According to Article I VerbotsG, the Nazi Party, its paramilitary organisations such as
SS,
SA, the
National Socialist Motor Corps and
National Socialist Flyers Corps, as well as all affiliated associations were dissolved and banned; any restructuring is forbidden. To underpin the prohibition, the
Verbotsgesetz itself, though constitutional law, comprises several
penal provisions classifying any act of (re-)engagement in National Socialist activities (
Wiederbetätigung) as a punishable offense. Section 3 h VerbotsG included in 1992 states that
whoever in a printed work, on broadcasting or in any other media,
or whoever otherwise publicly in a matter that it makes it accessible to many people,
denies, belittles, condones or tries to justify the Nazi genocide or other Nazi crimes against humanity
shall be punished with imprisonment for one year up to ten years, in the case of special perilousness of the offender or the engagement up to twenty years. All cases are to be tried by
jury.
The provisions concerning the denazification in Austria have been rendered inoperative by a 1957
amnesty. Former members of Nazi organisations were banned from the
1945 legislative election. The initial
death penalty was abolished in 1950.
Application
In 1985 the Austrian Constitutional Court ruled that the remaining regulations are directly applicable in the country's legal system, binding every court and every administrative agency of Austria. Upon the 1992 amendment, the Austrian Supreme Court stated that any reasoning or argumentation concerning the Nazi genocide and the Nazi crimes against humanity is no
admissible evidence.
Up to today numeorus verdicts are handed down by
Austrian courts based on the
Verbotsgesetz, most notably the conviction of
David Irving at the
Vienna Landesgericht für Strafsachen on 20 February 2006.
