Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (41 page)

Actually, Seyss-Inquart was able to persuade Schuschnigg to modify many of these voting regulations on 10 March, the same day they were announced; he was so pleased with the chancellor’s concessions that he agreed to support the plebiscite. In the end, however, Schuschnigg’s concessions to fair play could not alter the initial impression that the plebiscite was rigged. Far from making a Nazi takeover more difficult, therefore, the plebiscite gave Hitler a welcome pretext for intervention.

When the Austrian Nazi leaders first learned of the plebiscite through a spy in Zematto’s office, they were so taken aback that they were unsure how to respond. On only two issues could both moderates and radicals agree: the
f plebiscite
was a breach of the Berchtesgaden Protocol, and word of the voting |' had to be quickly passed on to Berlin. It took the radicals little time to make ij up their minds in favor of an uprising. And even the moderates thought the |
^!;
i
^:
vote was directed against them. They were afraid of the outcome, should the |l plebiscite actually take place
.
⁵⁸

I Hitler learned of Schuschnigg’s decision even before the Austrian chancel-I lor made his announcement. The news was related through Friedrich Rainer !jl and then in more detail by Odilo Globocnik, who had flown to Berlin. Finding I the news “absolutely incredible
”
⁵⁹
however, he took no action until Wilhelm Keppler had returned from a fact-finding mission to Austria. When at last
I
Keppler had confirmed the news, “Hitler responded as though someone had
:|j
trodden on a painful com. He had received no warning, and had made no preparations. It was clear to him that ‘the evolutionary solution’ was dead. He must either act or be humiliated
.”
⁶⁰
After Keppler’s arrival Hitler made three decisions: he ordered General Wilhelm Keitel to work out plans for a possible invasion of Austria, he sent Globocnik back to Austria with instructions to give the party freedom of action, and he dictated a letter to Seyss-Inquart ordering him to persuade Schuschnigg to postpone the plebiscite and to change the voting arrangements. If the chancellor refused, an invasion would follow
.
⁶¹

❖

The Nazis Unleashed: Austria’s Final Day

The eleventh of March was the last and
most
hectic day of the First Republic’s twenty-year history. When it began, Schuschnigg’s plebiscite was just two days away and the government was still in control of the streets, at least outside Styria. By the day’s end, however, Schuschnigg had been replaced by Seyss-Inquart, the Nazis were in complete command of thoroughfares and public buildings throughout the country, and the German army was poised to invade its southern neighbor.

Dramatic events succeeded each other at such a breathtaking rate that even now they are difficult for the historian to disentangle. It is helpful, however, to keep in mind that there were four major centers of activity: the federal chancellery on the Ballhausplatz in Vienna, the Reich chancellery in Berlin, the streets of Vienna, and the public avenues and buildings of other Austrian cities, especially those of the provincial capitals.

One might be tempted to assume that Seyss-Inquart, the Austrian Nazis, and the German leaders in Berlin were all coordinating their efforts to over-

throw Schuschnigg, to find a pretext for a German invasion, and to annex Austria to Germany. But things were hardly that simple. Seyss,-Inquart and the Austrian Nazis feared a German invasion nearly as much as- Schuschnigg and President Miklas. And the Nazis in the streets were anxious to avoid the impression that Seyss-Inquait and German pressure were alone responsible for the Austrian chancellor’s impending demise.

There is little point in recounting the well-known telephone conversations between Goring and Seyss-Inquart and the subsequent negotiations between the minister of security and Schuschnigg
.
⁶²
For years it was widely assumed that Seyss-Inquart was a “Trojan horse” who willingly carried out the orders of Berlin in order to subvert his own country’s independence
.
⁶³
As early as ^ 1939, however, Guido Zematto described how Seyss “turned pale” after a phone call with Goring in which the minister president demanded the resignation of Schuschnigg. Seyss-Inquart’s description of himself as nothing more than a “historical telephone girl” is basically correct.

At the Nuremberg Trials we also learned that it was Goring, not Hitler, who took the initiative after the Fuhrer had instructed Seyss-Inquart to demand that Schuschnigg call off his plebiscite. Goring testified that just after the Austrian chancellor agreed to this first demand at 2:45 on the afternoon of
11
March, he (Goring) “had the instinctive feeling that the situation was now mobile and that now, finally, that possibility which we had long and ardently awaited was there—the possibility of bringing about a complete solution. And from that moment on I must take
100
percent responsibility for all further happenings because it was not the Fuehrer so much as I, myself, who set the pace and, even overruling the Fuehrer’s misgivings, brought everything to its final development
”
⁶⁴
Goring saw the crisis as a heaven-sent opportunity to distract German opinion from the recent shakeup in the German government (involving Fritsch, Blomberg, Neurath, and Papen) and to ease the strain on the German economy by assimilating Austria’s valuable gold reserves, raw materials, and badly needed manpower
.
⁶⁵

Goring consequently told Seyss (at 3:05
p.m.)
to insist on Schuschnigg’s resignation and Seyss’s own appointment as chancellor. Seyss objected strenuously to this new ultimatum but feared that its rejection and a German invasion would eliminate the last shred of Austrian independence. Moreover, as chancellor he would be in a better position to prevent a violent clash between Austrian Nazis and anti-Nazis, which the Germans could use as a pretext for an invasion
.
⁶⁶

At 3:30 Schuschnigg resigned and by 7:30 in the evening the ex-chancellor joined Seyss and Police President Skubl in trying to persuade President Miklas to appoint the minister of interior and security as the new chancellor. Under

the circumstances, Seyss seemed to be the least of all possible evils: he was a Catholic, was opposed to violence, and was eager to form a government that included non-Nazis. If such a solution had occurred, many aspects of the Austrian Nazis’ dream would have been fulfilled. (But of course, many Nazis would not have favored Seyss as chancellor.) It is also quite possible that had Seyss become the new chancellor at this point, there would have been no German invasion and no annexation, at least for the time being.

One person adamantly stood in the way of this course of action: President Miklas. The president’s determined refusal to appoint Seyss-Inquart now appeared to jeopardize everyone’s plans. Austrian Nazis and anti-Nazis alike feared the imminent invasion of their country. And the German Nazis faced *
^r
"
^J
* the distasteful prospect of having to move without a convenient pretext. Hitler temporarily avoided making such a choice when Keppler passed on a false report from Vienna saying that Seyss-Inquart had been named chancellor
.
⁸⁷

Meanwhile, rank-and-file Austrian Nazis had not been idle. During the previous twenty-four hours SA brigade leaders in the provinces, in defiance of the Landesleitung, had been struggling once more to “catch up” with the Styrians through demonstrations of their own. When Hitler’s “freedom of action” order reached Vienna on the morning of the eleventh, it merely put the seal of approval on what was already an accomplished fact everywhere except in Vienna
.
⁶⁸
Only now, under the new orders from Hitler, did the Nazi leadership of Klausner abandon its inhibitions and imitate in Vienna the actions of subleaders in the federal states.

Major Klausner placed the responsibility for leading the “final political actions” in the hands of his two closest collaborators and fellow Carinthians, Rainer and Globocnik. At the same time the Landesleiter ordered that the government be presented with an ultimatum demanding a postponement in the plebiscite for three weeks
.
⁶⁹

The Austrian Nazi leaders made no attempt to inform Seyss-Inquart of Hitler’s unconditional support and were uninterested in Seyss’s plan for a compromise “Black-Brown” (clerical-Nazi) coalition government. The minister of security was soon forced to confess to Zematto that “he no longer controlled the course of affairs [did he ever?]; the weight of decision rested with the party
”
⁷⁰

In the early afternoon of 11 March, Zematto reported to Schuschnigg that SA and SS units had been gathering in parts of the Burgenland, Vienna, and Lower Austria since daybreak
.
⁷¹
He might have added that there had been violent clashes the night before in Graz between Nazis and the government’s paramilitary Sturmkorps. The situation was saved for the government only with the arrival of truckloads of soldiers, who occupied the thoroughfares and

public squares thereby turning the Styrian capital into a veritable armed camp.

At 2:50
p.m.
Rainer learned from Seyss-Inquart that Schuschnigg had called off the plebiscite. Rainer therefore implemented a contingency plan worked out the night before: great demonstrations were to be held throughout the country. In Vienna, Nazi street demonstrators became increasingly self-confident and aggressive as the day wore on. In the afternoon hours there was a kind of competition between Nazis and partisans of the Fatherland Front with the latter for a time apparently having the better of it
.
⁷²

Ultimately the advantage lay with the Nazis. This was partly due no doubt to their better organization and enthusiasm. But to a large extent it was also a result of their self-confidence and the tolerant attitude of the Austrian police. Even during the early stages of the demonstrations in Vienna, the city’s seven thousand policemen moved only timidly to quell disturbances. The progovem-ment demonstrators therefore had the distinct impression that the police were not on their side, a feeling which only added to their defeatism and boosted the morale of the Nazis
.
⁷³
In fact, fully 10 percent of the police were at first secretly, and by the end of the day more openly, pro-Nazi. The other 90 percent were simply neutral
.
⁷⁴

By the late afternoon the SA and SS were marching in the larger provincial capitals of Graz, Salzburg, Linz, and Innsbruck; at 5:00
p.m.
they began occupying a number of municipal and provincial government buildings. Increasingly they were joined by nervous fence sitters who had been waiting to see which way the political winds were blowing
.
⁷⁵

The coup de grace to the progovernment demonstrators was the radio announcement shortly past
6:00
stating that the plebiscite had been postponed. A second bulletin followed a few minutes later revealing that the Schuschnigg cabinet, except for Seyss-Inquart, had resigned.

At 7:00 in the evening, even though political power in the provinces was already largely in Nazi hands, Wilhelm Keppler still refused to sanction a seizure of power in Vienna. But the Austrian Nazi leaders were as indifferent to Keppler’s views as they were to those of Seyss-Inquart. Only through a seizure of power could they forestall a German invasion and assure themselves the spoils of victory. This Machtergreifiing would now be easy, because the Austrian government was under the mistaken impression that a German invasion was at hand
.
⁷⁶

Schuschnigg made the Nazi takeover far easier by giving a radio address at 7:47
p.m.
formally announcing his resignation and reviewing the day’s events. In his brief but emotional speech, Schuschnigg mentioned the German ultimatum demanding his replacement as chancellor. He correctly pointed out the falsity of the German claim that there had been “workers’ riots [and] that

rivers of blood [had! flowed.” His own rebuttal, however, that the government was in control of the situation was at best misleading and for many parts of Austria simply untrue.

Schuschnigg’s assertion that “we are resolved not to spiirGerman blood
”
⁷⁷
by forcefully resisting the German invasion ignored the fact that some of his top advisers, including the state secretary of defense and the state secretary of security, had warned him only a few hours earlier that resistance to an invasion would probably provoke an uprising within the police and the army
.
⁷⁸

Shortly after this speech, Klausner discussed the situation with Lukesch, Kaltenbrunner, and other Nazi leaders in the office of Dr. Walter Pembauer, the head of the VPR. Lukesch informed the Landesleiter that his six thousand Viennese SA men would be ready to march within half an hour. Kaltenbrunner made the same pledge for his five' hundred SS men in the capital. Thus reassured, Klausner ordered his SA and SS leaders to seize power in Vienna and the
Gauleiter
to complete the transfer of power in the provinces. Once more, no one bothered to inform Seyss-Inquart of this latest decision
.
⁷⁹