college dropout when he introduced himself to the FPÖ. The then FP boss Jörg Haider had a fascination with Kickl since school days. In 1995, the “talented incompetent” met an FP speaker in the parliamentary cafeteria, who wrote down the number of the Freedom Academy for him on a beer mat. Kickl joined the FPÖ and worked his way up under Haider.
Both methods are similar; they use language that is often derogatory and based on images of violence. But in contrast to Kickl, Haider was always more open, while today’s FP boss prefers to surround himself with like-minded people. The authors work out how Kickl strategically disempowered opponents, whether the former FP public prosecutor Ewald Stadler, FP veteran Andreas Mölzer or the then FP chairman Norbert Hofer. The third President of the National Council was accused of misconduct towards a woman, and Hofer withdrew from the party leadership. Kickl overcame his opponents in the party and took over the chairmanship in 2021.
The psychogram of the FP boss is one of the most interesting chapters in the book. “Kickl is full of mistrust. Behind the confident facade there is an unfinished personality,” begins the chapter “The Loner.” Kickl is a triathlete, a sport in which you fight against yourself. The vain politician, who is proud of his intellectuality, has only a few close confidants in the party. When Kickl married his long-term partner, with whom he has a son, at the registry office in Purkersdorf in 2018, no one was there, not even a best man. The authors therefore aptly describe him as a “people’s tribune with a contact disorder”.
Gernot Bauer, Robert Treichler: Kickl and the destruction of Europe. Zsolnay Publishing House, 256 pages, 25 euros
