Haider was a long-time leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ). When he stepped down as party’s chairman in 2000, he remained its major figure until 2005. In April 2005 he founded a new party, the “Alliance for the Future of Austria” (BZÖ-Bündnis Zukunft Österreich)

Joerg Haider was born in 1950 in Bad Goisern, Upper Austria. His father Robert Haider worked as a shoemaker, his mother Dorothea Rupp was a teacher.

Both parents were active members of the Nazi Party. Robert Haider joined the ‘Hitler Jugend’ when he was fifteen. In 1933, after Nazi organisations were banned in Austria, he participated in several illegal actions. In 1934 he took part in the failed nazi putsch and was forced to flee to Bavaria, where he joined the nazi party. (more…)