Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (23 page)

propaganda in Austria as    the very real difference in the    two countries’

economies
.
³⁷

The Nazis never tired of repeating the old legend, so popular in the twenties, that little Alpine Austria was simply not
lebensfahig
(viable).

Economic
salvation, they argued,
could come only
from Germany. Of course, they carefully avoided mentioning that Austria’s miserable situation was in part
caused
by Germany itself
.
³⁸

Nazis in both Austria and Germany were divided about the usefulness of German economic pressure. Those Austrian Nazis hurt by the German boycott favored reopening the boundary as a means of bringing more Nazi propaganda into the country. And even German diplomats admitted in
1934
that the economic measures were unlikely to bring about a change in the Austrian government in the near future. A diplomatic report of 2 June said that the attempted disruption of the Austrian tourist trade and other measures such as a Nazi smokers’ strike had brought some “hardships” for the Austrian government, “but no decision.” The Austrian budget, the report continued, was fairly well balanced, the currency was sound, and exports were actually increasing
.
³⁹

❖

Illegal Nazi Propaganda: Phase One

As already noted, the other half of Hitler’s new policy of 26 May 1933 was a “massive propaganda offensive
.”
⁴⁰
This new wave of propaganda was to take a variety of forms, some nearly as violent as the Nazi bombing attacks, and some more subtle and insidious. Though both forms were used simultaneously, it was the more violent and noisy type that predominated in the beginning, especially between June 1933 and February

1934.

In promoting propaganda the Nazis took advantage of a relatively new medium: the radio. Safe in Munich, Landesleiter Habicht was able to direct the world’s first radio “war” against Austria. In July 1933, he began a series of eighty-four speeches carried from transmitters in Munich, Leipzig, Breslau, and Stuttgart. Habicht himself gave twenty-one of these talks, which ridiculed the Austrian government and called on Austrians to carry out new acts of terror. The other speeches were made mostly by Nazi refugees who belonged to the party’s Landesleitung in Munich. Austrian protests against these broadcasts were answered with the assurance that they were merely intended for the information of the German people
.
⁴¹

Equally innovative for nominally peacetime conditions was the Nazis’ use of the airplane to literally spread their propaganda over Austria. During the second half of July 1933, several German planes flew over Austrian territory and dropped leaflets urging the population to withdraw their bank deposits

Ij'afld jQ jefuse to pay their taxes. Again, the German government “could do •lathing” to prevent these incursions, although they were finally halted in ^August after the intervention of the Western powers, including Italy
.
⁴²
id : More of a nuisance than a real threat, but equally difficult for the Austrian I:' :g
₀
vemment to control, was the use of loudspeakers in German territory. One

I    : gendarme in
the border town of Hallein, for example, reported how in March if:
'1933 Bavarian
Nazis set up a powerful loudspeaker within a few meters of the jnit ^
_us
trian border and then broadcast insults against the Austrian government
^!
i;f from early in the morning until late at night. Interspersed between the pejora-

II    fives were military marches and nationalistic songs, which could be heard for !§| over two kilometers
.
⁴³

,l|-' Young Nazis particularly enjoyed dreaming up ingenious ways to display
I Iff
the forbidden swastika. Hair was sometimes cut in the form of a swastika in !lip (he middle of the scalp. Fireworks were sent into the air with parachutes If' holding the Nazi emblem and reclining sunbathers along the Danube some-l:'>| times joined to form the shape of the twisted cross. Cattle were branded with k| " it and burning candles in its shape were floated down rivers. Swastikas were If frequently painted on walls or even formed by forest fires. Dogs and pigs I:    were sometimes named “Dollfuss” so that they might be cursed and kicked.

The purpose of these antics was less to win converts than it was to prove $ that the Nazi party was still very much alive and fully capable of defying the

■ regime. More mature Nazis admitted that the displaying of swastikas had little or no real propaganda value and believed that dangerous pranks even weakened the strength of the party. It was safer and more effective, they believed, to place propaganda leaflets in mail boxes
.
⁴⁴

*

Illegal Nazi Propaganda: Phase Two

By February 1934 it was becoming increasingly apparent to Hitler that neither terror nor the more extreme forms of propaganda could bring down the Dollfuss government. The German Foreign Office had reached the same conclusion as early as the summer of 1933. Concerned that Austrian Nazi activities might endanger other more important areas of German foreign policy (such as the Saar and disarmament), the state secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, Bernhard von Biilow, summoned Theo Habicht to Berlin for a conference on 31 July 1933. Habicht assured him that everything in Austria “was going according to plan.” Austria’s economic situation was growing steadily more intolerable and would soon bring the collapse of the

regime. His radio broadcasts to Austria did not break any international la\* and the airplane propaganda “raids” did not have an “official” character i The terror was being carried out by individuals acting on their own initiative and Habicht was attempting to control it. Bulow was not entirely satisfied by these explanations and told Habicht that the international community would not accept the argument that the radio broadcasts did not technically violate international law
.
⁴⁵

In a letter to Foreign Minister Neurath, Bulow observed that it was “understandable how Habicht could get so absorbed in his job that he could ignore Germany’s other foreign-policy questions.” The state secretary went on to urge Neurath, however, to see Hitler and impress upon him the dangers involved in the Austrian situation.
⁴
* But when the foreign minister passed on Biilow’s warning to Hitler two weeks later, the Reich chancellor merely became infuriated and railed against Mussolini’s recent intervention in the Austrian question. He had already ordered the cessation of the airplane raids, but would not agree to end all forms of propaganda
.
⁴⁷

Hitler changed his mind, however, about the wisdom of his laissez faire policy toward Austria as a result of events in February 1934. The Dollfuss government displayed surprising strength in crushing a three-day Socialist uprising in Vienna. And a radio speech by Habicht promising Dollfuss a temporary “armistice” in the Nazi-govemment “war” only angered international public opinion, especially in Italy. The speech was generally interpreted abroad as proof that Habicht and other German authorities were directing the Nazi terror campaign
.
⁴⁸

In response to the international uproar, Hitler repeated his order of August

1933 to end the violence in Austria. In the place of terror an increased emphasis was to be given to the more subtle forms of propaganda while at the same time expanding the illegal NSDAP. A diplomat in the German Foreign Ministry summarized the new policy as follows: “The fight in Austria will continue under the old leadership but will be fundamentally changed. The use of force and direct attacks [on the Austrian govemmentj will be avoided in the press and radio. The emphasis will be placed on the strengthening of internal Austrian propaganda and the organization and growth of the party which should lead to a situation where no government can last without Nazi cooperation
.”
⁴⁹
Special weight in the future was to be given to the achievements of National Socialism in Germany since the Machtergreifung
.
⁵⁰

The new “soft-sell” propaganda approach was actually far more difficult to combat than the older, more blatant variety, which had outraged international public opinion. Such propaganda could take an almost unlimited number of forms. Even before the German trade war was nominally ended

irith
Austria
in July 1936, all aspects of culture imported into Austria from

P
y
had
to be carefully screened for subtle Nazi influences. Films, stage nd even concerts could have Nazi overtones. Austrian authors and li^chers
could
be influenced by the censored German publishing industry
.
⁵¹
Ill!For two or three weeks after the termination of Habicht’s broadcasts, the ^Austrian Nazis were in a state of leaderless confusion
.
⁵²
But with terror, radio I broadcasts, and airplane raids all ruled out because of their negative effect on !
Germany’s
diplomatic posture, and with public speeches, demonstrations, I Hatties, and posters against the law, it finally became clear that the illegal Nazi press
would
have to assume a new importance, g- ,; The Nazi press between 1933 and 1934 consisted of two types: legal news-j’ papers, which were often secretly subsidized from Germany and which took rl
as
pro-Nazi a stand as they dared, and an underground illegal press. The I butiawing of the overtly Nazi newspapers in the early summer of 1933 forced (I the Nazis to think of more subtle ways of getting their message to the Austrian iI
¹
public. Thus, for example, they bought the inexpensive Viennese newspaper '!
called
Depeschen
through “straw men” and for a time were able to operate !;§ the paper as an “independent daily” despite the close scrutiny of the police
.
⁵³
I'ii Two other Viennese newspapers, the
Neue Zeitung
and the
Zwolf Uhr Blatt k
were secretly financed by a pro-Nazi German, Prince Philipp Josias von ;r| Coburg.

W
Far better known and more successful, at least for a time, was the
Wiener
’li ;;
Neueste Nachrichten.
Having little else of a legal nature to read, Viennese |: Nazis subscribed to that paper almost exclusively so that its circulation rose to
lip.
over 50,000 by July 1934. It too was subsidized from Germany and printed
₍
^!
numerous anti-Semitic articles while carefully avoiding anything critical of | Germany. But the censorship of this and other disguised Nazi newspapers,

:    like the
Innsbrucker Nachrichten
, remained so tight that even German diplo

mats doubted whether it was worth continuing the subsidies
.
⁵⁴

There were three categories of illegal press propaganda: the centralized variety was used for the whole of Austria; regional propaganda was intended for the provinces; and local publications were geared for individual towns. The central propaganda originated in Munich and consisted of leaflets, brochures, and sporadically appearing newspapers, all of which were smuggled into Austria at Passau
.
⁵⁵
Centralized propaganda was aided by a news service whose job it was to keep abreast of the plans, tendencies, and equipment of the government and rival groups, such as the Socialists and Communists. At the same time it was supposed to establish a common Weltanschauung and foreign policy. It was likewise responsible for distributing news to the various Austrian
Gaue
.
⁵⁸

fr’

The most important illegal Nazi newspaper, and perhaps the only one having a national circulation, was the
Osterreichischer Beobpchter,
Its sixty thousand copies began appearing on 28 July 1936; the Nazfs fondly referred to it as the “littlest and biggest newspaper in Austria ”
^5V
The
OB
succeeded
in giving the impression that there was still a central party leadership j
_n
Austria itself even when the leaders were forced to remain underground.
⁵⁸

Propaganda for the individual Austrian states was printed locally but followed certain general themes. However, it concentrated on items of local importance.
The
publications consisted mostly of very small
mimeographed
newspapers distributed from bicycles or motorcycles by young people thrillecj with the idea of defying authority and proving their courage. Local propaganda was confined mostly to the scattering of swastikas
.
⁵⁸

It was nearly impossible for Austrian authorities to suppress the flow of propaganda, either foreign or domestic. The police did occasionally discover printing presses, but strict party discipline prevented them from all being discovered at any one time. Some propaganda was printed in northern Yugoslavia, where there was a German-speaking minority. This material was then smuggled across the border in automobiles or even in baby carriages at times when a “friendly” customs official was on duty
.
⁶⁰