Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Austrian police charge 2 men after Hitler speech plays on public train’s loudspeakers

Vienna’s chief rabbi, who was on the train, said he was deeply disturbed

(JTA) — Austrian authorities are searching for two men suspected of blaring a recording of Hitler’s voice and a series of “Heil Hitler” and “Sieg Heil” chants on a public train for about 20 minutes on Sunday night.

Vienna’s chief rabbi was on the train and told CNN that the recording started with “strange music, snippets of conversation and laughter which suddenly turned into a Hitler speech played louder and louder.”

The rabbi, Schlomo Hofmeister, tweeted that he was disturbed at how long it took for the train’s conductors to shut off the recordings.

Police said on Monday that the men were not employees of the ÖBB, Austria’s federal train service, but that they infiltrated the intercom system via a key that all employees have. Officials believe the suspects played other sounds — a “nonsensical, confusing mix” of childrens’ songs — on other trains around Vienna last week.

The two suspects have been charged by Austrian authorities. Austria, which was the birthplace of Adolf Hitler, has strict laws against pro-Nazi statements and Holocaust denial.

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted on Tuesday that at least one Holocaust survivor was on the train and “one can only imagine how they felt.”

Journalist Colette Schmidt, who was also on the train, called the incident “very scary.”

“No conductor, no one came, there was no one to see. We were alone with this madness. ‘Who is driving this train now?’ I asked myself,” Schmidt, who works for the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, told CNN.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.