British actor and broadcaster Stephen Fry has expressed his gratitude to Austria for granting him citizenship, along with the right to vote in the country's upcoming

election. This follows a legal change designed to acknowledge Austria's historical responsibility for crimes committed during the Nazi era.

In 2019, the Austrian parliament passed a law allowing descendants of Austrians who fled Nazi persecution to apply for citizenship. Fry, in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, described this law as a "noble gesture." Fry, whose grandparents were from Austria and whose great-grandparents perished in the Holocaust, proudly shared this news in a video on social media earlier this month.

Fry, one of the UK’s most beloved actors and television personalities, thanked Austria for changing the law, and encouraged others to vote in the September 29 parliamentary election, declaring: "I am so proud to be Austrian."

Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, an event led by Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria. The new law, passed in 2019, allows thousands of descendants of those who fled the Nazis to reclaim Austrian citizenship and vote, often as dual nationals. About 33,000 people have taken advantage of this right over the past four years, according to the Austrian government.

This will be the first general election where new citizens, like Fry, will be eligible to vote. The election is predicted to be a close race, with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) leading slightly over the conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP) in the polls. No single party is expected to secure a majority.

Reflecting on the current political climate, Fry also mentioned Britain’s exit from the European Union, expressing relief that his new Austrian citizenship allowed him to regain EU status. He joked that it gave him the chance "to stick my tongue out at Brexit."

Although Fry did not disclose which party he would support in the election, he commented on the rise of right-wing forces across Europe, particularly in Germany, and raised concerns about similar trends in Austria. "It's a story that's being watched all over the world," he remarked, referencing the global attention on the growing popularity of right-wing movements.

Fry, who gained fame through British television classics such as Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster, has been politically active in the past, having once joined Britain's centre-left Labour Party. Photo by US Embassy London, Wikimedia commons.