Kreisky felt that he had never personally suffered as a Jew, but only as a socialist. Historians believe that Kreisky's forgiveness and relaxed attitude towards former Nazis dates from his time in the prisons of the Austrian Dollfuss regime in 1935. Many of his cellmates were Nazis and he accepted them as fellow political opponents of the Austro-Fascist government. It was one of these former cellmates who arranged Kreisky's escape to Sweden in 1938. Another factor was that Kreisky was an assimilated Jew from Vienna, who did not practise his faith and had nothing to do with the mostly very poor Eastern Jews that were considered inferior and embarrassing even by most of the Austrian Jews. "The eastern Jews are alien," Kreisky actually remarked. That was, however, exactly Wiesenthal's background: He was born in Galicia and raised in a very religious way. He felt that being Jewish was more than a religious faith; for him, it was a shared fate. Kreisky is also alleged to have deliberately used coded anti-semitic semantics to attract right-wing voters in Austria. Both men never spoke to each other again and both felt that they were right about their view about each other. Historian Tom Segev described the affair as triggered by both men's complex personalities: "Vienna was too small a city to hold two Jews with egos of this size, both of whom wished to be part of Austrian society". Aftermath The Kreisky–Peter–Wiesenthal affair rehearsed many of the themes that resurfaced a decade later during the controversy around Kurt Waldheim. Bruno Kreisky is still seen as a great statesman. His defense of Peter's wartime service in the SS is still shared by a substantial part of the Austrian population, and Austrians are also today very critical of foreign interference in their political affairs, which sometimes leads to nationalism and resentment. This political climate supported the rise of Jörg Haider and the Freedom Party in the 1980s and 1990s. References External links The Simon Wiesenthal Archive in Vienna (German) Simon Wiesenthal 1975 in Austria