Passengers on the train from Bregenz to Vienna are said to have been shocked at what they heard.
In Austria, two men have been charged for playing a speech by Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler over a train’s public address system. The case was reported on Monday by the Austrian news agency APA and several international media.
The defendants are suspected of playing the “Heil Hitler” and “Sieg Heil” greetings used by the Nazis in addition to Hitler’s speech on a train en route from Bregenz to Vienna on Sunday, according to the AP news agency.
Spreading Nazi propaganda is a crime under Austrian law. Originally from Austria, Hitler moved to Germany in 1913 as a young man.
The officers nabbed the suspects by analyzing the train’s camera recordings. It is believed that he used the staff keys to open the train conductor’s cabin from where the announcement system operates.
A spokesman for the railway company OBB told Der Standard that he used the public address system as usual and then placed the mobile phone next to him.
According to the Guardian, the company insisted that at no point did the suspects have access to the cabs to control the train’s movements.
The two are also suspected of being responsible for a similar act last week on a train from Sankt Pölten to Vienna.
One of the passengers on the train from Bregenz to Vienna told the BBC that those on board were “completely shocked” by the loud noises. MP David Stogmuller, who also traveled on the train, said that the announcements started shortly before the train reached Vienna.
– We listened to two episodes. First came 30 seconds of Hitler’s speech, and then I heard “Sieg Heil,” Stogmuller said.
According to him, the train staff were unable to interrupt the recording, nor to make their usual announcement. Stogmuller also said that he received an e-mail from a man traveling on the train, whose traveling companion was an elderly woman who had survived World War II concentration camps.
– she cried, said the MP, referring to the woman.
According to Stogmuller, one of the train’s passengers pointed out that when technical problems occur on trains in other parts of the world, it is usually a breakdown of the air conditioning.
– In Austria, the technical problem is Hitler, he said.
