Two suspects have been identified following an incident on a train in Austria during which the loudspeaker system was taken over to play out a speech from Adolph Hitler throughout all the cars.
On Sunday, a high-speed train travelling between St. Pölten and the Austrian capital of Vienna had its customer address system hijacked and rather than usual announcements passengers were subjected to children’s songs, clips of Austrian actress and television presenter Chris Lohner, and Nazi content were played out through the train.
According to a report from the German language Austrian paper Niederösterreichische Nachrichten, the content included a speech from Adolph Hitler as well as the sounds of people chanting “Heil Hitler” and “Sieg Heil”. Due to post-war laws in the country of Hitler’s birth, the dissemination of Nazi speeches is a criminal offence in the country.
It is currently believed that the incident was not a result of a hack of the system, but rather that two individuals had acquired one of the universal carriage keys that rail staff use to access the intercom system, and played out the content through the speaker of their phone into the train’s microphone.
It is reported that two individuals have been arrested and charged, having been tracked by security cameras. There have reportedly been other, similar incidents on the same rail line in recent weeks.
In a statement provided to the BBC, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) said: “We clearly distance ourselves from the content.
“We can currently assume that the announcements were made by people directly on the train via intercoms. We have reported the matter to the police.”
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