The Vienna Melody (57 page)

To the question of why the accused had joined a party declared illegal, he replied, “Out of disgust for the corruption on all sides, right, left, and center. Out of loathing for clericalism, bolshevism, and Judaism. No one in Austria has the right to declare illegal something which is in itself an embodiment of the principle of right.”

To the question of what motive the accused had for murdering the late Chancellor, he declared, “After what I have already said I am astonished at the question. No true German could ask it. Dollfuss, that defender of the Jews and lackey of the Jews, dared to set his pygmy figure in the path of the most gigantic figure of world history and to prevent Austria from being rescued by National Socialism from certain doom. Instead of joining our Führer with flying banners on the very day he became Chancellor of the German Reich, he attempted to maintain the independence of his pygmy state because he wanted to remain in power.”

In reply to the admonition not to cast aspersions on the memory of the dead man, the accused said, “Bourgeois morals have been discarded. A pygmy and a criminal remains that even after he has been liquidated.”

In answer to the question of why he did not heed the dying man's request for a priest, the accused said, “The only decent priest is Cardinal Innitzer, who believes in our Führer. All the rest are a lot of liars.”

When challenged to name those who participated with him in the putsch, and especially to clear up the part played by Minister Rintelen, the accused refused to divulge any information.

To the question of whether the plot to remove the Chancellor and take over the government was promoted by the National Socialist party in Germany or whether it was known to them, the accused gave a negative reply.

When asked if he would tell who it was that acted as go-between in establishing the contact between the Austrian Heimwehr and the illegal National Socialist party in Austria, he named the military attaché of the Italian Legation in Vienna.

The accused asked to have the following supplementary explanation recorded: A further motive on his part for the killing of Chancellor Dollfuss was based on the fact that the murdered Chancellor had undertaken to break the opposition of the Austrian working classes with armed force.

To the question as to what means he used to murder the actress Selma Rosner-Alt the accused replied, “See the report of the autopsy.”

To the question of how long the secret printing press had been in operation in the cellar of the house at 10 Seilerstätte the accused replied, “Since September 1923.”

To the question of where the means for running the press came from the accused refused to reply.

 

To the question of who ran the press the accused declared, “I did it myself.”

To the question of how it was that the noise of the press had not led to its discovery sooner the accused said, “National Socialists make no mistakes.”

 

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ALOIS OSIO

HERMANN ALT

DR. SCHICK

 

Four days after this deposition was signed Hermann Alt was condemned to death by a special court presided over by General von Huelgerth and was shot that same evening.

The bullets which laid him low, together with eight other participants in the putsch of July 25, were fired by a platoon from the Viennese home regiment, the Fourth Hoch-und-Deutschmeister, in the courtyard of the vacant Palais Coburg. The volley was so loud that it could be heard in nearby streets.

On the fourth floor of 10 Seilerstätte, from which one could see the roof of the Coburg Palace, a family sat together in silence.

It was a small family now. It consisted of Henriette, Hans, and Martha Monica. The newspapers and radio broadcasts about the trial of the putsch participants had announced the execution for this evening, without stating the hour or place. So when the volley rang out every one of the three knew that over there someone who had belonged to them had been executed. Every one of them knew in addition what the executed man had said in court, for they had been called to court to confirm or to refute his statements. It was there that they had seen him for the last time. He had turned his back and not spoken with them. Before he was taken back to his cell he had shouted, “Heil Hitler!”

The radio program was interrupted for the announcement: “The execution of the murderers of Chancellor Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss took place at 8
P.M.”
The names of the murderers were given, in alphabetical order, and Hermann's name was first. Trembling, Martha Monica held her mother's hand.

Henriette nodded. Her eyes were wide open. “Neglect,” she said, looking into space. “Neglect is poison.”

Hans said nothing.

He waited until his mother and sister had stopped crying. Then he went down to his own apartment and talked to Selma's picture. “Neglect,” he said to her. “It was not that. He was a man who hated. Hatred was his will and his talent. God forgive me, I can't feel sorry for him. Do you remember the formula for the origin of all? Whether it be fear or hatred—it is all one and the same catastrophe. Selma, are you so sure that despite all it might not be love? I am now forty-three years old, and I have seen too little love and too much hate. I have an indescribable, unquenchable yearning for love that grows with every day!” Then he said good night to her as usual.

That night he determined to wipe out the slander to which his brother had subjected Selma in court. This would, he decided, take the form of a memorial tablet. It would be of white marble, so that anyone going by could read it. It would be set beneath the angel with the trumpet and would bear the inscription: “Died in this house the actress beloved of Vienna, Selma Rosner-Alt. She lived for truth.”

 

T
he lights in the auditorium were dimmed; Arturo Toscanini raised his baton for Verdi's
Requiem.
The thousands of black-clad people who filled the Vienna Opera House did not move. On the stage stood the chorus, dressed in black. On the black curtain behind them hung an over-lifesize death mask of the murdered Dollfuss.

Spreading the thumb of his left hand in a gesture familiar to the Viennese, the conductor demanded absolute silence; with his right hand he rapped his slim baton twice on the stand before him, and the music began. The red, gold, and ivory of the gay opera hall seemed to have disappeared. Not only a stillness, but also the reverential atmosphere of a church, had taken possession of it. With the
Kyrie Eleison
there was sobbing. It increased during the
Dies Iree
, but was suddenly silenced by the breath-taking impetus of the
Libera.

Three women who were among the audience of this memorial celebration and who were sitting in one of the most secluded boxes also gave rein to their emotions. Henriette felt that the attitude of not play-acting, not being allowed to weep or laugh, was partly responsible for this tragedy, although she took all the blame on herself.

It was the first time she had gone out since the shots echoed at Coburg Palace, three months earlier. In all that time she had not left the fourth story at Number 10, deeply convinced as she was that wherever she went people would point their fingers at her, saying: “There goes the mother of the murderer!” She dreaded to see the postman come, for she feared that he would bring news of the horror Vienna felt for the mother of a murderer. When none of this happened and she was treated with nothing but sympathy, and when she even received letters of condolence from strangers (thanks to the efforts of Otto Eberhard's son Peter, the integrity of the Alt family was reinstated and everything put in the proper light), her fear of being seen in public began to dwindle. Nevertheless, she could not be induced to go out. It was only when Peter, who had had even more qualms about his own career, proved to her in black and white the wish of the Chancellor himself that she appear at the memorial celebration, and thereby finally and publicly seal the breach between her son and his country, that Henriette finally gave in.

Clad in black, she sat with Martha Monica and Franziska in the rear of the box, while Hans and the painter Drauffer occupied the side seats. Liesl, Fritz's wife, was in the artists' box; Fritz was playing in the orchestra, and Peter, together with his wife and Pauline Drauffer, had seats on the floor, while Otto sat in the box of the Christian Socialist Club. The grown-ups of Number 10 were present in force and prepared to parry the blow the reputation of their house had received. Only the widows of Otto Eberhard and Colonel Paskiewicz were absent. Frau Elsa was bedridden, and the Widow Paskiewicz no longer visited public places to take part even in such occasions. One other person connected with Number 10 who was absent, and who would surely not have missed this memorial had he not been in his grave for two years, under a stone recording proudly his tides, dignities, and achievements, was Professor Stein.

My son was the murderer
, thought Henriette, who had devoted so little thought to this son and who now, since the shots in the Coburg Palace, thought of no one else. The brusqueness and austerity of the
Libera
overwhelmed her with crushing power. “
Pater in coelis
!'' sang the chorus.
Dear God
, she thought, and caught her breath,
how much unhappiness lies at my door!
She abandoned herself to the tumult of her emotions, allowed them to carry her away like a stream which has burst its dams. The austere, agitating music hurled all the guilt of her life at her, magnified it a thousandfold, forced her to listen. She had been ‘afraid of conventions,' and she had lacked that pitiful mite of courage that was needed to make a man happy. Otherwise Rudolf would still be alive. Otherwise there would have been no war. Otherwise she would not have borne this son. Otherwise the widow of the murdered man, with her two white-faced children over there, and Hans in the background of this box, would not be gazing with such despairing eyes into the void.

The men who had so often reproached her had disappeared from the dark house on Seilerstätte. In this still darker house she reviled herself. And so frightful was her sense of guilt that she, in a gesture of complete helplessness, dropped her head, her shoulders racked with sobs that did not cease.

Someone laid a hand on her shoulder. It was her brother-in-law Drauffer, who once, long ago, had sat behind her in a box when she had lost control of herself.
Isn't it extraordinary, thought the old painter, this woman cannot grow old! She's as impulsive as she ever was! Number 10 hasn't been able to change her one jot. Nature just does not change.
“Hetti,” he whispered to her, “be reasonable!”

That was just what she thought she had finally become—reasonable. This was what counted: to make others happy. And in this she had failed.

While the chorus raised its voice in an upward surge she went over the destinies of those to whom she had failed to give happiness. Rudolf. Franz. Christine. Hermann. Her head sank deeper. Not be happy yourself—give happiness to others! That was the thing.

“Hetti!” admonished her brother-in-law, “do control yourself!”

In the former Imperial box, in the center, sat the members of the Government on either side of the new Chancellor, Dr. Schuschnigg. His narrow and prematurely gray head was also bowed, and the deep emotion with which he was listening was obvious. Again and again he had to wipe the tears under his glasses. Henriette's eyes fell on him, and on the widow of the murdered man, over and over again on that widowed woman staring hopelessly into the void. They did not control themselves either.

That's what comes of it when you do control yourself!
thought the widow of the piano-maker Alt.
That's what comes of systematic hiding, minimizing, denying, renouncing. What a mortal fallacy! One cannot be happy if one hides one's feelings. Nor can one make others happy.

The nearer the requiem, which despite its performance in an opera hall was more like a mass for the dead, approached its reconciling climax, the clearer became Henriette's vision. At her age she could no longer give happiness. But something else was still possible.

She closed her eyes, and her lips fervently framed words which had meaning only to her.

She laid her hand gently on that of her elder daughter Franziska, who had come up from Salzburg, for a few days' visit and rest after the misfortune of losing her first child, born dead. The wife of Dr. Baier shrank back. She thought she was being reproved. When she realized that her mother's gesture was one of tenderness it took her a moment to collect herself. Then she gave a shy, surprised smile that moved her mother even more deeply.
I am sixty-nine
, thought Henriette,
and it has taken all these years to open my eyes
! She wiped them with a tiny lace handkerchief, quickly powdered her face, and rose. The requiem for the man whom her younger son had murdered was at an end.

On the arm of her elder son she walked the short distance home to Annagasse.

“I have something to tell you,” Hans said on the way.

“You mean something unpleasant?” she asked, and then caught herself in confusion:
I have just sworn to change my ways and my first word is a reproach!

“No, nothing unpleasant,” Hans answered. “You know that Fritz is going to New York on business for the Salzburg Festival. I'm going with him.”

“Really?” Henriette said, catching her breath. “I had no idea.”

“He suggested it, and I think he's right. A change of air won't do me any harm. This place is too full of memories.”

“Yes,” his mother agreed.

“Don't you want me to go?” asked her son. Since he had followed Otto Eberhard's advice, kissed her hand and begged her forgiveness, a coolness—almost a sense of embarrassment—had lain between them. On Hans's side it was the unrealized wish to make her forget. On hers it was the uncertainty of how he felt towards her.