CNN.com – Historians dispute Schwarzenegger’s

convention comments – Sep 3, 2004

In his convention address, Schwarzenegger also said: “As a kid, I saw the Socialist country that

Austria became after the Soviets left” in 1955 and Austria regained its independence.

But Martin Polaschek, a law history scholar and

vice rector of Graz University, told Kurier that Austria was governed by coalition governments, including the conservative People’s

Party and the Social Democratic Party. Between 1945 and 1970, all the nation’s chancellors were conservatives — not Socialists.

What’s more, when Schwarzenegger left in 1968, Austria was run by a conservative government headed by People’s Party

Chancellor Josef Klaus, a staunch Roman Catholic and a sharp critic of both the Socialists and the Communists ruling in countries across

the Iron Curtain.

Schwarzenegger “confuses a free country with a Socialist one,” said Polaschek.