$Unique_ID{COW00256} $Pretitle{376} $Title{Austria Resistance and persecution in Austria 1938-1945} $Subtitle{} $Author{Federal Press Service} $Affiliation{Embassy of Austria, Washington DC} $Subject{austria german national march socialists austrian hitler plebiscite social government} $Date{1988} $Log{} Country: Austria Book: Resistance and persecution in Austria 1938-1945 Author: Federal Press Service Affiliation: Embassy of Austria, Washington DC Date: 1988 Resistance and persecution in Austria 1938-1945 Introduction In order to understand the attitude of the Austrian people towards the National Socialist regime between 1938 and 1945 it is necessary to appreciate the decisive role played by the economic and political conditions which pertained in Austria in the years leading up to the country's annexation by nazi Germany in March 1938. Furthermore, the prevailing conditions in Austria must be seen in the overall context of European political developments: the emergence of anti-democratic, anti-parliamentary tendencies in the twenties, which were subsequently compounded by the economic depression of the thirties. If Austria's resistance to Hitler is to be seen in its true perspective, it must be noted that the interest taken by the western democracies in Austria's continued existence as a sovereign state declined as Germany and Austria moved ever further away from democratic forms of political life in the years after 1933. It was indicative of the western world's resignation that the foreign embassies and diplomatic missions in Vienna were promptly reduced to consular status after March 13, 1938 and that only one official protest-that of Mexico-was lodged at the League of Nations against the annexation of Austria. The Corporative State In Austria itself the Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, under strong foreign political pressure from the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and confronted with severe domestic political difficulties resulting from his precarious majority in parliament, took a procedural crisis in the Lower Chamber on March 4, 1933 as a pretext for by-passing parliament altogether. Citing this procedural technicality he made the Lower Chamber redundant and invoked a "Wartime Economy Powers Act" dating from 1917 to institute an authoritarian regime. It was Dollfuss' goal to create a "social, Christian, German state of Austria on a corporative basis under a strong authoritarian leadership". Known subsequently as the "Corporative State", it betrayed pronounced fascist features such as the establishment of a unitarian party. This latter step involved the elimination of the existing political parties. The first to be banned were the small Communist Party of Austria (KPO) and the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP). During the four-day civil war of February 1934 the Social Democratic Worker's Party was forcibly suppressed (at the last parliamentary election in 1930 the Social Democrats had gained no fewer than 41 per cent of the total vote). In the wake of the civil war the Social Democratic worker's organisations-including the Free Trade Unions-were dissolved, and the leading officials of these bodies were arrested. A revival of their activities was prohibited under threat of prosecution. The Revolutionary Socialists or RS (who replaced the banned Social Democrats), the Communists and the Free Trade Unions went underground and regrouped. A constant succession of illegal publications, protests and strikes proved that the large majority of the working class was opposed to the Corporative State. The conflict was exacerbated by an economic crisis which for several years had made approximately ten per cent of Austria's workforce unemployed. This crisis and the NSDAP's rise to power in Germany were grist to the mill of the National Socialists in Austria. Encouraged by Hitler's assumption of power in Germany in early 1933, Austria's National Socialists launched a campaign of terrorist activities which reached such dimensions in mid-1933 that Chancellor Dollfuss issued a ban on the party. A few weeks previously Hitler's Germany had introduced what was known as the "Thousand Mark Limit", a mandatory fee to be paid by German citizens prior to travelling to Austria. This constituted a form of economic pressure on the Austrian government. Even after the ban on the NSDAP it proved impossible to prevent the continuation of the nazi terrorist campaign. On July 25, 1934 National Socialists attempted to seize power by staging a coup d'etat. It resulted in the assassination of Dollfuss in the Federal Chancellery building, but ultimately it failed. The coup cost more than 250 police and insurgents their lives and left hundreds injured. Although the German 'Reich' government had backed the uprising, it disclaimed responsibility for the outcome and thus for the Austrian National Socialists, partly in order not to damage its prestige internationally but principally because of the stance adopted by Mussolini, who was resolved to intervene militarily on Austria's behalf. The rapprochement between Hitler and Mussolini during the latter's foolhardy Abyssinian campaign meant that Austria was drawn increasingly away from the Italian and into the German sphere of influence. Under the pressure exerted by Hitler's Germany and German industrial interests Dollfuss' successor in the Chancellery, Kurt Schuschnigg, made far-reaching concessions to Hitler in the "July Accord" of 1936. From now on Austria's foreign policy proceeded from the premise of a "second German state". By signing this agreement, Schuschnigg deprived himself of the means by which to contain the internal threat posed by the National Socialists. At the Berchtesgaden meeting between Schuschnigg and Hitler on February 12, 1938 the Austrian Chancellor was induced by a process of intimidation and coercion to consent to the terms of an accord which in practice put Austria at the mercy of the National Socialists. The provisions of this agreement stipulated that Austrian policy-making should be co-ordinated with German interests, and that National Socialists should be included in the government. The accord signed in Berchtesgaden unleashed tumultuous domestic political developments in Austria. On the one hand the banned National Socialists saw their position greatly strengthened, while the government was no longer in a position to contain their activities; and on the other hand an anti-nazi, patriotic movement emerged to counter the National Socialists. Both the "grass-roots" supporters of the Corporative State and the working class showed increasing determination to make a stand against the National Socialists. The government began negotiations with the banned left-wing parties and the Free Trade Unions whose representatives were able to show themselves in public for the first time in four years of illegality. They made their support for the government conditional upon the fulfillment of certain demands. Although the plebiscite which Schuschnigg unexpectedly scheduled for March 13, 1938 was formulated in equivocal terms-its purpose was to quantify allegiance to "a free and German, independent and social, Christian and united Austria"-the workers were not deterred from declaring their intention to back it. The Socialists justified their support with the argument: "March 13 is not the day for settling accounts with the Austro-fascists; March 13 is for the Socialists a day on which they will proclaim their fanatical hostility towards Hitler fascism." The plebiscite was Schuschnigg's way of trying to seize the initiative. Even confidential National Socialist estimates suggested that the majority would have voted in favour of Austria. Taken unawares by Schuschnigg's move, Hitler and above all Hermann Goring, later to be 'Reichsmarschall', brought enormous pressure to bear on the Chancellor, threatening him with the invasion of Austria if he did not withdraw his plans for the plebiscite and forcing him to step down as Chancellor in favour of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who had only entered the government in February 1938 as Minister of the Interior and Security. In his farewell radio address on March 11, 1938 Schuschnigg said: "The Federal President has asked me to tell the Austrian people that we are yielding to force. Because even in these dire times we are not prepared to shed German blood we have instructed the Austrian armed forces to withdraw without offering resistance if the invasion takes place..." It was thus that, in the early hours of March 12, 1938, the German army occupied Austria without a shot being fired. The Chief of the General Staff of the Austrian armed forces, Field Marshall Alfred Jansa, who had drawn up contingency plans to defend Austria against Germany, had been dismissed by Schuschnigg only a few weeks previously. Hundreds of thousands of Austrians, deluded by false hopes, enthusiastically welcomed the annexation. The reasons for this euphoria were evident: the fulfillment of a dream of national identity dating back to 1918; the hope of employment and a better economic future; and for many the end of a government for which they had felt no sympathy. The media focused on the cheering crowds and the military parades and invoked such catch-phrases as "the dawn of a new age". They did not publicize the fate of those who were arrested, who were driven to suicide, or who stayed at home appalled by the turn of events. On the day after the annexation, March 13, the Constitutional Law on the Reunification of Austria with the German 'Reich' was promulgated. The announcement of a plebiscite scheduled for April 10 of the same year was followed by an unprecedented propaganda campaign. As is usual with polls conducted in a totalitarian context, the plebiscite result was given as 99 per cent. This was taken as a pretext for legitimizing the armed occupation of Austria, an act which violated both constitutional and international law. The example of three rural communities in Lower Austria demonstrates the spuriousness of the supposedly democratic voting procedures in which the ballot was in many cases far from secret and the vote count was rigged. In the three Lower Austrian communities Schuschnigg's plebiscite had actually been carried out on March 13, 1938 because the German instructions cancelling it had not come through in time. Although the voters were aware that German troops had occupied the country, not one voted against Schuschnigg. By contrast, four weeks later the result published in these same constituencies for the German plebiscite proclaimed 100 per cent support for Hitler! In the weeks after the annexation propaganda slogans like "One People, One 'Reich', One 'Fuhrer'" served to disguise the fact that Germany had been pursuing its own palpable economic and long-term political interests in occupying Austria. The country was, after all, valuable as a source of not inconsiderable gold and currency reserves, of mineral and raw materials resources, of manpower resources and of "cannon fodder". Even Austria's art treasures were plundered: the imperial crown jewels in the Treasure Rooms of the Imperial Palace in Vienna were removed to Nuremberg, the site of the National Socialist party conventions under Hitler. The published results of the German plebiscite and the initial enthusiasm of the Austrian people-given inordinate publicity by the German propaganda machine-apparently confirmed the view held abroad that the Austrian question was, as it were, a "family affair" and that intervention would thus be inappropriate. This may account for the conspicuous absence of international protests in the wake of the annexation. At a rally of the "Vaterlandische Front" at Vienna Racecourse on September 11, 1933 Chancellor Dollfuss announced the introduction of the authoritarian Corporative State: "The days of the capitalist system, the age of the capitalist-liberal economic order is over, the age of marxist, materialist seducements is a thing of the past! The age of party domination has ended! We will not countenance enforced conformity or terror, we want to see a social, Christian, German state of Austria built on a corporative foundation, under a strong authoritarian leadership. Authority is not synonymous with despotism, authority means the orderly exercise of power, leadership by responsible and unselfish men who are prepared to sacrifice their own interests." Civil war in Austria. A police search for weapons in the Socialist Party hostel in Linz's Hotel Schiff sparked off the armed revolt by the workers between February 12 and 15, 1934. Below: armed forces artillery deployed against the Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna. Right: the badly damaged Socialist Party hostel in Vienna-Ottakring. Vienna during the run-up to the plebiscite of April 10, 1938 on the annexation which was already a fait accompli. The text of the ballot paper read "Do you approve of the reunification of Austria with the German 'Reich' on March 13, 1938 and do you cast your vote for our 'Fuhrer' Adolf Hitler?" and allowed only a "Yes" or "No" answer. There is a wealth of documentary evidence to show that this plebiscite was marred by ballot-rigging and intimidation of the electorate. Significantly enough, the final count of "Yes" votes came to 99.73 per cent. "On grounds of a proven, manifestly hostile attitude towards National Socialism" Ludwig Hermentin from Freistadt, Upper Austria was deemed ineligible to take part in the plebiscite of April 10, 1938. In 1944 Hermentin, a Social Democrat, founded a nonpartisan resistance group ("Free Austria") in Freistadt. The group fell into the hands of the authorities, and on May 1, 1945-four days after Karl Renner's Provisional Government had been formed in Vienna-eight of its members (including Leopold Kotzmann, a Christian Social delegate to the Provincial Diet) were shot at the military shooting range in Treffling near Linz. Rally on the packed Heldenplatz in Vienna on March 15, 1938. Adolf Hitler addressed the crowd from the balcony of the Neue Hofburg: "I now proclaim that this country has a new mission.... The oldest eastern territory of the German people will from now on become the most recent bastion of the German nation and of the German 'Reich'.... At this hour I can thus report to the German people the most momentous achievement of my life. As 'Fuhrer' and Chancellor of the German nation and the German 'Reich' I hereby announce to German history that my homeland has entered the German 'Reich'." At four o'clock in the afternoon of March 12, 1938 Adolf Hitler entered his home town of Braunau am Inn. At the same time a wave of arrests had been launched; in the first six weeks of the occupation between 50,000 and 76,000 Austrians were detained.