Austria Under Nazism

Austria under Nazism describes the period of Austrian history from 12 March 1938 when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany (the event is commonly known as ''Anschluss'') until 8 May 1945 with the fall of Nazi Germany.

Austrians were generally enthusiastic supporters of union with Germany. Throughout World War II, 950,000 Austrians fought for Nazi Germany's armed forces. Other Austrians participated in the Nazi administration, from death camp personnel to senior Nazi leadership; the majority of the bureaucrats who implemented the Final Solution were Austrian.

After World War II, many Austrians sought comfort in the idea of Austria as being the first victim of the Nazis. Although the Nazi party was promptly banned, Austria did not have the same thorough process of denazification that was imposed on Germany. Lacking outside pressure for political reform, factions of Austrian society tried for a long time to advance the view that the ''Anschluss'' was only an imposition of rule by Nazi Germany.

Early history

The origins of Nazism in Austria have been disputed and continues to be debated. Professor Andrew Gladding Whiteside regarded the emergence of an Austrian variant of Nazism as the product of the German-Czech conflict of the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire and rejected the view that it was a precursor of German Nazism.

In 1918, at the end of World War I, with the breakup of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire, and with the abolition of the Habsburg monarchy, there were three major political groups competing with one another in the young republic of Austria: the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAP), Christian Social Party (CS), and the nationalist Great German Union (''Großdeutsche Vereinigung''), which became the Greater German People's Party (''Großdeutsche Volkspartei'', or GVP) in 1920. At the time, smaller parties such as the Communist Party of Austria (''Kommunistische Partei Österreichs'', or KPÖ) and the Austrian National Socialists (''Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei'', or DNSAP) were neither present in the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) nor the Nationalrat (National Council).

SDAP, GVP, and DNSAP clearly, although for different reasons, favoured a union of German Austria with the German state, which was also a republic by that time (Weimar Republic). The CS also tended to favour the union, but differed at first on a different subject - they were split on the idea of continuing the monarchy instead of a republic. Whereas only the KPÖ decidedly spoke against the annexation in the course of the 1920s and 1930s, the monarchists originally spoke up against the annexation and later turned to favor it, after the Bavarian Soviet Republic had failed, and Germany had a conservative government. The Treaty of Saint-Germain, signed 10 September 1919 by Karl Renner (SDAP), first chancellor of the republic, clearly forbade any union with Germany, abolished the monarchy, and clearly stated the First Austrian Republic as an independent country.

First Austrian Republic

The First Austrian Republic angered many Austrian pan-Germans who made the claim that the republic violated the Fourteen Points that were announced by United States President Woodrow Wilson during peace talks, specifically the right to "self-determination" of all nations.

Life and politics in the early years were marked by serious economic problems (the loss of industrial areas and natural resources in the now independent Czechoslovakia, hyperinflation) and a constantly increasing tension between the different political groups. From 1918 to 1920 the government was led by the Social Democratic Party and later by the Christian Social Party in coalition with the German nationalists.

On 31 May 1922, prelate Ignaz Seipel became Chancellor of the Christian Social government. He succeeded in improving the economic situation with the financial help of the League of Nations (monetary reform). Ideologically, Seipel was clearly anti-communist and did everything in his power to reduce, as far as possible, the influence of the Social Democrats - both sides saw this as a conflict between two social classes.

The military of Austria was restricted to 30,000 men by the allies and the police force was poorly equipped. Already by 1918 the first homeguards were established like the '' Kärntner Abwehrkampf''. In 1920 in Tirol the first ''Heimwehr'' was put in duty under the command of Richard Steidle with the help of the Bavarian organisation Escherich. Soon other states followed. In 1923 members of the Monarchist "Ostara" shot a worker dead and the Social Democrats founded their own protective organization. Other paramilitary groups were the formed from former active soldiers and members of the Roman Catholic Church. The ''Vaterländische Schutzbund'' (Protectors of the Fatherland) were National Socialists. Later they started the Austrian ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA).

The German Workers' Party had already been founded in Bohemia as early as 1903. It was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It supported German nationalism and anti-clericalism, but at first was not particularly anti-Semitic. This party stood mainly for making Austria and the Austrian Germans a part of Germany. In 1909 lawyer, Walter Riehl joined the party and he became leader in 1918. Soon after that the name was changed to the German National Socialist Workers' Party (''Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei''; DNSAP). After the fall of the monarchy, the party split into a Czechoslovakian party and an Austrian party under Riehl. From 1920 onwards this Austrian party cooperated closely with the Munich formed German Workers' Party (DAP) and then the National Socialist German Workers' Party (''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei''; NSDAP), which Adolf Hitler led after 1921. In 1923 Riehl's party had about 23,000 members and was a marginal factor in Austrian politics. In 1924 there was another split and Karl Schulz led a splinter group. The two opposed each other. In 1926 Richard Suchenwirth founded the Austrian branch of Hitler's German National Socialist party in Vienna. Around that time Benito Mussolini formed his Fascist dictatorship in Italy and became an important ally of the far right.

The Austrian National Socialists linked to Hitler (Nazis) got only 779 votes in the 1927 General Election. The strongest grouping besides the Social Democrats was the Unity Coalition led by the Christian Social Party but including German Nationalists and the groups of Riehl and Schulz. In the course of these years there were frequent serious acts of violence between the various armed factions and people were regularly killed. In the General Election of 1930, the Social Democrats were the largest single party. The Christian Social Party came second but stayed in office in a coalition with smaller parties. The Austrian National Socialists linked to Hitler's NSDAP received only 3.6% of the votes and failed to enter Parliament. In the following years the Nazis gained votes at the expense of the various German national groups, which also wanted unity with Germany. After 1930 Hitler's NSDAP doubled its membership every year because of the economic crisis. One of their slogans was, "500,000 Unemployed – 400,000 Jews – Simple way out; vote National Socialist".

Dictatorship, civil war and banning the National Socialists

The Christian Social Party had ruled from 1932 and Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß had led them from 1932. The Social Democrats were no longer their only threat. The previous chancellor and priest Ignaz Seipel had worked towards an authoritarian state. Seipel based this on the Papal Encyclicals, Rerum novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo anno (1931). Abolition of the parliamentary system was necessary for this. A crisis in the Austrian parliament on the 4 May 1933 gave Dollfuß the opportunity he wanted.

Later in May 1933 the Christian Social Union was converted to the Patriotic Front. The Patriotic Front was a political organisation, supposedly above partisan considerations, Roman Catholic and vehemently anti-Marxist. It purported to represent all Austrians who were true to their native land. Within a week the Austrian Communist Party was banned, and before the end of the month the republican paramilitary organisation and Freethinkers Organisations were banned along with numerous other groups. Nazis failed to get more than 25% of the votes in local elections in most areas. In Zwettl and Innsbruck however they got more than 40%, and they tried to lever this into a basis for agitation against the ruling Patriotic Front. Nazi supporters generated a wave of terrorism which crested in early June with four deaths and 48 people injured.

In Germany Hitler became Chancellor early in 1933. The Social Democrats deleted any intention to cooperate with Germany from its party programme. Nazis had fled to Bavaria after their party was banned in Austria and founded there the Austrian Legion. The Nazis there had military style camps and military training. Nazi terrorists in Austria received financial, logistic and material support from Germany. The German Government subjected Austria to systematic agitation. After the expulsion of the Bavarian Minister of Justice in May 1933 German citizens were required to pay a thousand marks to the German Government before travelling to Austria. The Austrian Nazi Party was banned in June after a hand grenade attack in Krems. Nazi terrorism abated after that though five more people were killed and 52 injured by the end of the year.

On 12 February 1934 there was a violent confrontation in Linz with serious consequences. Members of a paramilitary group acting to assist the police wanted to enter a building belonging to the Social Democrats or a party member's home. They wanted to find any weapons belonging to the Social Democrat paramilitary which had by then been banned. Violence spread to the whole country and developed into civil war. The police and their paramilitary supporters together with the army won the confrontation by the 14 February. There were many arrests. Constitutional courts were abolished, trade unions and the Social Democrat Party were banned, and the death penalty was reintroduced. After political opposition had been suppressed the Austrian Republic was transformed into the Austrofacist ''Ständestaat''. The authoritarian ''Maiverfassung'' (May Constitution) was proclaimed on 1 May.

Attempted Nazi coup and growing German influence

From the start of 1934 there was a new wave of Nazi terrorist attacks in Austria. This time government institutions were targeted far more than individuals. In the first half of 1934, 17 people were killed and 171 injured. On 25 July the Nazis attempted a coup under the leadership of the Austrian SS. About 150 SS personnel forced their way into the Chancellor's office in Vienna. Dollfuß was shot and died a few hours later from his wounds. Another group occupied the building of the Austrian National Radio and forced a statement that the Government of Dollfuß had fallen and Anton Rintelen was the new head of government. Anton Rintelen belonged to the Christian Social Party but is suspected of Nazi sympathy. This false report was intended to start a Nazi uprising throughout the country but it was only partially successful.

There was considerable fighting in parts of Carinthia, Styria and Upper Austria and limited resistance in Salzburg. In Carinthia and Styria the fighting lasted from the 27 to 30 July. Some members of the Austrian Legion tried to push out from Bavaria over the ''Mühlviertel'', a part of Upper Austria, and towards Linz. They were forced back to the frontier at Kollerschlag. On 26 July a German courier was arrested at the Kollerschlag pass in Upper Austria. He had with him documented instructions for the revolt. This so-called Kollerschlag Document demonstrated the connection of the July revolt to Bavaria clearly.

The army, the gendarmery and the police put down revolt with heavy casualties. On the government side there were 107 deaths and 500 injuries. On the rebel side there were 140 deaths and 600 injuries. Thirteen rebels were executed and 4,000 people were imprisoned without trial. Many thousand supporters of the Nazi party were arrested. Up to 4000 fled over the border to Germany and Yugoslavia. Kurt Schuschnigg became the new Chancellor.

In Bavaria many sections of the Austrian legion were officially closed. In reality they were only pushed further north and renamed, “North-West Assistance”. Hitler ordered troops to the Austrian border, prepared for a full-scale military assault into Austria to support the National Socialists. Fascist Italy was more closely tied to the regime in Vienna and sent troops to the Austrian border at Brenner to deter German troops from a possible invasion of Austria. Hitler was at first torn between going ahead with the invasion, or pulling off the border. Hitler realized that the German Army was not prepared to take on both the Austrians and the Italian Army. Hitler ordered the force to be pulled off the Austrian border. The German government stated that it had nothing to do with the revolt. Germany only admitted that it was trying to subvert the Austrian political system through trusted people. They continued to support the illegal Nazi party but sympathizers who did not belong to the party were more significant. This included among others Taras Borodajkewycz, Edmund Glaise-Horstenau, Franz Langoth, Walther Pembauer and Arthur Seyß-Inquart.

To put Schuschnigg's mind at ease, Hitler declared to the Reichstag in May 1935: "Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria or to conclude an Anschluss."

Italy began its conquest of Abyssinia (the Second Italo-Abyssinian War) in October 1935. After that Mussolini was internationally isolated and strengthened his relations with Hitler. The ruling Austrian Patriotic Front lost an important ally. Despite the murder of Engelbert Dollfuß, his successor Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg had to improve relations with the German government. Like his predecessor he wanted to maintain the independence of Austria. He saw Austria as the second German state and the better state as it was founded on Roman Catholicism.

In July 1936 Schuschnigg accepted the July Agreement with Germany. Imprisoned Nazis were released and some Nazi newspapers, which had been banned, were allowed into Austria. The Nazi Party remained banned. Schuschnigg undertook further to allow two people whom the Nazis trusted into the Government. Edmund Glaise-Horstenau became Minister for National Affairs and Guido Schmidt became Secretary of State in the Foreign Ministry. Arthur Seyß-Inquart was taken into the legislative Council of State. Germany rescinded the requirement for a payment of a thousand marks for entry into Austria. The transformation of the Austrofascist State through Nazis was furthered more in 1937 when it became possible for them to join the Patriotic Front. Throughout Austria political units were set up and some were led by Nazis. This was a legal disguise for the reorganization.

The native Austrian-born Hitler wrote in ''Mein Kampf'' on the first page of the book: "German Austria must return to the great German motherland" and "common blood belongs in a common Reich". From 1937 it was clear to the Nazis that it would not be long before Austria was going to be incorporated into Nazi Germany. His strategy, outlined in the Hossbach Memorandum, included the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia to gain ''Lebensraum'' ("living space"). Hitler told Goebbels in the late summer that Austria would sooner or later be taken "by force".

In February 1938 Franz von Papen, the German ambassador in Vienna arranged a meeting between Hitler and Schuschnigg at Obersalzberg in Gaden in Bavaria. Hitler threatened repeatedly to invade Austria and forced Schuschnigg to implement a range of measures favourable to Austrian Nazism. The Agreement of Gaden guaranteed the Austrian Nazi Party political freedom and assisted Arthur Seyß-Inquart in becoming Home Secretary (Innenminister). Schuschnigg endeavoured to maintain Austrian national integrity despite steadily increasing German influence. On 9 March 1938 he announced that he wanted to hold a consultative referendum on the independence of Austria on the following Sunday. Hitler responded by mobilizing the 8th Army for the planned invasion. Edmund Glaise-Horstenau who was at the time in Berlin brought Hitler's ultimatum from there and Göring reinforced it with a telephone message to Schuschnigg. The German government demanded the postponement or abandonment of the referendum. Schuschnigg conceded on the afternoon of 11 March. Then Hitler demanded his resignation which happened on the same evening.

Annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany

After Schuschnigg left office, the federal president Wilhelm Miklas asked Arthur Seyß-Inquart to form a new government as the Germans demanded. From 11 to 13 March he led the Austrian Government and completed the Anschluss. On the morning of 12 March heavily armed German troops and police crossed the Austrian frontier, in total about 25000. Large sections of the Austrian population were very pleased to see them. In Vienna, Aspern met Heinrich Himmler of the SS accompanied by many police and SS officials to take over the Austrian police. Supporters of the Austrian Nazi Party together with members of the SS and SA occupied public buildings and offices throughout Austria without a previously planned transition period. The formation of the Greater German Reich was announced from the balcony of the Council House in Linz. On the following day, 13 March 1938, the second session of the Government passed the “Reunification with Germany Law”. Federal President Miklas refused to endorse it and resigned. Seyß-Inquart was now functioning Head of State. He could make his own laws and publish them. Before the evening was over, Hitler signed a law which made Austria a German province.

On 15 March Hitler, who had spent the previous two days in his birth town of Braunau am Inn, made a triumphal entry into Vienna and gave a speech on Heldenplatz in front of tens of thousands of cheering people, in which he boasted of his "greatest accomplishment": "As leader and chancellor of the German nation and Reich I announce to German history now the entry of my homeland into the German Reich." Ernst Kaltenbrunner from Upper Austria, sentenced to death in 1946 at the Nuremberg trials, was promoted SS-Brigadeführer and the leader of the SS-upper section Austria. Beginning on 12 March and during the subsequent weeks 72,000 people were arrested, primarily in Vienna, among them politicians of the First Republic, intellectuals and above all Jews. Jewish institutions were shuttered.

Josef Bürckel, previously Reichskommissar for the reunion of the Saar (protectorate), was appointed by Hitler to reorganize the Nazi Party in Austria and on 13 March as "Reichskommissar for the reunification of Austria with the German Empire".

In March 1938 the local Gauleiter of Gmunden, Upper Austria, gave a speech to the local Austrians and told them that the "traitors" of Austria were to be thrown into the newly opened Mauthausen concentration camp. Overall 200,000 people were killed at the camp.

The Anti-Romanyism sentiment of Nazi Germany was implemented initially most harshly in newly annexed Austria when between 1938 and 1939 the Nazis arrested around 2,000 Gypsy men whom were sent to Dachau and 1,000 Gypsy women whom were sent to Ravensbrück. In late October 1939, all Austrian Gypsies were required to register themselves. Between 1938-39 the Nazis carried out racial examinations against the Gypsy population. Until 1941 the Nazis made a distinction between "pure Gypsies" and "Gypsy ''Mischlinge''". However, Nazi racial research concluded that 90% of Gypsies were of mixed ancestry. Thus, after 1942, the Nazis discriminated against the Gypsies on the same level as the Jews with a variety of discrimination laws.

Plebiscite

A referendum to ratify the annexation was set for 10 April, preceded by a major propaganda campaign. Hitler himself, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, and many other leading figures of the Nazi regime held speeches. The controlled press and radio campaigned for a Yes vote to the "Reunion of Germany and Austria". Prominent Austrians like Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, who signed a declaration of the bishops with ''Heil Hitler'', and the Social Democrat Karl Renner promoted the approval. Austria's bishops endorsed the Anschluss. In response to a request from the Nazi government, the day before the referendum, all the churches in Austria tolled their bells in support of Hitler.

According to official records 99.73% voted Yes in Austria and in Germany 99.08% voted for the annexation.

Excluded from the referendum were about 8% of the Austrian voters: about 200,000 Jews and roughly 177,000 ''Mischlinge'' (people with both Jewish and "Aryan" parents) and all those who had already been arrested for "racial" or political reasons.

Antisemitism

The antisemitism against Austrian Jews had a long history in Austria. Mass antisemitic violence took place immediately after the Germans had crossed the border into Austria. On the day after the plebiscite, a British correspondent estimated that 100,000 Viennese were rampaging through the Jewish quarter shouting "Death to the Jews!" In the wealthy district of Währing Jewish women were ordered to put on their fur coats and scrub the streets while officials urinated on them, as crowds of Austrians and Germans cheered.

The process of Aryanization began straight away, about 1,700 motor vehicles were seized from their Jewish owners between 11 March and 10 August 1938. Until May 1939, the government seized about 44,000 apartments in Jewish possession.

Many were dispossessed of their shops and apartments, into which those who had robbed them moved, assisted by the SA and fanatics. Jews were forced to put on their best clothes and, on their hands and knees with brushes, to clean the sidewalks of anti-Anschluss slogans.

The Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogroms of November 1938 were especially brutal in Austria; most of Vienna's synagogues were burned in view of the public and fire departments.

Anti-Semitism was widespread even in the highest government offices. Karl Renner, who was the first chancellor of republican Austria, had welcomed the Anschluss in 1938. After the war, Renner again became the Austrian head of state; he remained anti-Semitic, even with Jewish returnees and concentration camp survivors. Marko Feingold, survivor of the concentration camp and president of the Salzburg Jewish Community, stated in 2013: "Karl Renner, after all the first Federal President of the Second Republic, had long been known in the party as an anti-Semite. He didn't want us concentration campers in Vienna after the war and he also frankly said that Austria would not give anything back to them." Despite his controversial actions, many locations in Austria continue to bear his name; he is also the namesake of the Karl Renner Prize.

Austrian contribution to Nazi Germany's armed forces

Prior to the Anschluss, the Austrian Nazi party's military wing, the Austrian SS, was an active terrorist organization. After the Anschluss, Hitler's Austrian and German armies were fully integrated. During the war, 800,000 Austrians volunteered for Nazi Germany in the Wehrmacht and a further 150,000 Austrians joined up to the Nazi party's military wing, known as the Waffen-SS.

Concentration camps and mass murder

The majority of the bureaucrats who implemented the Final Solution were Austrian. Political scientist David Art of Tufts University notes that Austrians comprised 8 per cent of Nazi Germany's population and 13 percent of the SS; he states that 40 per cent of the staff and 75 per cent of commanders at death camps were Austrian.

The largest concentration camp in Austria was the Mauthausen-Gusen complex, with more than 50 subcamps, among them the Ebensee concentration camp, KZ – Nebenlager Bretstein, Steyr-Münichholz subcamp and AFA-Werke. Mass murder was practised in Hartheim Castle near Linz, where the killing programme Action T4 (involuntary euthanasia) took place, and in Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna, where more than 700 handicapped children were murdered.

Prominent Austrians in the Nazi regime

The following Austrians were among those playing an active part in the Nazi regime:
* Adolf Hitler was German Chancellor from 1933 to 1945 and Führer ("Leader") from 2 August 1934 to 30 April 1945.
* Ernst Kaltenbrunner replaced Heydrich in January 1943 as leader of ''Reichssicherheitshauptamt'' (RSHA).
* Arthur Seyß-Inquart organized or covered several Nazi crimes in the Netherlands.
* Odilo Globocnik was SS and police leader from 1939 in Poland where he supervised the building of the four Nazi extermination camps in Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek. He was one of the main people responsible for murdering about 2 million Polish Jews ("Aktion Reinhardt").
* Franz Josef Huber, appointed chief of the ''Sicherheitspolizei'' (Security Police; SiPo) and Gestapo for Vienna, the "Lower Danube" and "Upper Danube" regions.
* August Eigruber, ''Gauleiter'' of Upper Austria.
* Alexander Löhr, commander of Luftflotte 4, carried out the bombing of Belgrade in April 1941.
* Hermann Neubacher was an Austrian Nazi politician who held a number of diplomatic posts. During the Second World War, he was appointed as the leading German foreign ministry official for Greece and the Balkans (including Serbia, Albania and Montenegro).
* Lothar Rendulic was an army group commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Rendulic was one of three Austrians who rose to the rank of ''Generaloberst'' (colonel general) in the German armed forces. The other two were Alexander Löhr and Erhard Raus.
* Wolfgang Abel, professor of racial biology at the University of Berlin, was involved in compulsory sterilization of so-called ''Rhineland Bastards''. During the war, he carried out ''racial analyses'' on 7,000 Soviet prisoners of war on behalf of the high command of the army.
* Heinrich Gross wrote expertises about " unworthy lives" and carried out deadly experiments at Am Spiegelgrund with handicapped children.
* Alois Brunner was an Austrian ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) officer who worked as Adolf Eichmann

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