"The Führer was a better dancer than Churchill and the Führer was a better painter than Churchill!"

Forty two percent of Austrians think "not everything was bad under Hitler," while 57% think "there was nothing positive about the Hitler era," according to a poll conducted by newspaper Der Standard that was published on Friday.

The poll was conducted among 502 eligible voters in Austria and published ahead of the 75th anniversary of the country's annexation by Nazi Germany.

61% thought the country adequately dealt with its Nazi past, while 39% thought more should be done.

Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, and a debate still smoulders on whether Austrians were Hitler's first victims or willing accomplices. Austria's Jewish population was nearly wiped out in the ensuing Holocaust.

54% answered that neo-Nazi groups would be successful in the Austrian elections, if there was no law banning them. [...]

The great film director Billy Wilder, a refugee from Nazism, once quipped that the Austrians were the greatest bullshit artists in the world because they had convinced the world that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler was German. It seems they're still up to their old tricks over there...