Vienna – The number of reports of right-wing extremist crimes rose significantly in 2025. This is shown by a response to an inquiry from Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) to the SPÖ. In the first half of the year, 787 crimes were registered, 41.5 percent more than in the same period last year (556 in the first half of the year, 1,486 in 2024), even though these crimes were already at a record high in 2024. Particularly striking is that 91 percent of the perpetrators were men.
Of the 787 reported crimes, 21 were identified in the response to the inquiry as anti-Semitic and 11 as Islamophobic. The latter, in particular, represents a significant increase compared to the previous year (three). Reports filed under the Prohibition Act also increased significantly, from 577 to 785. In a comparison of federal states, Vienna leads the list (236), followed by Upper Austria (171) and Lower Austria (103). The response to the inquiry reveals that 27 percent of right-wing extremist crimes occur online (212).
“The current figures once again underscore the worrying developments of recent years. We have a problem with a massive increase in right-wing extremism, online and on the streets. What is particularly worrying is that young people are increasingly becoming the target of right-wing extremist agitation,” the SPÖ spokesperson for remembrance culture, Sabine Schatz, told the APA.
To counteract this development, a comprehensive package of measures is needed, including prevention programs in schools and youth facilities, increased support for victims, strategies to combat online hate speech, and an exit program. “Only with a decisive and coordinated approach can we succeed in drying up the breeding ground for right-wing extremism,” Schatz said.
A National Action Plan against Right-Wing Extremism, the implementation of which the federal government has committed to in its government program, is currently being “intensively worked on.” In the summer, SPÖ Federal Executive Director Klaus Seltenheim expressed confidence that the Interior Ministry would present it in the fall. SPÖ State Secretary Jörg Leichtfried, who is based there, also expected an agreement to be reached soon.
Karner: “Take consistent action against extremism”
The head of the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance, Andreas Kranebitter, already expressed the call for accelerated implementation of the National Action Plan in an interview with APA this summer and reiterated it in light of the figures published on Thursday. “It is high time to act on one of the most pressing problems facing our society. (…) We must not become accustomed to the rise in right-wing extremist acts. Every act committed harms people; every single one is one too many,” Kranebitter said in a press release. A long-term comparison also reveals problematic trends: In 2005, the number of right-wing extremist crimes was still 205, according to the head of the DÖW, which publishes the annual right-wing extremism report.
Karner himself interpreted the figures as a result of consistent police work: “The current figures show once again: the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution are consistently cracking down on all forms of extremism. Just two days ago, a massive and consistent crackdown was carried out against right-wing extremists. This resulted in 25 house searches with numerous seizures,” he said in a statement to the APA. The targeted operation on Tuesday included, among others, the house of neo-Nazi Gottfried Küssel in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district.
The Mauthausen Committee Austria sees things differently. The police successes of recent days should not obscure the fact “that politicians have still not succeeded in implementing a National Action Plan, as already adopted by the conservative-green federal government and also agreed upon in the coalition agreement between the ÖVP-SPÖ-NEOS federal government,” it stated in a press release. Chairman Willi Mernyi stated: “The extreme increase in right-wing extremist crimes is a clear result of the lack of political reaction; therefore, a national action plan is urgently needed.”
