Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (29 page)

The SS refugees, organized into the SS Sammelstelle, were housed together with the Austrian Legion in the Dachau camp. Both groups received military training from officers of the German army. According to one German observer, members of the Legion (who were automatically also members of the SA) formed an army, which was fully prepared to march in 1935, with first-class training and weapons
.
³²

This status was a far cry from Hitler’s earlier intentions for the Legion just after the Putsch. On 1 August 1934, Colonel Walther von Reichenau, chief of the Wehrmachtsamt, was told by Hitler to disband and disarm the Legion militarily and to transform it into a charitable organization called the Hilfswerk Nordwest. As such, it would care for Austrian refugees under the unimpeachable cover of the Red Cross. SA Obergruppenfiihrer Hermann Reschny, the only member of the pre-Putsch Austrian Landesleitung to retain a major post, was put in charge of the Legion’s metamorphosis
.
³³

But only a few weeks later the SA chief of staff’s special commissioner for Austria told an official in the German Foreign Office that Hitler did not want the Legion dissolved. The name
Hilfswerk Nordwest
was retained, however, as a cover. The Legion was to be transferred to the north in units of 500 to 600. This order was finally carried out in the fall of 1935 when the Legion was moved to the Rhineland area. But Reschny continued to hold meetings with SA leaders from Austria in clear violation of Hitler’s decree forbidding interference by refugees in Austrian affairs
.
³⁴

The Legion was therefore still very much in existence after July 1934 and continued to be a potential threat to Austria’s independence. Its membership had grown from 4,500 in October 1933 to around 9,000 in December 1934. It was augmented in the latter month by refugees who had previously fled to Yugoslavia and then were transferred to Germany, where they were drafted into the Legion
.
³⁵
By 1938, however, its membership had fallen to only
3,000.
^3S

Reschny
lost
his
command over the SA in Austria itself. He was replaced
first
by a young Viennese, Johann Lukesch, and then in April 1935 by the thirty-two-year-old Styrian, Alfred Persche. A native of Split, in what later became Yugoslavia, Persche was arrested on twelve different occasions after joining the SA in 1930. Except for brief periods of imprisonment he remained in charge of the SA until February 1938.
³⁷

The SA in Austria led a fairly placid existence after the Putsch, partly because it was ordered to do so, and partly out of sheer necessity. An order from the SA leadership in June 1935 forbade the use of terror or arson. The attacks of 1933-34, the order pointed out, had not destroyed the regime. Instead it had cost the movement much popular sympathy, because taxes had to be raised to repair damaged public property
.
³⁸

Hitler was evidently serious about enforcing his new, more peaceful policy toward Austria. German border officials were given strict instructions in 1935 to prevent the smuggling of explosives into Austria. Even the apartment of the former Tyrolean Gauleiter Franz Hofer, located in the border city of Fiissen, was searched by the Gestapo for explosives; but none were found. In April

1936, Hermann Reschny, who still exercised considerable influence over the SA in Austria, was told that the Fuhrer unequivocally prohibited the use of terror and would be compelled to take ruthless measures against instigators who disobeyed his command. And on 12 December 1936 Alfred Persche forbade the sale or purchase of arms by SA members as well as participation in public demonstrations. Those who belonged to terrorist groups would be expelled, he warned
.
³⁹

Nevertheless, SA terror squads still existed after 1934, although their activity was directed more against Nazi “traitors” than against the non-Nazi population. The use of terror had to be limited if only because both the SA and the SS had lost most of their already insufficient supply of weapons after the Putsch. Their military training was also made hazardous by the Austrian security forces; exercises, limited to no more than seven men, had to be disguised as Sunday-aftemoon picnics in the Vienna woods or in similar remote areas. Likewise, no roll calls or leadership conferences were held in public places in order to avoid police action.

In general, SA discipline declined after the Putsch. Many members failed to attend the secret meetings. Contributing to the debacle was the diminished status of the SA following the Rohm Purge, the defeat in the July Putsch, the frequent arrest of SA leaders, and probably the effectiveness of Austrian police aided by Nazi denunciations. With the exception of Styria, the condi-

tion of the SA in mid-1935 was so deplorable that members had to be admon-'^B ished not to flee to Germany. Anyone doing so who could not prove that he f was threatened by arrest was escorted back to the border by German authork 'i| ties. Further, he was warned that another attempt might Jeopardize his “right ''i to take part in the final victory of the Austrian NSDAP
.”
⁴⁰
Austrian officials i' were therefore probably justified in having no fear of a second Nazi Putsch =: between 1934 and 1936, despite constant rumors of a second Putsch attempt
.
⁴¹
!| !

The Austrian SS was equally quiet, but nevertheless significant, after
1934
.

Its principal occupation until 1938 was gathering information and sending it . 5 to Berlin. In apparent violation of Hitler’s orders separating the German and Austrian parties, the SS, in contrast to the SA, still received German financial I subsidies. Equally contrary to orders was the continued leadership of the Aus- f trian SS by the German Alfred Rodenbiicher. Rodenbiicher, who was also !: responsible for dissolving the Austrian Landesleitung, was eventually re- 1 placed as SS leader by a Lower Austrian, Engineer Hiedler. Finally, in 1936, :l| the SS was taken over by the infamous Upper Austrian Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
%

Born in 1903, Kaltenbrunner was the Roman Catholic son and grandson of ■■ lawyers, whose ancestors hailed from the same
Waldviertel
district as Adolf Hitler. The postwar inflation depleted the family’s savings, but the young, six-foot seven-inch Kaltenbrunner still managed to work his way through law school in Graz, graduating in 1926, Once he had joined his father’s law firm, disaster struck again in the form of the Great Depression. The economic crisis only strengthened Kaltenbrunner’s extremist convictions, and he joined Prince Starhemberg’s Heimwehr. Then in 1932 he became a member of both the Nazi party and the SS. Thereafter his rise in the SS can only be described as meteoric, especially after 1934. In large part, his success was simply the result of so many SS leaders’ being removed by death or imprisonment. (Among his “achievements” as leader of the Austrian SS was persuading the young Adolf Eichmann, then a member of the Frontkampfer-vereinigung in Linz, to join the SS.) Although Kaltenbrunner was already well known within the Austrian NSDAP by the end of 1937 his real fame began in 1938 with his role in the Anschluss. Later he gained far more notoriety as the successor of Reinhard Heydrich in leading the Nazi secret police (Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA
).
⁴²

Even under Kaltenbrunner’s leadership the Austrian SS was far more controlled by SS authorities in Germany than it was by leaders of the Austrian Political Organization. With the Austrian SA frequently also following its own inclinations, one can scarcely talk about a single Austrian Nazi party. In reality there were at least three separate organizations, with major divisions existing within each one.

ernst kaltenbrunner.
Leader of the Austrian SS, 1936-1938, and later chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. DOW.

The Reinthaller Action

The disunity and temporary impotence of Nazi radicals following the abortive Putsch did at least provide moderates an opportunity to take over the party’s leadership and to reach some kind of accommodation with the Austrian government. Such an agreement would mesh well with Hitler’s policy of “peaceful penetration” of Austria and in fact had the Fiihrer’s blessing
.
⁴³
The man who undertook this task was Anton Reinthaller.

Most Nazi moderates like Reinthaller had previously belonged either to the Greater German People’s party or to the Agricultural League until those two parties were absorbed by the Nazis after 1930. Bom in 1895, Reinthaller had belonged to the Landbund until 1930, when he joined the NSDAP and became Gauleiter of Upper Austria. Habicht had made him the leader of the Agricultural Division of the Landesleitung in 1932; but differences with Habicht over the use of terror had led to Reinthaller’s dismissal in just a matter of months. Nevertheless, Rudolf Hess appointed Reinthaller Landesbauemfiihrer (State Peasant Leader) early in 1934, and the latter went on to establish an anti-Habicht-Proksch-Frauenfeld front within the party. After Habicht’s negotiations failed in the winter of 1933-34, Reinthaller tried his own hand at a separate settlement with the government. These talks were abruptly interrupted, however, by the July Putsch
.
⁴⁴

With the backing of the Viennese lawyer Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Gauleiter Hubert Klausner of Carinthia, Hermann Neubacher, Walter Riehl, and other Nazi moderates, Reinthailer resumed negotiations with Schuschnigg after the revolt as part of a “National Action.” The chancellor, who was a regimental comrade of Reinthaller, welcomed the new discussions. He was eager to eliminate all ties between the Reich and the Austrian Nazi party. Schuschnigg was also anxious to broaden the very narrow bafee of his government. Papen was likewise delighted with these conversations, because they conformed nicely with his policy of internal pacification at a time when he was too distrusted by the Austrian government to carry out this maneuver himself.

An official in the German Legation in Vienna reported to Berlin in October

1934 that Reinthaller wanted to “regain [the Austrian Nazi party’s] legal status while at the same time severing its connexion with the Party organization in the Reich. A new organization [called the Nationalsozialer Volksbund Osterreich was] envisaged which [would] be strong and independent while adopting the National Socialist Party’s programme as a basis. It [was] intended that all national circles, especially the former Pan-Germans [GVP]

•    the members of the Landbund, [should] range themselves around the

present NSDAP Austria as the hard core of the movement
.”
⁴⁵
In addition, Reinthaller wanted the government to cease arresting Nazis and reserve positions in the federal and local governments for Nazis who would then belong to a legal National Unity List. Minor participants in the July Putsch would have to be released from prison, and Nazi armed formations (the SA and the SS) would have to be coordinated with Germany’s. Finally, a plebiscite would be held to determine Austria's future fate. In other words, he wanted everything Habicht had demanded nine months before, and more. In exchange Nazi terror (which had already greatly abated) would end as would Germany’s “thousand-Mark blockade
.”
⁴⁶
Although the negotiations continued sporadically as late as March 1936, they had, for all practical purposes, already failed by October 1934. Their demise had several causes: Schuschnigg correctly suspected the Nazis of using the National Action as a cover for reorganizing their party. He therefore insisted that Nazis enter the government’s all-encompassing Fatherland Front, individually rather than en masse as demanded by Reinthaller. Moreover, Schuschnigg wanted each province to have its own National Action leader to facilitate this entry. This would, it was hoped, prevent the reestablishment of a strong, centralized Nazi leadership. Reinthaller realized that this demand alone would deprive the Nazis of any political influence, would leave the party without a leader, and would be unacceptable to nearly all Nazis.

The attempted reconciliation failed also because of opposition in Schuschnigg’s cabinet, especially from Prince Starhemberg. The prince was no more willing to tolerate a Nazi-govemment agreement than he had been when Dollfuss made such a move in January of the previous year. In a meeting on 27 October between Schuschnigg and representatives of the National Action, the uninvited Heimwehr leader denounced the whole proceedings as a “swindle.” It seems more likely, however, that he was still worried about the Heimwehr’s being bargained out of existence, as indeed it would be two years later
.
⁴⁷

These factors were only the surface causes of the failure, however. At bottom the issue was once again the disputed leadership of the Nazi party. The
Altkampfer
(the “old fighters” who had joined the party before it was outlawed in 1933) and unemployed radicals did not consider it “suitable” for the upstart Reinthaller to be leading the party. They resented his appointment of former members of the GVP and Landbund to positions of local leadership. Reinthaller was seen as “a stupid fellow who [wasl willing to sell out the party and [the] cause to the system
.”
⁴⁸
They suspected Schuschnigg of using the negotiations to lessen Heimwehr pressure, to please Mussolini, and to find

out information about the party. The Austrian SA also rejected negotiations for the same reasons.    
_t