Interesting. The associations that come closest to fraternities in Germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studentenverbindung) have a staunchly conservative reputation, although judging from the fraternity members that I know, they are not as homogeneous as you might think. Austria seems to be more extreme, as far as I know.
Yeah, the FPÖ recruits many of its future leaders from nationalist fraternities.
Most Austrian fraternities belong to one of two camps:
Catholic fraternities, organized in the
Cartellverband (CV) and the slightly less reactionary
Kartellverband (KV) are politically close to the conservative ÖVP. All Catholic fraternities (and confessional fraternities in general) reject academic fencing.
The FPÖ on the other hand draws many politicians from fraternities that practice academic fencing, in particular
Burschenschaften organized in the
Deutsche Burschenschaft (DB), but also to a lesser degree from the not explicitly political
Corps and
Landsmannschaften.
