Anschluss - Austria - 1938 - Discoveries & Lessons in a Ghetto Town

Anschluss – Austria – 1938

Hi George,

I will send my German-born, friend and co-writer in our Memoir Group, Renate, a copy of this article for her comments. Having been born in Deutschland in 1933, I believe it was, she speaks with some authority. Her views of National Socialism are not pretty.

She was only six when the big WWII events started to erupt in her backyard. Some of her relatives were rude and crude Nazis (much later, she wrote about them). Early in that regime, her Mom and Dad spend about six months in Dachau as political malcontents. They were not maimed or even brutalized, apparently. An effort was made, however, to modify their very erroneous and dangerous thinking.

Her parents were incarcerated in that famous political prison (it was not an extermination camp, yet) because, like many other Germans at the time, their personal views about truth, justice and freedom did not please local Nazi authorities. Personal morality and Nazi truth often seemed to clash.

I’ll let you know what Renate says. She spends a few months of the year here and many months of the year with family members near Munich.

Take care,

Paul

P.S. If you believe Kurt von Schnuschnigg (see below), one might get the strong impression that Austria was cowed into embracing oncoming Germans troops.

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Anschluss – End of Austria

)Kurt von Schuschnigg, radio broadcast (11th March, 1938)

This day has placed us in a tragic and decisive situation. I have to give my Austrian fellow countrymen the details of the events of today.

The German Government today handed to President Miklas an ultimatum, with a time limit, ordering him to nominate as chancellor a person designated by the German Government and to appoint members of a cabinet on the orders of the German Government; otherwise German troops would invade Austria.

I declare before the world that the reports launched in Germany concerning disorders by the workers, the shedding of streams of blood, and the creation of a situation beyond the control of the Austrian Government are lies from A to Z. President Miklas has asked me to tell the people of Austria that we have yielded to force since we are not prepared even in this terrible situation to shed blood. We have decided to order the troops to offer no resistance.

So I take leave of the Austrian people with the German word of farewell uttered from the depth of my heart: God protect Austria.