Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (30 page)

Following the failure of the Reinthaller action, the party'remained divide into two hostile factions: the moderates, who wanted peace and reconciliation with the government, and the radicals, who wanted to continue an aggressive policy toward the Schuschnigg regime. The “peace party,” headed by Rein, thaller, was backed by Goring and Hess, whereas the “war party,” led by Josef Leopold, received encouragement from Goebbels, the SA chief Viktor Lutze, and the leader of the Auslandsorganisation, Ernst Bohle. Among the “hawks” were also Austrian Nazi exiles like Alfred Frauenfeld,
Franz
Hofer and Haims Rauter, who had converted to the NSDAP from the Styrian Hei-matschutz. The hawkish exiles were led by the former Austrian SA leader Hermann Reschny
.
⁴⁹

❖

Hitler and Leadership Quarrels—Again

With the failure of the Reinthaller action the straggle for leadership within the Austrian Nazi party reached a new intensity. Gerhard Weinberg has concluded that “the history of the Austrian party from 1933 to 1938 is to a very large extent a tedious record of factional struggles, mutual betrayals, and endless recriminations
”
⁵⁰
The German military attache in Vienna, Wolfgang Muff, shrewdly observed that the Fiihreiprinzip was simply not functioning well in Austria. The system worked only where there was a “superior personality” to lead the party. But this condition was prevented in Austria by the police. Muff attributed the breakdown of the Austrian Nazi hierarchy to Hitler. He warned in September

1934 that “the Austrian party might break apart if the leadership question was not settled soon and unequivocally by the Fuhrer in a diplomatically discreet form
.”
⁵¹
Another German writer called the leadership question in Austria a “vicious circle.” “The only undisputed leader is someone who has been legitimized by the Reich. But legitimization can only be obtained by someone who has proved himself a leader
.”
⁵²
The problem was now aggravated by Hitler’s new policy of ostensible nonintervention in Austrian affairs. Whereas the chaotic leadership in the Austrian party during the late twenties had been caused largely by Hitler’s indifference to Austria and preoccupation with attaining power in Germany, as well as his distaste for decision making, it now resulted from Hitler’s fear of provoking a reaction by the anti-German Great Powers. At most, the

Austrian leaders might win Hitler’s temporary and limited approval, as in the of Reinthaller in the fall of 1934, or Josef Leopold two years later
.
⁵³
if-ijThe many contenders for the leadership frequently made secret trips to the geich, seeking the Fiihrer’s blessing. But none of them ever received his |
unqualified
support as sole leader of the Austrian party. Not even
Gauleiter
.Tenjoywl
^undis
P
^uted
authority. The struggle for control over the Landesleitung ^
_w
as simply repeated at the Gau level. In Styria, for example, there were
sometimes
as many as three different claimants for the title of Gauleiter.

| gyj
_a
few kind words from Hitler or one of his principal lieutenants could
T enormously
enhance the prestige of a Gauleiter or Landesleiter
.
⁵⁴
!,; The less than total authority of the various
Landesleiter
led to all kinds of
\\
complications.
Many subleaders were reluctant to follow
a
more passive impolicy after July 1934. They were particularly opposed to giving their fol-

* lowers a mere intellectual
{geistig-weltanschaulich)
indoctrination. Another challenge to the authority of the state leaders came from Sudeten Nazis and former Austrian leaders who had been discredited and exiled after the July Putsch. Despite numerous complaints by Anton Reinthaller and Josef Leopold along with repeated chastisements by Rudolf Hess, former leaders like Alfred Frauenfeld and Alfred Proksch continued to dabble in the affairs of the Austrian party. This interference sometimes caused great confusion,
as
orders were sent into Austria via couriers that contradicted those of the Landesleitei
.
⁵⁵

As mentioned above, the leadership crisis worsened in the winter of 1934—
35
after the failure of the Reinthaller action. Reinthaller’s alleged lack of negotiating skill cost him the confidence of the Austrian
Gauleiter
, who demanded his resignation. Reinthaller therefore reluctantly stepped down in favor of his friend Hermann Neubacher at the beginning of 1935.
⁵
®

Like nearly all of the Austrian Nazi leaders, Neubacher, at forty-two, was still relatively young in 1935. During his university years he had been a member of one of the traditionally pan-German fraternities. After a stint as a highly decorated soldier in the World War, he had helped to found two postwar pan-German clubs in 1925.

However, the
Altkampfer
rejected Neubacher as a mere newcomer in the party just as they had Reinthaller and Frauenfeld before him. This repudiation was all the more emphatic in Neubacher’s case, because his position had not been legitimized by a German official. Moreover, he had long had good relations with the Austrian Social Democrats, whom he admired for their social reformism even though he rejected their Marxist internationalism.

Neubacher’s leadership was challenged almost immediately by Josef Leopold, then still the Gauleiter of Lower Austria. Leopold and his supporters

issued a kind of manifesto reproaching Neubacher for being a Catholic, having connections with Moscow, and having Marxist tendencies. Leopold was then chosen to be the new Landesleiter in a meeting of
Gauleiter
representatives held in December 1934. Ugly quarrels between the two rivals only worsened 1 when Leopold was released from prison on 16 February. An uneasy compro- 1 mise between the two men was finally arranged by the two Austrian
Gauleiter
when they met in Krems (Lower Austria) on 23 March. By the terms of their agreement, Neubacher recognized Leopold as the legitimate state leader whereas Leopold promised to regard Neubacher as his “closest confidant,” with whom he would consult on all important questions. Franz Schattenfroh, a one-time cavalry captain in the Austro-Hungarian army, editor of Nazf^ newspapers, and more recently a representative of Habicht, was to become the deputy Landesleiter as soon as he was out of prison
.
⁵⁷

This awkward diarchy, so reminiscent of the Pfrimer-Steidle leadership of the Heimwehr between 1928 and 1931, was unworkable from the start. The two men had trouble even maintaining contact, because Leopold was closely watched by the police in his home town of Krems. That Neubacher enjoyed more freedom in Vienna only aroused Leopold’s ire. As it turned out, the agreement had little practical effect except as a source of later arguments. Both Leopold and Neubacher were arrested and imprisoned again in June

1935 for distributing a propaganda pamphlet entitled, “For Austrian Freedom and Justice.” They were not freed until July 1936.

With Austria’s two principal Nazi leaders out of circulation, the party’s leadership problem became even more hopelessly chaotic. The source of much confusion was a so-called testament that Leopold had left behind in case of his arrest. According to this document, Franz Schattenfroh, as Leopold’s deputy, was to be his successor. But because Schattenfroh was now himself imprisoned, the testament provided that the party should be ruled by a directorate consisting of the
Gauleiter
of Vienna and Lower Austria together with the leaders of the Austrian SA and SS. This body would receive orders from Leopold via the latter s wife, who was allowed to visit him every two weeks. Thus Leopold would retain effective control over the party even while behind bars
!
⁵⁸

The
Gauleiter
from the Alpine states, left politically impotent by Leopold’s testament, never accepted the testament’s legitimacy. They had already come to view Leopold as an overbearing and dangerous sergeant and questioned his right to choose his own successor. Because Leopold had claimed the office of Landesleiter by virtue of his seniority, the Alpine
Gauleiter
reasoned that the second most senior Gauleiter, Major Klausner of Carinthia, ought to be the new de facto state leader.

t^ Klausner, who had been bom in the German-speaking South Tyrol in 1892, jibeen a front officer in the World War. He was severely wounded in the light arm during the conflict and was handicapped the rest of his life. He was I lone °f °ld
^est
members of the Nazi party, having joined in 1922. His career
^'|s a Nazi
was hampered by his war injury. Even his friends did not regard him Ip igs* sufficiently competent to be a Landesleiter, the real reason perhaps being r rjl jiis rumored alcoholism. The western
Gauleiter
therefore decided in July

1935 to make him a mere figurehead in a college of
Gauleiter.
In other words, the provincial leaders wanted to pay lip service to the Fiihrerprinzip while reserving the right to dismiss a leader in whom they had no confidence
.
⁵⁹
One could say they wanted a “parliamentary dictatorship.”

With the creation of this college of
Gauleiter
the Austrian Nazis not only reverted to the 1928 to 1931 period when a similar committee had existed in jfj the party, but in a strange way they also repeated the fourteenth-century
ip! i
history of the papacy. This Nazi conciliar movement failed for the same reason as the Council of Pisa in 1409: the Nazi “pope,” Leopold, and his hand-picked directorate, refused to step aside in favor of the college of
Gauleiter.
Just as there were two, and for a time three, popes in the early fifteenth century, so there were now two Nazi leadership groups, each claiming supremacy, although Leopold was still generally recognized as the de jure leader.

In general, the Alpine
Gauleiter
enjoyed somewhat more success than their eastern rivals, because fewer of their members were imprisoned. Within the western group two young men attained especial prominence during the first half of 1936 with Klausner’s blessing. The two men, both Carinthians, were Dr. Friedrich Rainer, who became chief of the party’s political staff, and Odilo Globocnik, who assumed the position of liaison officer between the Austrian party and the Reich
.
⁶⁰

By March of 1936 Rainer and Globocnik were among the few Austrian leaders not in Wollersdorf or German exile. The conditions of the party were so lamentable that they evoked nothing but disgust from German Nazis. When Rainer visited the German capital after Easter 1936 the Berlin offices of the party, the Foreign Ministry, and other government offices would have nothing to do with him. Hitler was unwilling to make any commitment concerning the party’s political leadership or to give it any guidance
.
⁶¹
In part this reception resulted from Hitler’s nonintervention order, and in part because “everyone who came from Austria did nothing but squabble and insult, because no one could say what [he] wanted, because everyone had contempt for everyone else and called them idiots, etc
.”
⁶²
It is no wonder that the Austrian security officials claimed in 1935 that they

had caused “great confusion” in Nazi ranks
.*
³
“Three-fourths” of the Nazis’ time had to be devoted to defense against Austrian authorities.V It is equally easy to understand why the illegal Nazi press continued to devote itself to maintaining morale rather than to winning new converts. '

The two years following the July Putsch therefore marked one of the lowest points in the history of the Austrian Nazi party. Thousands of
Parteigenossen
were in detention camps or had fled to Germany. Most of the already insufficient supply of weapons belonging to the SA and SS had been confiscated. Above all, the centralized and reasonably effective leadership of Theo Habicht was now over and most of the political, psychological, and financial ties
to
the Reich party had been broken by Hitler himself. The few Nazi leaders who remained in Austria constantly quarreled with each other when they were not imprisoned. The efforts by both moderate leaders like Reinthaller, and not so moderate individuals such as Leopold, to find a new, legal footing for the party had all been rejected by Chancellor Schuschnigg.

Nevertheless, the party and all its suborganizations were still functioning and their membership was substantial, and in fact slightly larger than before the Putsch. The party’s eclipse had been caused in large measure by Germany’s diplomatic isolation following the July uprising. And the Austrian government had been aided in its drive to suppress the Nazis by the military backing of Italy and the diplomatic support of Great Britain and France. Once this international constellation—so fortuitous for Vienna—changed, so too would the fortunes of the Austrian Nazi party.

CHAPTER X "POSITIVE FASCISM" AND APPEASEMENT