Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (32 page)

The only people who joined the Front without reservations were the former Christian Socials and the Legitimists. And they certainly would have supported Dollfuss and Schuschnigg even without the new organization. A popular anecdote of the mid-1930s told how “four Viennese men were sitting at a table in a cafe gossiping; all were wearing the Fatherland Front badge. After a little while two of them got up and left the cafe. One of the remaining two then said to the other: ‘Do you think those two Nazis know we are Communists?’
”
¹⁷

Another well-known story dating from the same period described a visit Schuschnigg supposedly made to

an industrial town to address one of the innumerable appeals of the Fatherland Front. Prior to the meeting he asked the local leader about the political orientation of the people.

“Well” came the reply, “there is a little handful of Communists, perilaps two or three percent. The Nazis unfortunately are fairly strong; let’s say twenty percent, perhaps twenty-five. Then, you know, the “Reds” were always well organized here. There is no doubt that sixty percent remain with them and possibly even. ...”

“My God!” interrupted Schuschnigg, “How many are in the Fatherland Front?” “Why everybody, Herr Kanzler—absolutely one hundred percent
.”
¹⁸

The philosophy and policies of the Front were clearly designed to lessen the appeal of Nazism. Besides “Germanism” the VF exalted authority; and like the Nazis it denounced Marxism and liberalism and their progeny, the class struggle, democracy, capitalism, and individualism
.
¹⁹

On the other hand, the Front also rejected “exaggerated” racism, including racial anti-Semitism. But this policy did not prevent it from adopting the more

fv :

i; i: jfgditional kind of cultural anti-Semitism popularized earlier by Karl Lueger, I
even
though nearly all Jews were staunch supporters of the regime. Neither | i'tfae leaders of the Front nor the leaders of the government were overtly anti-I
Semitic.
Nonetheless they made no attempt to suppress anti-Semitism when jj;Cit> was expressed by others, as for example in the otherwise tightly con-jb trolled press. Without resorting to the fanfare employed by Nazi Germany, the
Schuschnigg
government quietly permitted the number of Jews in banking If' and the law and medical professions to be reduced by attrition in order to i| bring their numbers more into line with their percentage of Austria’s total
W
population. Large firms that depended on trade with Germany even dismissed their Jewish employees. The very few Jews in local, state, and federal govern-■J! ments were almost completely excluded. Thus, Walter Riehl’s proposal, made ||!ij early in the century, and repeated by nearly every other Austrian anti-Semite :|l thereafter, to reduce “Jewish influence” drastically, was at least partially |j'
^;
. realized. Again, the transparent purpose of this comparatively “mild” form p of anti-Semitism was to appease the country’s moderate anti-Semites without t - totally alienating the government’s important Jewish supporters
.
²⁰
] p The insignia and organization of the Fatherland Front were also remarkably similar to those of the Nazis. Instead of a
Hakenkreuz
(crooked cross or !i traditional swastika) the VF had its
Kruckenkreuz
(untranslatable) a kind jj
_;
of double-sided swastika. The Kruckenkreuz had purportedly been used in | ancient times by the Lombards and Visigoths on their coins and later on the shields of the medieval Crusaders. The Kruckenkreuz appeared on the Front’s flags and on some of the national currency.

| The Fatherland Front was organized on the hierarchical Fiihrerprinzip. As :    in the Nazi party, the Fuhrer was not elected but was simply “there.” He

‘ named his own deputy, who appointed his subordinates and so on down to the lowest echelons of the organization. The Fuhrer had unlimited power over the Front, whose members owed him unconditional obedience
.
²¹

The lowest level of the hierarchy was the “cell,” which consisted of a leader and fifteen to thirty members. Among the cell leaders’ duties was observing and reporting to the local police on the “enemies’ ” propaganda. They were also given explicit instructions to see that VF members attended all rallies and applauded at appropriate times! As with Nazi speakers, one had to take a special course and oral examination to become a cell leader
.
²²

The Fatherland Front developed an array of subsidiary organizations similar to those of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Many of these groups were worthwhile and apparently popular. Again, all of them were designed to reduce the lure of Nazism. The largest and most successful of these organizations was Neues Leben (New Life). It was obviously inspired by (though not a

duplication of) Italy’s Dopolavoro (After Work) and Germany’s Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy
).
²³
   ,

Founded in 1936, Neues Leben offered its members, who numbered some 500,000 by early 1938,
²⁴
theater tickets at 40 to 50 percent discounts, reduced fares on the state railroads, and special ski holidays. It sponsored sporting events and prize contests for painting, photography, films, music, and patriotic plays. To reduce the high unemployment rate among talented young actors and actresses, traveling theater groups were established by Neues Leben and sent into remote rural areas. Special lectures and book and picture exhibits were also arranged and were well attended
.
²⁵

The attitude of the Fatherland Front toward women likewise resembled tfiat of Austria’s northern and southern neighbors. To reverse the country’s sharply declining birthrate, reputedly the lowest in Europe, laws were enacted against birth control. It was also unlawful for women to work if their husbands were employed. The VFs Miitterschutzwerk (Mothers’ Aid Society) which was similar to the Nazis’ Volkswohlfahrt (People’s Welfare) gave payments to needy families having four or more children and provided homes for young, unmarried mothers. As in Germany there was also a Mother’s Day on 12 May to honor motherhood.

The Fatherland Front, like the NSDAP, also had two paramilitary formations. The Frontmiliz was created in 1936 to replace three older militant groups, the Ostmarkische Sturmscharen, the Freiheitsbund, and the Heimwehr. The latter was dissolved by Schuschnigg in October of the same year. Far more disciplined than any of these older paramilitary groups was the Sturmkorps, an elite body founded in the summer of 1937. It was expected to have an ultimate membership of thirty to fifty thousand men between the ages of nineteen and thirty. But the sudden Anschluss in 1938 prevented this figure from ever being realized. In many ways the Sturmkorps was indistinguishable from the SS. Its dark blue uniforms closely resembled the black clothing worn by the SS. In place of the SS slogan,
Unsere Ehre heisst Treue
(Honor for us means Loyalty) the slogan of the Sturmkorps was
Unser Wille werde Gesetz
(Our Wishes shall be Law
).
²⁶
Nevertheless, any similarity between the SS and the Sturmkorps was denied by Austrian officials. Its purpose was to create a lighting spirit among the Austrian people and to maintain order
.
²⁷

To complete the picture, the Front had, like its fascist neighbors, a youth organization called Osterreichisches Jungvolk, a Winterhilfe (Winter Charity), a Sportfront, a Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst (Voluntary Work Force), and a propaganda ministry. The latter helped organize huge rallies in the manner of Albert Speer in Germany
.
²⁸

The VF also made a claim to “totality,” which excluded all political
^l
“i:n-
_:

|l-(but not nonpolitical) opposition views
.
²⁹
The American historian William
p
Sheridan Allen has concluded that the components of fascism in some coun-|! 'tries “were engendered by the fashionability of the idea of apparent successes I 1 of the Italian and German regimes
.”
³⁰

[I: ! The new face of Austria prompted Franz von Papen to write Hitler in July |;li i 1935 that “the Austrian regime in its struggle against the spiritual influence
I being
exerted by Germany and its fear for its bread and butter [has] learned a |!
great
deal from the methods of German National Socialism. Interesting paral-|! lels would emerge if the imitations of National Socialist legislation in all I spheres were ever analyzed
.”
³¹

p
Even more revealing is a letter Hermann Goring wrote to Dr. Guido
| l Schmidt,
the Austrian secretary for foreign affairs, on 2 February
1937:

I have heard many Austrians who tell me that they cannot understand it when the [Austrian] government on the one hand rejects everything which is National Socialist and says National Socialism is not for Austria, and on the other hand copies German National Socialism in its own state structure, that is to say the same forms, the same organizations, the same expressions, the same laws, the same methods, only with reversed insignia
[Vorzeichen].
They say that in Austria one only has to substitute the Kruckenkreuz for the Hakenkreuz and the word patriotic
[vaterldndisch]
for National Socialist in order to have in Austria the living mirror image of Germany
.
³²

The July Agreement

The development of positive fascism was only one aspect of the government’s anti-Nazi strategy. The other, more direct approach, was the use of negotiations with the “moderate” wing of the NSDAP This policy had produced the talks with Anton Reinthaller
.
³³
The failure of Reinthaller’s National action did not mean, however, that Chancellor Schuschnigg had given up all hope of reaching some sort of accommodation with the Nazis, both inside and outside Austria. In the long run his regime and the independence of Austria could only be preserved if the Austrian Nazis were somehow pacified, if their connections with Germany were permanently severed, and if normal commercial relations with Germany were resumed.

Schuschnigg was in no hurry to achieve this settlement, as Austria’s diplomatic position continued to be strong during the first half of
1935.
But by

October of the same year the outbreak of the Ethiopian War had completely

reversed the roles of suitors and suppliants. Mussolini, peeved at the Western

/

powers for allowing the League of Nations to enact economic sanction against Italy during the war, decided to throw in his lot with Hitler. But the price the Italian dictator had to pay was abandoning his Austrian protectorate. In March

1936 the Duce told Schuschnigg to bring about an internal peace, which meant in effect the elimination of the Nazis’ bitter enemy, the Heimwehr. The next month he cut off his financial assistance to the HW
.
³⁴

Although the road to an agreement with the Nazis was now wide open, the wisdom of Schuschnigg in dissolving the Heimwehr and removing Starhemberg as leader of the Fatherland Front is open to question. Whatever may tie said about Starhemberg’s character, he and his Heimwehr, along with the Ostmarkische Sturmscharen, were still the only militant anti-Nazis around in 1936.
³⁵
The Heimwehr’s role in suppressing the July Putsch had been crucial. Moreover, Schuschnigg’s hope of absorbing the Heimwehr after its final dissolution in October 1936 proved illusory. The ex-HW members either became politically apathetic or else actually joined the Nazis or revolutionary Leftists
.
³⁶
Schuschnigg’s already narrow base of popular support, estimated to be 30 percent at the end of 1935 by the Papal Nuncio in Vienna, was therefore reduced still further
.
³⁷

The Nazis were elated by these developments, as the reports of the Austrian Security Directorate reveal. So optimistic were they that there were rumors in May 1936 about preparations for a new armed revolt in Styria and Carinthia. When the Heimwehr was about to be dissolved in September the Nazis made no effort to hide their
Schadenfreude
(malicious glee
).
³⁸

With Austria diplomatically isolated by the summer of 1936, members of the Austrian government felt they had no choice but to reach some kind of understanding with Germany. An agreement would presumably retain their country’s independence, if only temporarily. The Austrians were not so naive as to suppose that any agreement with Hitler would last indefinitely. But one should also keep in mind that Hitler’s infidelity to treaties had not yet been firmly established. Schuschnigg, in particular, hoped that by conciliating the Nazi Fuhrer he might buy two or three years of breathing time during which the balance of power might shift back in his favor. If this was appeasement, then the Austrians were at least in good company. Great Britain, Poland, and even the Vatican had already expressed confidence in Hitler’s willingness to respect the sanctity of treaties he himself signed.