Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (34 page)
Read Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis Online
Authors: Bruce F. Pauley
Tags: #Europe, #Presidents & Heads of State, #Hitler; Adolf; 1889-1945, #General, #United States, #Austria, #Austria & Hungary, #Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei in Österreich, #Biography & Autobiography, #History
Nazis now entered the Fatherland Front in ever-increasing numbers, and with Hitler’s blessing. Membership became even less a proof of patriotism than before. The upshot was that government supporters hesitated to take any overt anti-Nazi action for fear of later Nazi reprisals. Even before the July Putsch it had not been easy to convict Nazis, because judges were either pro-Nazi themselves or were nervous about possible future Nazi revenge. The situation had improved for a time following the revolt when the government’s internal and external position was strong. But the judicial process deteriorated once again after July 1936.
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By the fall of 1936 the Austrian Nazis felt bolder than ever. They were convinced that any attempt to suppress them would be construed in Berlin as a violation of the July Agreement. Even slightly anti-Nazi speeches could be so interpreted by German and Austrian Nazis. To avoid such charges, the government in Vienna severely limited the political activities of the VF, allowing
just a few large demonstrations to prove that it was still alive. According to one Austrian diplomat, Martin Fuchs, only the Legitimists,could still be considered militant anti-Nazis after the eleventh of July
.
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Therefore, a kind of passivity and lethargy vis-a-vis stepped-up Nazi activities began to prevail in both government and VF circles. This change in mood was first clearly manifested on 29 July. On that day the Olympic torch passed through Vienna on its way from Greece to the site of the games in Berlin. A ceremony, held in Vienna’s huge Heldenplatz in honor of this event and the departure of Austria’s Olympic athletes, was turned into a wild demonstration by 30,000 spectators chanting “Heil Hitler” and “Heil Gross-deutschland ” To one Heimwehr man who was also a policeman present at tftfc fracas, Prince Starhemberg later remarked:
“Well, you did not distinguish yourself the day before yesterday.
Had you perhaps received instructions not to interfere?”
He answered “Oh no ... we had no special instructions. But after all, what are we to do? Can we tell? Before we know where we are, the Nazis will be in the government. How can we know if a Nazi will not be made minister for security? Then, anyone who has been too active against them . . . will pay for it. Besides, how can we know if the government really wants us to take drastic action?”
That was the way it was in Austria. That’s the way the overwhelming part of the Austrian civil service thought . . . and thousands of small functionaries in the Fatherland Front
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Even allowing for Starhemberg’s understandable bitterness over his ouster from the government and his penchant for exaggeration, there is still much truth in the above quotation. Yet Kurt von Schuschnigg perhaps came even closer to the truth when years later he wrote in his memoirs that “the real reason for all the difficulties was that Germany tacitly had an entirely different conception of the object of the agreement from that of Austria. For us it was the maintenance and for Germany the elimination of Austria as an entity
.”
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The deterioration of the Austrian party proved to be short-lived. The example of Germany’s growing prosperity, together with Italy’s inability and unwillingness to defend Austria’s independence after the start of the Ethiopian War, began reviving the Austrian NSDAP toward the end of 1935. The Nazis’ neo-Renaissance made it increasingly imperative for the Austrian government to meet their challenge by further developing some kind of counterideology and alternate political organization.
Part of the government’s response was to revive the memory of Austria’s imperial past and to stress the Catholic nature of the state—as distinct from the Protestantism and even paganism of Germany. But in warfare—and a virtual state of war existed between the Nazis and the Austrian government after 1933—there is a tendency for opponents to take on the characteristics of their enemies; witness the British and American terror-bombing of German and Japanese cities during World War II. Challenged by the dynamism and totalitarian ideology of the Nazi party, the Austrian government, in a desperate attempt to weaken the Nazis’ popular appeal, became ever more like its hated rival.
However, the positive fascism of the Austrian government failed to increase its popularity significantly. Schuschnigg’s lack of support, not only at home but abroad as well, finally induced him to make a deal with Nazi Germany in the hope of buying some time for Austria’s independence. The July Agreement did include a formal German declaration recognizing Austrian sovereignty and it brought a slight improvement in Austria’s dismal economy. It is doubtful, however, that the treaty even delayed the Anschluss. In reality, it increased contact between German and Austrian Nazis and facilitated the subversion of the country. So by the summer of 1936 the prospects of the Austrian Nazi party were radically improved from what they had been only a year before.
thus jolting the Great Powers out of their diplomatic-military lethargy. With the renewal of German intervention into the affairs of the Austrian party the Alpine and Danubian Nazis realized to their dismay that not only Austria’s independence was at stake, but their own as well.
CHAPTER XI TIGHTENING THE NOOSE, 1936-1937
The nineteen-month period between the signing of the July Agreement in 1936 and the Hitler-Schuschnigg meeting at Berchtesgaden in February 1938 was marked by continued rivalries within the Austrian party and between it and the parent German party. The release and relative freedom of movement of Austrian Nazi leaders that resulted from the July Agreement intensified the rivalries, because the leaders could now compete more freely and with less fear of government interference
.
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With Italian patronage of Austrian independence for all practical purposes a thing of the past, and with the July Agreement facilitating Germany’s policy of peaceful penetration, the Anschluss, or at least the Gleichschaltung of Austria, once again seemed imminent. But the awareness that their long-sought goal was almost within reach only added to intraparty feuding. Each competing group wanted to get all the credit for implementing the Anschluss. To the victors would go the spoils—choice administrative positions—or so they hoped. Consequently, each of the rival Austrian factions tried to convince party authorities in Germany that its policy alone could result in a Nazi takeover. Their rivals’ strategy was bound to end in disaster
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It may well be that party leaders in the Reich encouraged these quarrels to prevent the emergence of a single, powerful Austrian leader. Nevertheless, given the aggressive and egotistical nature of the Austrian Nazi leaders, together with the disparities between their socioeconomic backgrounds, they doubtless would have quarreled even without encouragement from the Reich.
Still, there was a limit to how much disorder the German leaders would tolerate. Such concern was demonstrated in July 1937 when Hitler appointed his economic expert, Wilhelm Keppler, to supervise relations between the German and Austrian parties. Lacking any outside control, the volatile Aus-rian Nazis might resort to a premature use of force as they had done in 1934, thus jolting the Great Powers out of their diplomatic-military lethargy. With the renewal of German intervention into the affairs of the Austrian party the Alpine and Danubian Nazis realized to their dismay that not only Austria’s independence was at stake, but their own as well.
The Three-Sided Struggle for Power
The reintroduction of German supervision over the Austrian Nazi party in 1937 resulted from the bitter and prolonged three-sided struggle for the supremacy of the Austrian party. One group, consisting of Habicht, Proksch, Frauenfeld, and other former Austrian
Gauleiter
, counted mostly as a nuisance factor because its members had lost their jobs and most of their influence after the July Putsch. However, this setback did not prevent Frauenfeld and others from intriguing against Leopold
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According to some of the Nazis who had remained behind in Austria, the refugees were evening old scores with rivals
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Information they gave to the Austrian police led to frequent arrests and house searches.
The second and most important group between 1935 and the early part of 1938 was led by Josef Leopold. His deputy in 1936 was a physician from Saint-Polten, Dr. Hugo Jury. When Jury joined Leopold’s rivals in 1937, he was replaced by Leopold Tavs, a Sudeten-bom biochemist, former city councilman, and after March 1937, the Gauleiter of Vienna. This faction was regarded by its rivals, and especially by Franz von Papen, as having dangerous and violence-prone radicals
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But by contrast, Austrian security forces considered Leopold a moderate in 1936. They thought he wanted nothing more than to attain power through a legalized Nazi party and negotiations with the Austrian government, much as the Nazis had done in Germany
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The third Nazi faction, located in Carinthia, looked to the leadership of Hubert Klausner. The Carinthian Gauleiter favored a semilegal takeover and eschewed terror. This faction was supported by middle-class “Catholic Nationals” headed by the Viennese lawyer Arthur Seyss-Inquart. The Catholic Nationals were on good terms with Austrian heavy industry and high finance and likewise supported an evolutionary course that would leave their country with a measure of autonomy under a Nazi government
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Only a few Nazis, such as Walter Riehl and Anton Reinthaller, stood outside these three factions; but these men had little influence in the middle and late thirties
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The Nazis’ chronic factionalism was a godsend to the hard-pressed Austrian
government, allowing it to play off one group against the others. Without this political windfall, Schuschnigg could hardly have kept the Nazis in hand as well as he did.
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Josef Leopold: A Capsule Biography
Josef Leopold owed his prestige and popularity in large part to his being the only Gauleiter who did not flee from Austria when the party was outlawed in 1933. He was able to remain in Austria after the July Putschffor the simple reason that he was in prison during the attempted revolution. After the dissolution of the Landesleitung in 1934, thousands of his followers (Persche claims it was “several hundred thousand”), mostly in the eastern provinces, regarded him as their natural leader
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Leopold’s background was remarkably similar to Hitler’s. Born just two months before the Fuhrer (in February 1889) and in the same rural province of Upper Austria, his ancestors had been peasants since at least 1789. “Only half educated and primitive in his thoughts and actions
”
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for Leopold “everything was simple and clear
.”
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Here again was an interesting parallel between Leopold and Hitler, both of whom were academic failures. Hitler dropped out of secondary school, and Leopold never passed the examination that would have made possible a career as a regular officer. These experiences may have contributed to the revulsion both men had toward intellectuals, even those within the party. Leopold’s “simplicity,” however, did not extend to material things. As Landesleiter he was fond of driving an automobile more luxurious than those of government officials. Hitler bought a huge Mercedes as soon as he was released from prison in 1925 and until 1933 insisted on passing every car on the highway.
Leopold, who fought in the Great War of 1914-18, was captured by the Russians in 1915 and sent to Siberia. After the Revolution he escaped and returned to his troops in 1918. Although his father had been an ardent follower of Georg von Schonerer for three decades, the younger Leopold, much to his chagrin in later years, briefly joined the Social Democratic party in December 1918. At the same time he became a lieutenant in the Marxist paramilitary Volkswehr
.
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This ideological detour proved short-lived and in fact was not uncommon for many Austrian and Sudeten Nazis
.
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Leopold joined Walter Riehl’s DNSAP in 1919, becoming the Ortsgruppenleiter of Krems in 1924 and a district leader in 1926. When the party split in the latter year, he joined the “right” faction and was rewarded by being
made deputy Gauleiter of Lower Austria. The next year Hitler himself elevated Leopold to Gauleiter. For three years after the party was/Outlawed he spent more time in prison than out, being free only from 16 February to
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June of 1935. ^
The Gauleiter’s frequent imprisonment between June 1933 and July 1936 helped lead, as we have already seen, to a wide-ranging decentralization of the party’s leadership.
Parteigenossen
throughout the country came to regard the central authorities as nothing more than mediators. In general, local leaders did whatever they wanted, just as they had done before 1931. SS leaders in particular, owing certainly in part to the rising fortunes of the SS in Germany, refused to take orders from the SA man Leopold. Anton Reinthaller was likewise reluctant to follow Leopold’s orders
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The Carinthian Nazis
Throughout the year and a half between January 1935 and July 1936, Josef Leopold, despite his imprisonment, continued to be, at least nominally, the federal leader of the Austrian Nazi party. But, as previously _ noted, Major Klausner acted as the de facto deputy leader and appointed two young fellow Carinthians, Dr. Friedrich Rainer and Odilo Globocnik, to take charge of the organization and political aspects of party activities. The two younger men, in fact, for a time became the real leaders of the party while Leopold, and for a time also Klausner, were in prison.