Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (25 page)

In mid-December (1933) Dollfuss asked a confidant to arrange a meeting with Habicht through the Landesleiter’s representative, Franz Schattenfroh. A meeting in Vienna was finally arranged for
8
January 1934. The Austrian

ambassador to Berlin, Stefan Tauschitz, had secured Hitler’s approval of the conference. Moreover, the German Foreign Office was willing to agree to Dollfuss’s wish for the cessation of hostilities, the postponement of new elections, and the recognition of the sovereignty and independence of Austria
,
⁰

The only permission Dollfuss neglected to attain was the Heimwehr’s. Not until 7 January did the chancellor finally inform Starhemberg and Emil Fey (the new vice-chancellor) of his intentions. Starhemberg, fearing the immediate end of the Heimwehr’s raison d’etre, called the scheduled meeting
Wahnsinn
(madness) and threatened to break with Dollfuss should he go ahead with his plans
.
⁷
Thus Dollfuss was forced to cancel his meeting with the Nazis at the very last minute, citing recent acts of Nazi terror as^fus excuse
.
⁸

Having failed in his negotiations with Habicht, Dollfuss turned to two local and relatively moderate Nazis, Alfred Frauenfeld and Hermann Neubacher. In late May or early June 1934 the chancellor, in a possible attempt to split the Nazis, offered Frauenfeld a position in the federal cabinet. But Starhemberg once again heard of the negotiations and wanted Frauenfeld arrested. Habicht was equally unenthusiastic about the talks and repeatedly ordered the former Gauleiter to leave Austria, threatening him with reprisals if he refused. Facing danger from two sides, Frauenfeld finally moved to Germany, where he was “ungraciously received” by the Landesleiter and assigned to minor propaganda activities.

Still later negotiations in June between Dollfuss and Neubacher also proved fruitless. The chancellor once again rejected the demand that Habicht be made the chancellor or vice-chancellor.®

*

The July Putsch: Motives and Early Rumors

The failure of the negotiations left Habicht and the Austrian Nazis more baffled than ever. Adding to their sense of frustration was Hitler’s new policy, which he had launched on 2 March 1934. According to his orders, all “direct attacks on the Austrian Government in the press and radio [were] to be strictly avoided
.”
¹⁰
Once tranquillity had retumed'to Austria the Germans would try to gain freedom for the Austrian Nazi movement. But this time the Austrian Nazis would not be influenced by the Reich
.
¹¹

Habicht, to say the least, was uninspired about the new policy and pointed out to the German foreign minister, Konstantin von Neurath, that “the total ban on propaganda against the Austrian Government, as well as the instruc-

tfoiis
issued
to him personally not to make any more speeches of any kind
Gainst Austria,
could result in the gradual disintegration of the National
l^eialist
movement
in
Austria
.”
¹²

ii
^:
iAs early as the summer of 1933 Habicht had had a hard time controlling the Ictivities of his Austrian followers; in October he had to threaten them with !|sbarp action against everyone who did not obey
.”
¹³
Beginning on 27 April, ; jfoyi terror resumed with an assassination attempt against Emil Fey in Salz-Ifrurg. Thereafter it continued almost unabated throughout May, June, and : j
_u
iy
_t
except for brief interludes during the Hitler-Mussolini conference in Venice in mid-June, and for a time following the Rohm Purge of 30 June. Ij^fhis activity still had the general objective of ruining the Austrian tourist i'-lrade and weakening the morale of the Austrian people
.
¹⁴
Some of it was Injected against public buildings, barracks, prisons, and other government Itniildings as well as against judges, police officials, and politicians. Most '
explosions,
however, occurred near tourist areas, waterworks, and power I [-plants.

I It is impossible to say who was responsible for this complete collapse of the

I Revolutionary” policy initiated in March. As the leader of the Austrian party, however, it was Theo Habicht who bore the ultimate obligation to control ;lf: these activities. The consequences of the party’s reckless defiance of internals tional law were the diplomatic isolation of Germany and the near destruction jj£i of the party itself.

i| i;!;
^;
The climax of the new wave of terror came early in the afternoon of 25 July when 154 members of the Viennese SS Standarte Eighty-nine, disguised in jilj uniforms of the Austrian army, broke into the federal chancellery on the P Ballhausplatz in Vienna and mortally wounded Engelbert Dollfuss. This act was just the beginning of the notorious July Putsch, which ended three days

■ later after 153 Nazis had been killed in battle (or later executed) and thousands more had fled to Germany and Yugoslavia.

The story of the Putsch, which has been told and retold in almost excruciating detail, need not be repeated here. Still of interest, however, is what induced the Austrian Nazis to take this desperate gamble, why the action misfired, and what impact its failure had on the subsequent history of the illegal party.

The idea of a Putsch was an old one. The first rumors of a plot to overthrow the government reached the German Legation in Vienna on 26 July 1933, only five weeks after the party had been outlawed. This plan, to be carried out in September, was never implemented. The SA also began to work on Putsch plans during the summer, which led to conversations in October between Ernst Rohm, Hermann Reschny (the leader of the Austrian SA), Habicht, and

' ’ :! 126 • Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis

Proksch. At a meeting in Passau the conspirators agreed that the Putsch should take place on 9 November (the tenth anniversary pf the Beer Ha]] Putsch). It was supposed to begin in the Nazi stronghold of darinthia and lead to a nationwide strike. A lack of weapons in Carinthia^ however, prevented the execution of this plan
.
¹⁵

The rumors subsided during the fall and winter months of late 1933 and early 1934 while the Habicht-Dollfuss negotiations were in progress. But with their complete collapse in January rumors again began to circulate.

One of these tales, which reached the ears of German diplomats in Vienna, was reported on 31 January 1934. It is particularly interesting because it helps explain the failure of the actual Putsch six months later. The German militSry attache, Lieutenant General Wolfgang Muff, wrote to Berlin that “the Austrian SA leaders [had] received from their
Obergruppenfiihrer,
Hermann Reschny, the definite order from Munich to make preparations for action on March 15. . . .This order [was] to be kept strictly secret from the political leadership of the party both in Munich and in Austria, so that it [could] not be prevented from these quarters
.”
¹⁶
Muff went on to say that his informant had told him of a serious quarrel which had broken out between Habicht and Reschny, and for this reason Reschny had made his decision secretly in order to present Habicht with a fait accompli. What Muff did not say was that Reschny had removed the SA Obergruppe Austria from Habicht’s jurisdiction, and that together with the Austrian Legion he had control over ten thousand well-trained men.*
^r
In May, Baron Gustav Otto von Wachter, a thirty-three-year-old lawyer, son of a former defense minister, and in 1934 Habicht’s representative in Austria, told an official of the German Foreign Ministry that pressure against the Austrian Nazis had recently become so great that if martial law were employed against them it would be difficult to prevent an insurrection. A revolt was all the more likely because Austrian Nazis had gained access to considerable quantities of explosives as a result of the Socialist uprising in February. Inasmuch as a rebellion was virtually inevitable (Wachter argued), it would be preferable to have an organized one rather than a spontaneous one that could be easily crushed. His pleas went unheeded
.
¹⁸

Wachter gave an even more candid description of conditions within the Austrian Nazi party in a second conversation with a German diplomat two days later. Extremist tendencies within the party, he said, were

constantly on the increase; . . . uniformity of leadership was lacking. The SA did what it wanted. . . . The political leadership at the same time introduced measures which sometimes meant the exact

1
':

>    opposite. . . • Everyone supposed that a solution was being prepared

IjKi
and
that, by his basic orders, the Fiihrer desired to create the necessary IpU.! peaceful and favorable atmosphere for the forthcoming negotiations. But rIV I
¹
'    when nothing followed in the meantime, and on the other hand the

If ■,    countermeasures of the Austrian administration grew more and more

pi !    brotal and incisive from day to day, the radical elements moved afresh

I ;    and came forward with the statement that the chancellor had issued his

orders only for tactical reasons, but was inwardly in agreement with every manly act of opposition. . . . They were now working on :•    this principle
.
¹⁸

■    In short, Wachter was saying that a psychological crisis was building up

II within the Austrian Nazi party during the spring and early summer of 1934.

11:^ This situation was very reminiscent of the internal tension preceding Hitler’s If; Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Nazi “dynamism” (or “eagerness for power”) i could not be restrained indefinitely.

Radical members of the party, particularly in the paramilitary SA and SS |i formations, wanted action, and they wanted it soon. Their belonging to an outlawed, and from their point of view “persecuted,” organization only enhanced their impatience. As mostly unemployed young men they had no desire, and saw no need, to wait for several years while the German evolutionary policy of subtle, subversive propaganda had time to work its course. They were either ignorant Of or indifferent to the requirements of German foreign policy, and like the German SA after 1923, they had difficulty taking seriously Hitler’s avowals of legality
.
²⁰
Their high hopes in the spring of 1933 | for an early seizure of power had by now dissipated almost completely. After

■    the crushing of the Socialist uprising in February, the Dollfuss regime ap-; peared to be stronger than ever while the Nazi movement, as in Germany in

the fall of 1932, appeared to be on the brink of disintegration
.
²¹

The latter fear was by no means imaginary. Relations between leaders of the impoverished SA and SS, and also between those two militant groups and the relatively well-heeled political organization, had long been bad, and were now growing even worse
.
²²
According to at least two German diplomats, the Austrian party was no longer growing in the early summer of 1934, and may even have been shrinking, at least in Vorarlberg. Nazi terrorism itself was driving some “fence-sitting” Austrians into the Dollfuss camp, and the closing of the Austro-German border to Nazi propaganda depressed the Austrian Nazis’ morale
.
²³

Feeling deserted by the German Foreign Ministry, and sometimes even by the exiled party leadership in Munich (though not by Hitler), the Austrian

Nazis, simplistically saw no other alternative beyond resignation and renunciation on the one hand, and the violent overthrow of the government on the other. Like the Beer Hall Putsch, therefore, the July Putsch -was a sign of weakness, not strength.    
^x

Habicht, Reschny, and the Final Preparations

The question of who made the final decision to go ahead with the Putsch has never been clearly established. Later attempts by participants' to blame others or (after 1938) to claim undue credit for the action have only obscured the issue. The evidence, however, points to Theo Habicht and Alfred Frauenfeld.

Since the beginning of 1934 at the latest, Habicht’s position had been growing increasingly precarious. Reference has already been made to the quarrel between Habicht and Reschny, which induced the latter to plan a Putsch for March
.
²⁴
By January the Landesleiter found himself caught between the radical SA, which demanded more action from Habicht, and relatively moderate individuals like Walter Riehl and Alfred Frauenfeld. The two Austrians felt Habicht’s policies were already too radical and preferred a strictly native leadership. To make matters worse, there were grumblings among party members about Habicht’s allegedly “lavish” style of living. Many SA men and party intellectuals were also upset and depressed by the events surrounding the so-called Rohm Putsch. Even Hitler was unhappy about Habicht’s leadership and the recent slow progress of the party in Austria
.*
⁵
In short, there was little time left to the state director. The SA was out of control and preparing a separate action, the moderates were disgruntled, and Hitler was impatient. If Habicht wished to hang on to his power he would quickly have to do something decisive.