Chat logs from investigation files reveal close contacts between Identitäre and FPÖ officials

Sickl as central figure in the network

At the center of the published excerpts is the long-standing FPÖ district politician Heinrich Sickl, whom the "Standard" describes as an "FPÖ original" in Graz. According to a transcript of a voice message, Sellner complained to Sickl that the FPÖ was "either too weak or had no interest in helping the Identitäre." He addressed an appeal to the party that they would "give the FPÖ a few more days" to sign a petition for the Identitäre.

Investigators assess the then Graz municipal councilor Sickl and Sellner as "connected in friendship." Over more than 110 emails, the two are said to have written to each other between 2017 and 2019. According to the chat protocols, Sickl involved Sellner in the realignment of the magazine "Aula," the publication organ of the fraternity associations, in which survivors of the Mauthausen concentration camp had been referred to as a "plague" in 2015.

From the "Aula" concept to "Freilich"

Three months before the planned redesign, Sickl asked Sellner: "Do you have an idea for a new title for the 'Aula'?" Sellner then sent out a "semi-secret" concept for the successor title, which still appears today under the name "Freilich." The editorial staff of this medium has subsequently been repeatedly criticized as a mouthpiece of the Identitäre and the right-wing camp.

When the FPÖ hesitated in May 2018 to support the petition, Sellner threatened, according to the protocols, to form his own party: "If the Blues chicken out, we'd probably have to found our own party." He did not want to take this option "under any circumstances," because it would be a "split of the right-wing camp." However, the decision could be made "out of necessity," since the Identitäre would feel more protected as a party than as an association.

Threat to form own party

Contacts to Reinhard Teufel, the then office chief of FPÖ Interior Minister Herbert Kickl and today's FPÖ club chairman in the Lower Austrian state parliament, were also intensively cultivated. According to the report, Sellner and Teufel were already on a first-name basis in 2017. Teufel had signed his emails to Sellner with "LG Reinhard."

Kickl's former office chief as a close friend

The files also contain a reference to a former FPÖ district politician who as early as 2015 advised Sellner to apply for a speaker position with the then FPÖ delegate Johannes Hübner. The now-deceased politician is said to have exchanged over 110 emails with Sellner. Skepticism toward the Identitäre was also evident early on with later FPÖ party leader Norbert Hofer: as early as 2016, Hofer warned that he had "the concern that they are developing in a direction that could be dangerous for Austria."

The chat protocols also throw a spotlight on the Identitäre's attempts to gain influence in FPÖ-led ministries or to exploit personnel weaknesses. The right-wing extremists discovered, for example, that an "antifascist activist" was working in the Sports Ministry of the then Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache. After an IB sympathizer and FPÖ official in the ministry had "spoken with the Secretary General," the "antifascist's" contract had expired.

Insights into FPÖ-led ministries

Another example: a then RFJ official wrote in a chat: "I have a massive problem if you pass this on." The reference shows how sensitively the Identitäre handled their connections into the government offices. Neither Sickl nor Teufel responded to a request from the "Standard."

In the course of the chat histories, the planned "summer demo" of the Identitäre at the end of July in central Vienna was also addressed. According to the movement, they were "exploring all options," but currently it looked "as if they would either ban our rally entirely or, through appropriate conditions and route changes, make an adequate course of events impossible." The Vienna State Police Directorate said on Tuesday in response to an APA inquiry that the rallies notified for July 25 were still in the official review phase.

Cancelled "summer demo" and incidents of violence

The "Standard" had also reported the previous week that the demonstration planned for Saturday had been banned by the authorities. On social media, the IBÖ called on people not to come to Vienna because the event had been banned. The demo has been considered for years a meeting point for European right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis.

Most recently, the Identitäre repeatedly made headlines because of violent incidents. Just one week before a relevant chat message, there was a violent attack in front of the IB venue in Vienna's 5th district. In addition, Yannick W., who is suspected of the offense in Leoben and was until recently the spokesman of the Viennese Identitäre, already received a diversion in 2025 for a brawl in front of Parliament, as did his opponent.

In court in Graz, only two 18-year-olds could be identified in the proceedings against Sellner and other leading cadres; they were given penalties of 20 and one further unit, respectively. The other accused apparently remained unknown. After the mass murder in New Zealand's Christchurch in March 2019, in which the right-wing terrorist attacker had transferred a donation of 1,500 euros to Sellner and the two had invited each other to visit, the Freedom Party did in fact cut its ties to the Identitäre for the time being.

The new FPÖ party leader Herbert Kickl, who sees the Identitäre as an "NGO worthy of support," has so far not publicly commented on the chat protocols. Sickl and Teufel also remained silent on request. The revelations from the investigation files, however, suggest that the personnel and strategic entanglements between the FPÖ and the Identitäre Bewegung were considerably denser over several years than previously known.

He had received the information from a "Michael," who in turn had gotten it from the then FPÖ Secretary General Harald Vilimsky, according to another chat. It would only be "fair and necessary" to tell the FPÖ about this "because of the good relationship" beforehand, wrote one participant. The density of contacts that emerges from the analyzed messages paints, for observers, a picture of a bracket grown over years between right-wing party politics and an extra-parliamentary movement.