Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (27 page)

Hitler and the Putsch

Hitler would doubtless have been overjoyed had the Putsch succeeded; in fact, there are indications that he reacted favorably to the first optimistic reports about the action. But he was outraged by its failure. His mortification was made all the greater by the fact that world public opinion held him at the very ieast morally, and in many cases personally, responsible for the brutal murder of the Austrian chancellor
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There appeared to be an obvious parallel between the events of 30 June and those of 25 July. /\
_n(
j Hitler himself had identified the Nazi party with the German state when he wished to accuse Dollfuss of poisoning Austro-German relations
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Hitler’s real reponsibility for the Putsch, either direct or indirect, has aroused a considerable controversy among historians. Gerhard Weinberg says, “It may be assumed that the coup was launched with the knowledge and at least the tacit approval of Hitler,” because some individuals in the party headquarters in Munich and in the German Legation in Vienna knew about the plot in advance
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Weinberg’s opinion appears to be a minority one, however. The European historians Jens Petersen, Dieter Ross, and Gerhard Jagschtz have all accepted Hermann Goring’s testimony at the Nuremberg trials that Hitler was essentially tricked by Habicht into supporting a type of Putsch which never occurred, namely one led by the Austrian army
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We also know that as late as 16 July Hitler told Neurath he was in “no hurry” with regard to the Austrian question
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On the other hand, Hitler was far from being totally uninformed about developments in Austria prior to the Putsch. The German envoy to Austria, Kurt Rieth, had already warned Hitler about the possibilities of a Putsch and its dangerous consequences in February 1934. Hitler’s nonchalant response to Rieth’s report was simply to say that he doubted whether a Putsch could be prevented in the long run. The interview ended in typical fashion with Hitler giving Rieth no specific instruction
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Rieth’s memorandum reveals the extent of Hitler’s wishful thinking. We have to assume that he felt he could avoid any responsibility for an explosion in Austria by merely refusing to take a position on Austrian Nazi activities. Possibly he felt that to speak out sharply against a conspiracy would only demoralize the party and provide propaganda ammunition for the Austrian government.

Hitler’s indirect responsibility indeed lies in his reluctance to make firm decisions of any kind. Thus he allowed Germany’s policy toward Austria to drift after 1933 without any centralized control. There had been at least four separate bodies trying to exercise some authority: party leaders in Austria, the Munich Landesleitung under Habicht, the Berlin Foreign Office under Neurath (which had been staunchly opposed to a Putsch and a premature Anschluss), and Hitler, who had given the Landesleitung a largely free hand. The result was Hitler's only major prewar diplomatic defeat and the total isolation of Germany.

To salvage what he could from the wreckage, Hitler did his best to dissociate himself from the Putsch. He ordered the immediate closing of the

I German-
Austrian border; any rebel caught crossing it was to be arrested and Ijlput in
³
concentration camp. When Franz von Papen saw Hitler in Bayreuth •I -(where the chancellor was attending the Wagnerian festival) on the twenty-|l sixth the Fiihrer was still “hysterical” over the recklessness of the Austrian
b
party*

|| Hitler chose Papen to be the new special German envoy to Vienna in hopes if    i that the former diplomat and chancellor, current vice-chancellor, and prac

ticing Roman Catholic would have the necessary experience and prestige to
ingratiate
himself with the highly suspicious Austrians
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However, Papen accepted the appointment only on several conditions. Among them were that
1
(
1
) Habicht had to be dismissed from his office and the State Directorate in Munich had to be dissolved; (2) the Reich German party was to sever all relations with the Austrian NSDAP and to refrain from interfering in any way : with the internal affairs of Austria; (3) the Austrian party would have to get along with only the moral and perhaps economic help of the Reich; and (4) the Anschluss question was to be resolved not by force but by “evolutionary” means
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Papen also insisted that Austrian Nazi leaders responsible for the Putsch
If;;
were not to be rewarded by other high positions in the party. The German : press was to cease all aggressive attacks on the Austrian government. Cultural

|: and economic ties between the two countries were to be encouraged and all

lift':

|jy;
rash actions, which might drive together members of the old Christian Social party and the Heimwehr, were to be avoided
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To guarantee that the first of his demands was fulfilled, Papen insisted that Hitler summon Habicht to Bayreuth and dismiss him on the spot. The Fiihrer, in a rare display of humility, agreed
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Several months later Habicht was reported living in a small town in the Harz Mountains of central Germany, forbidden to speak publicly or to wear a uniform. Even his visitors were closely monitored
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Only three days after Habicht’s dismissal Hitler ordered the dissolution of the Austrian Landesleitung in Munich. Its members were almost ail demoted when not placed in concentration camps. At best, they received only decorative positions in Germany
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Hitler, of course, had no more abandoned his ultimate objective of absorbing Austria into the Third Reich than he had given up the idea of attaining power in Germany after the Beer Hall fiasco in 1923. Just as there are remarkable parallels between the Munich and Vienna Putsches, so too is there a striking similarity in how Hitler changed his tactics after these disasters. In both 1924 and 1934 he came to realize that violent, almost romantic, adventures would lead nowhere.

Rudolf Hess made this point in a letter to Alfred Frauenfeld, who had briefly become the “dean” of the exiled Nazis: “Hitler and, his colleagues realize how harsh this ruling [of nonintervention] is, but it is necessary for Germany and not least of all for the NSDAP in Austria/As you know, the Fuhrer decided after November 1923 to follow a completely new and legal policy, a policy which he stuck to and which was later proven to be right and successful. Be assured that the same will be true of the new policy for National Socialism in Austria.
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Hitler’s post-Putsch policy was not as shaip a reversal of form as it would at first seem. As early as March 1934 he had decided to pursue a policy of “peaceful penetration” in Austria, eschewing even direct propaganda attacks on the Austrian government. But he had made the fateful (and nearly fatal) mistake of allowing “the old leadership,” that is, Habicht and the Landesleitung in Munich, to implement that policy. After realizing his mistake, he had the ability to exercise great patience in carrying out his new policy. He had waited nearly a decade to gain power after the Munich calamity. Now he was prepared to wait another four years or more before taking control of Austria.

This time the Great Powers were to be given no obvious grounds for accusing Germany of interfering in Austria’s internal affairs. The Austrian Nazi party was to be permitted no major role in subverting the Austrian government. Instead, it would be an instrument in taking over the state once international relations became more favorable.
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Hitler was not bluffing. On 18 August, he issued an order that “neither party authorities nor anyone else [could] discuss, either on the wireless or in the press, questions concerning German-Austrian policy, unless agreement had been previously reached between the Reich propaganda minister and the present minister in Vienna, Herr von Papen.”
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Hess, in the same letter quoted earlier, told Frauenfeld, who hoped to gain influence over Germany’s Austrian policy, that

by order of the Fuhrer, the Reich German party must have nothing to do with the National Socialists in Austria. . . . The Fuhrer’s order is not merely a formality, but is definitely an order which must be obeyed unconditionally. Failure to obey this order will entail severe punishment, which, in cases where the interests of the German Reich are threatened, may even include imprisonment.

It is simply and solely a matter for the National Socialists residing in Austria [to decide] where and in what form they should build anew a purely Austrian NSDAP.
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   The    Premature Putsch • 137

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• si Eight years earlier, Adolf Hitler had parted company with Karl Schulz £ because the latter was not willing to be a part of a single Nazi party controlled ir ^bm Munich. Now the Fuhrer was insisting to one of his most loyal followers jitHat the Austrian Nazis
had
to form their own independent party.

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fjliil'.;;! The July Putsch stands as a watershed between the beginning of rapid Aus-|N -
_:
|rian Nazi growth in 1930 and the Anschluss in 1938. In the years after the ^ establishment of the Hitler Bewegung in 1926 and before the Nazi Putsch in

1934 Hitler had followed an ambivalent policy toward the Austrian party. On Vil., the one hand he considered the party to be simply one part of the Gesamtpartei fl.li and subordinated it to the Reichsleitung of the party headquarters in Munich.

Ill In so doing he made good relations between the Austrian government and the
Austrian
NSDAP the sine qua non of good relations between the German and ■jp!';,
Austrian
governments. Yet, on the other hand, Hitler failed to establish tight ‘■iii Jfl control over the Austrian party either personally or through a German or party
III"'institution.

Ijjli?.
¹
i De facto, if not de jure, the Austrian Nazis made their own policies, which jo
^;
' not even Habicht was always able to control. The lack of a centralized and
_:
effective leadership after Habicht’s expulsion from Austria helped increase competition between the SA and the SS and accelerate the campaign of terror. The July Putsch was as much a last, desperate effort by Habicht to regain control of the Austrian Nazi party as it was an attempt to overthrow the ' Dollfuss regime.

For the first, but by no means the last time in his career, Hitler’s unwillingness to give clear-cut responsibilities to a single person or agency to carry out a policy led to a near disaster. His appointment of Franz von Papen as special envoy to Austria was an attempt to clarify Germany’s policy. And no longer was the Austrian Nazi party treated like an integral part of the Gesamtpartei. Only one thing did not change after the Putsch: Hitler’s desire for the Gleichschaltung of his native land.

CHAPTER IX REORGANIZATION AND RECRIMINATION

The Party in Ruins

Eight years after the formation of the Hitler Bewegung, and eighteen months after Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, the Austrian Nazis found themselves virtually back where they had begun. In many ways, they were actually in worse shape than in 1926. Their longtime leaders were, almost without exception, dismissed or denounced, in detention camps or in German exile. Those party members who remained at large in Austria felt betrayed and abandoned, because they had been left without the orders or financial assistance that had previously come from Germany.
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Many Austrian Nazis were so depressed after the Putsch that they predicted an Anschluss would not come for another five, ten, even twenty years.
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Thousands of the party’s rank and file had fled from Austria, most of them to Yugoslavia. By January 1935 the sum of Austrian refugees in Germany, counting those who had fled Austria both before and after the Putsch, may have reached forty-two thousand.
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Many Putschists who could not escape were arrested, most of them in Styria and Carinthia. Of those who were captured by Austrian authorities over six thousand were quickly tried by special courts, and more than five thousand were sent to Wollersdorf.
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Moreover, the disclosure of complete membership lists enabled police to suppress hitherto clandestine Nazi cells. Austrian authorities were also able to destroy—if only temporarily—the party’s Political Organization. Between August 1934 and the middle of 1935 the party’s leadership had to be completely rebuilt.

Financially, too, the party returned to its impoverished condition of the middle and late twenties. Hitler made it clear after the Putsch that he wanted all political connections between Reich and Austrian Nazis severed; this ruling included most financial ties. Although much is still unknown about the financing of the Austrian party, some illegal support did reach the Austrian s after the Putsch, the disclaimers of Wilhelm Keppler, Hitler’s economic ad
viser,
and Franz von Papen notwithstanding. An Austrian Refugee Society (Fluchtlingshilfswerk) had existed in Germany before the revolt. It secretly continued to send financial assistance to the families of executed or arrested Nazis after July 1934. In 1935 alone the German Nazi party allocated some 9 million Reichsmarks for this purpose. In large measure this aid was intended to stop the flow of Nazi refugees streaming into Germany, where they were a burden on the government. But equally important was the goal of encouraging Austrian Nazis to remain in their homeland so they would be grateful for German support and be a nuisance to Vienna authorities.
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