Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (35 page)

Rainer, bom in 1903, was extraordinarily young to be a political leader, even by Nazi standards. He studied politics and jurisprudence at the University of Graz where he was awarded a doctorate in the latter subject. He joined the Nazi movement in 1930 and thereafter his influence rapidly increased in party affairs
.
¹⁵

Like so many leaders of the Austrian Nazi party, Globocnik, or “Globus” as his party friends called him, came from an area outside the territory that became the Austrian Republic in 1918. A native of Trieste (b. 1904), he was trained as a master builder before being granted citizenship in the Austrian Republic after the breakup of the monarchy. Globocnik was a determined and energetic man. In 1920, at the impressionable age of sixteen, he joined the Austrian Nazi party. Since 1934 he had been in charge of the “special service” of the Carinthian Gauleitung, which grew rapidly into an intelligence network. According to Rainer, the Carinthian Gau enjoyed a high prestige within the party because of its excellent organization. And even more impor-jant, it was free of the leadership quarrels that so debilitated the other
Gaue.
¹⁶
I; i: When Leopold was finally released from the Wollersdorf detention camp on

I 23 July 1936, Rainer and Globocnik were unenthusiastic about surrendering
%
their influence within the party
.
¹⁷
Alfred Persche experienced the same dif-
Acuities
at this time when he tried to resume his leadership of the Austrian SA
-
¹⁸

Leopold won what turned out to be a largely empty victory on 31 July 1936, when Rainer and Globocnik met with the Landesleiter to assure him of their fidelity. Leopold modestly referred to himself as merely the federal president of a Rainer cabinet. His graciousness and sincerity may be doubted, however. The Landesleiter (correctly) suspected the two Carinthians of having ambitions of their own and of having secret ties with authorities in Germany. He also feared that they were trying to organize a Nazi opposition to him which would include the Styrian Gauleiter, Walter Rafelsberger. As a matter of fact, Rafelsberger did serve in Berlin as a contact man between the Carinthians and Joachim von Ribbentrop’s Foreign Bureau as well as with the party chancellery in Munich. Consequently, in mid-September Leopold dismissed Rainer, Globocnik, and various other young party members without explanation
.
¹⁹
Major Klausner’s dismissal followed on 9 October.

Leopold’s leadership was greatly enhanced by two important events in late January and early February 1937. On 24 January the Austrian Landesleitung, together with the
Gauleiter
and their deputies, met in Vienna and expressed their confidence in Leopold. But they coupled their approval with the wish that a reconciliation be achieved with the Nazi opposition (centered in Carinthia). Then, during a visit to Berlin at the end of the month, Heinrich Himmler placed the entire Austrian SS under Leopold’s command. The only condition was that the Austrian SS remain subordinate to the Reichsfuhrer SS in personnel matters. The Landesleiter’s prestige and authority were further enhanced by two long and friendly conversations with Hermann Goring on the thirty-first and with Hitler himself on 1 February
.
²⁰

❖

A Conflict of Strategies

Behind the dispute between Leopold and his rivals lay a fundamental difference in strategy. Leopold’s enemies, and even many historians, have labeled him a wild-eyed revolutionary ready and willing to use force to achieve his objectives
.
²¹
In reality his strategy, at least until 1938, was relatively moderate (from the Nazi point of view).

Until that late date Leopold had sought to gain some kind of legal standing for the Austrian Nazi party, perhaps as a cultural union, or by incorporating the entire party as a bloc into the Fatherland Front. Such a role for the Nazis would soon lead to a coalition government and eventually to a Gleichschaltung following the German model. This result was possible, however, only if Germany avoided alarming the Schuschnigg regime by recognizing Austria’s independence. Moreover, it would have to give complete freedom to the Austrian Nazi party to recruit new members, agitate, and carry out propaganda activities
.
²²

It is likely that Leopold also believed any mass incorporation of the Nazi party in one form or another into the Fatherland Front would enhance his ownf~ position because he could rely on the support of the forty-thousand-man Austrian SA. Klausner, Rainer, Globocnik, and their faction, even though backed by the Austrian SS, had no such mass support and wanted to keep the illegal organization “as small as possible
.”
²³
This difference in popularity may also explain Rainer’s retrospective criticism of Leopold for his unwillingness to forego public fame.

In any event, the Carinthians regarded Leopold’s plan for a “deal” with the Schuschnigg government as worthless and preferred to dissociate themselves from the party organization. Its only possible value might be in some kind of emergency. Rainer had decided sometime between the summer of 1935 and his meeting with Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 16 July 1936 that the only way the Austrian Nazis could achieve power was to enter the Schuschnigg government and the Fatherland Front on an individual basis. “An illegal party could never be a mass party
.”
²⁴
Moreover, an enemy could not be fought from prison. His faith in the party had apparently been undermined by the success of government informers. He became even more disillusioned by the leadership quarrels, which had provoked the contempt of the German leaders he encountered in Berlin in the spring of 1936.

Rather than using the party to enter the government, Rainer preferred a more roundabout approach. This technique involved the use of bourgeois professionals like the military historian Edmund Glaise-Horstenau and Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Seyss, though not formally a member of the party, was a pan-German Catholic who enjoyed the confidence of both Hitler and Schuschnigg. Such individual efforts to enter the Austrian government, Rainer believed, could only be successful if accompanied by pressure from the outside by Berlin. Thus the only task of the Austrian party would be to spread the Nazi ideology among sympathetic elements of the Austrian population. It would renounce all acts of violence that might alarm foreign powers
.
²⁵

The Carinthians could agree with Leopold that the presence of Nazis in the
Austrian
government would eventually bring about the country’s Gleichschaltung. Austria would then remain a nominally independent Nazi state until such time as Germany, strengthened by its growing military power, could carry out an Anschluss. In other words, the Austrian party as a whole could do nothing decisive on its own and was therefore utterly dependent on Germany. This strategy, however, did not prevent individual Nazi leaders such as the Carinthians themselves from taking certain actions without consulting the Germans in advance. Leopold, for his part, agreed that “we need the Reich. Without the Reich we are lost ” Yet he also believed that without the Austrian Nazi party, Germany “could do nothing
”
²⁶

The differences between the two factions were not enormous. Both hoped to achieve a Gleichschaltung by having Nazis enter the Austrian government. Both were willing to adhere to the concept of gradual “peaceful penetration.” They disagreed mainly over who should do the penetrating. The Carinthians saw Germany playing the key role, with individual Austrian Nazis assuming the status of minor actors. For Leopold and the SA, the Austrian Nazis as a whole would take the initiative, although they would also need occasional support from the Reich.

There is no doubt, however, that Rainer’s interpretation was closer to that which Hitler and von Papen had in mind when the July Agreement was signed. Rainer and Globocnik managed to win limited support for this policy when they met with the
Gauleiter,
in Anif, just south of Salzburg, on 17 July following their conference with Hitler at the Berghof
.
²⁷
But the Anif gathering took place before Leopold and his followers were released from prison so that nothing permanent was achieved.

Whatever the differences between the Nazi leaders, it is important to note that none of them wanted Austria simply swallowed up in an expanded German Reich
.
²⁸
Therefore, to divide Austrians between “patriots” and “traitors,” with the Schuschnigg supporters all in the first camp and the Nazis and pro-Nazis in the second, is as misleading as it is unfair. Virtually all Austrians wanted to see the preservation of at least some autonomy for their homeland. They envisaged an equal partnership between Germany and Austria and expected “Hitler, as an Austrian, would implement this conception
.”
²⁹
Therefore, not even the most rabid and misguided of the Nazis thought of themselves as being in any sense traitors. They naively thought they could reconcile their loyalty to Austria with their loyalty to the party.

Leopold admitted on one occasion to Alfred Persche that the Austrian Nazis shared Schuschnigg’s view that Austria had a special mission. Both he

and Persche were equally convinced that Austrians could best lead other Austrians. He interpreted the Fiihrer’s order concerning noninterference in Austrian affairs by party offices in the Reich even more literally than Hitler intended
.
³⁰
   "

❖

The Leopold-Scbuschnigg Negotiations

Leopold thought he saw in Article IX of the secret Gentlemen’s Agreement (attached to the July Agreement of 1936) an opportunity to bring " himself into the Austrian government and the Nazi party into the Fatherland Front. The second section of that notorious clause, of course, had stipulated that “for the purpose of promoting a real pacification,” representatives of the “National Opposition” enjoying the confidence of the chancellor and selected by him, were to be given political responsibility
.
³¹

This clause was a constant source of friction between the German and Austrian governments. If Schuschnigg were to acquiesce on this point and add genuine Nazis to the cabinet, he would risk a Gleichschaltung. To refuse, however, could easily be interpreted as a violation of the July Agreement, thus giving Germany a welcome pretext for using force.

However, the Agreement was silent about whole organizations being taken into the government; consequently, Leopold was wrong in expecting the legalization of the party. On the other hand, Kurt von Schuschnigg was naive in believing that there was a significant Austrian National Opposition distinct from the Nazi party. It is therefore not surprising that Leopold, the generally, if not universally, acknowledged leader of the Austrian Nazis, was indignant when neither he nor any of his entourage were appointed to the Schuschnigg cabinet
.
³²

Leopold did not allow this snub to prevent him from seeking negotiations with the Austrian chancellor. His goal was to create a disguised Nazi organization called the Deutschsozialer Volksbund (German Social People’s League) and then to incorporate it en masse into the Fatherland Front. Here was a resurrection of the many Nazi attempts to relegalize their party and slip it into a government body. Now that Habicht and Reinthaller had already tried and failed, it was Leopold’s turn.

The Landesleiter faced several major obstacles in reaching any agreement with Schuschnigg. Not the least of the roadblocks was the enormous difference in social background between the two men. The uneducated son of a peasant, and a former low-ranking officer, Leopold was personally distasteful

lik
■ alii;;

|f W a negotiating partner to the highly educated Schuschnigg, a member of an !|
did
officer family
.
³³

There was another handicap. Just as the Heimwehr had blocked the Habicht-

j'iii-i. • *

Dollfuss
and Reinthaller-Schuschnigg negotiations, so too did parts of the
Ijl Fatherland
Front and the Nazi extremists object to renewed discussions.
I|j| Members
of the Fatherland Front no doubt saw visions of a new Trojan horse
I'n' whereas
some Nazis, at least in Styria, were afraid that Schuschnigg was only
fe negotiating in
order to expose and arrest the entire Nazi organization
.
^3,1
Franz p|
von
Papen also reported to Hitler that the
Gauleiter
and the SA saw little hope
fe
^:
of success
for the talks and were critical of the Landesleitung
.
³⁵
It! Probably to avoid the charge of “selling out,” Captain Leopold drew up a pj'
set
of demands in January 1937, which were transmitted to the Austrian §j:
cabinet.
These “minimum demands,” in seven closely typed pages, would
|ih have
gone far beyond the terms of the July Agreement in turning Austria into
^!
a
completely Nazified state.