Just a couple of things. So you don't sound like one of the "extremists who LOVE this sort of overreaction", the article said 1 -10 years, not "over 20 years" as you seem to have read.
Second. Please hear me clearly now, if this had happened here, I would be outraged that someone had been jailed and threatened with prison for writing his twisted version of history. However, the Austrians, with a different culture and historical perspective than we have, especially about WWII and the holocaust, have a right to do what they believe about this issue. , up to a point.
He went there, to their country and this is what they feel is appropriate. If the Austrians want to line him up and shoot him or turn him into soap or some other Nazi atrocity, I'd most definitely be outraged, but the mere threat of 1-10 years (not a sentence at this time) hasn't risen to my threshold for outrage yet. If they cut off his head and showed the video on tv? That would more than do it, but detaining him and a possible threat of Austrian prison? Not there yet.
Again, it's their country. But: If our government tried that here, I'll stand with you.
My mistake on the sentencing. I stand corrected.
I'm sure the Austrians have a different prospective on WW2 however principles are either sound or unsound on their merits alone.
I hate Michael Moore. I believe him and his ilk have damaged our reputation and prolonged this war just as their sixties counterculture hippies worsen the Vietnam war.
However denying them their First Amendment rights of Free Speech is horrid to me.
It takes a mature society to allow ALL VIEWS and if Vienna cannot tolerant the writings of a lone dingbat. Well then Austria has bigger problems than that of ghosts of events long past.
Hitler arose from the ashes of the Great War in which many believed they were "stabbed in the back" by politicians willing to compromise their rights away to foreign powers.
This action will only give ammunition to those Austrian malcontents who believe their rights are already suppressed by,as you put it "the Jooooos"