Unknown perpetrators have sabotaged a climbing route first explored by Herbert Kickl, leader of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), in the Styrian alps.
On March 19, local police confirmed that the iron hooks and bolts of the via ferrata “Geheimer Schwob” in the Hochschwab area North of Leoben in Styria, Austria’s second-largest State, had been sawn off, rendering the route unusable.
The left-wing extremist group Antifa has claimed responsibility for the attack. In a March 13 post on Indymedia, a hard-left online portal, titled “Take Back the Peaks”, the left-wingers claimed right-wing politicians “were trying to appropriate the mountains in order to romanticise Austria as a nation state and create a supposed national identity”.
The hooks had reportedly been drilled into the rock by Kickl and two climbing companions who first explored the route in 2020. The FPÖ leader, whose party came in first in the 2024 general election, is an avid mountaineer and long-distance runner.
A video that showed hooded individuals grinding off the hooks had reportedly already been circulated online on March 13.
Due to heavy snowfall, the Styrian police had to wait almost a week before they could climb the 1,400m Ausweichkogel mountain to confirm whether the via ferrata, or “iron way” in Italian, had been sabotaged.
Given Kickl’s political exposure, the Austrian security service has started an investigation.
Antifa also took issue with what they claimed was Kickl “abusing” a place where partisans supposedly hid out in Nazi times “for his own self-promotion with a first ascent”.
“Because we are resolutely opposed to his right-wing ideology, we have decided to remove his ‘Geheimer Schwob’ route,” the message concluded.
The group’s act of sabotage has been met with scorn from both right-wingers and the climbing community.
Sebastian Schwaighofer, the FPÖ’s speaker on left-wing extremism, on March 15 called it “an act of irrational malice to wilfully destroy alpine infrastructure that can be used free of charge”.
The same day, Kickl wrote in a Facebook post: “It is shocking how far left-wing extremists now go and even endanger human lives.”
“Is this the left’s understanding of democracy and how the oh-so-tolerant treat political dissidents?”
In an online forum for mountaineers, users were also critical of the Antifa saboteurs. One user wrote: “You can have whatever opinion you like about Mr. Kickl but it’s the climbing community and no one else who suffers from this cowardly removal of bolts.”
