Authors: Giles MacDonogh
The German ambassador to Vienna, Franz von Papen, was also to be assassinated. The Nazis would make it look like the work of the Fatherland Front, killing two birds with one stone. Hitler had been wanting to get rid of Papen for some time, for like Neurath, Papen opposed the Anschluss that would merge Austria with Germany. The former chancellor had only narrowly escaped death on the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. The Nazis were goading Schuschnigg to use his army against them; then they would have a pretext to march in.
Schuschnigg had already dissolved his own Praetorians: the Heimwehr had been the equivalent of the SA. Their leader had been Mussolini’s protégé, Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, “a man of winning appearance, very modest political gifts, immense ambition and little love of work.” Mussolini, however, who had protected Austria at the time of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss’s assassination in 1934 by moving his troops up to the Brenner, had decided that his bread was better buttered with Hitler and jilted Schuschnigg. He needed Hitler now that the British and the French were ganging up against him over the invasion of Abyssinia, and he wished to avoid the embarrassment of Hitler bringing up the 250,000 or so Germans who had been living under the Italian flag in South Tyrol since 1919 and who had been persecuted by his government for wishing to remain German. Besides, Schuschnigg himself had once told Mussolini that the majority of Austrians would be in favor of a German occupation and that if Italy sent troops, the Austrians would unite with the Germans to fight them. The Austrian chancellor was clearly on his own.
With the leadership of the army in order, Hitler turned his attention to Austria. Once he had amalgamated Austria into the Reich, Germany would be able to bring Hungary and Yugoslavia into economic subservience. He had been reluctant to reveal his plans, fearing that Italy would protest against a German merger with Austria, but the Duce’s opposition seemed to have abated. The meeting with Prime Minister Chamberlain’s envoy Lord Halifax assured Hitler that Britain would not stand in his way either. Halifax had intimated that the British government would be prepared to accept the reversion of Danzig and border alterations in Czechoslovakia, too, with time. The redoubtable anti-appeaser Sir Robert Vansittart had been removed as permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, and the foreign secretary Eden was also on his way out. He resigned in a huff on February 20 after a tiff caused by Chamberlain’s meddling in foreign affairs. His departure came as a relief to Hitler, especially as he was replaced on the 26th by the same Lord Halifax who had given him so much encouragement at Berchtesgaden.
Göring was egging Hitler on to invade Austria for economic reasons. Göring’s Four Year Plan was responsible for providing the funding and resources for German rearmament, and Germany was seriously short of steel. The commodity was so precious to the Nazis that Hitler was the sole arbiter as to who got what. On February 8, Göring complained to Hitler that the Four Year Plan would never be complete. He was looking around for a means of achieving autarky in the shortest possible time.
If Germany lacked steel, Austria would not make up the shortfall: Austria’s production was just 4 percent of the Reich’s, but the iron ore mines of the Erzberg had great potential. Perhaps an even greater incentive to conquest was the reserves in Austria’s national bank. With 782 million RM in foreign exchange, Austria possessed twice as much cash as Germany for shopping abroad and purchasing raw materials needed for war. On February 10 Göring met his economic advisors. The German balance of payments was bleak, and there was talk of cuts to high-priority projects. Göring’s gaze turned greedily toward the river Inn that separated Germany from Austria.
Papen had been encouraging Hitler to hold talks with his Austrian counterpart for some time. The Blomberg-Fritsch crisis had forced the Nazis to temporarily postpone the meeting, but following his dismissal Papen had visited Hitler on February 5, anxious to restore his status as Hitler’s personal representative in Austria. Hitler had put his recall from Vienna on hold, depending on his ability to bring him Kurt Schuschnigg in person. On Saturday, February 12, Papen took Schuschnigg to see Hitler in Berchtesgaden.
Schuschnigg was anxious: He told the mayor of Vienna, Richard Schmitz, that if anything were to happen to him, Schmitz was to assume the chancellorship. He gave orders that the border be closed if he failed to return by 9 PM. As they made their way up to the Berghof, Schuschnigg, Schmidt, and Papen passed a unit of treacherous Austrian Legionnaires, positioned to humiliate Schuschnigg. When they arrived in the Führer’s study, they found him in no mood for small talk. The Austrian chancellor tried extolling the beauty of the view from the Berghof, but Hitler brushed his comments aside.
Although the conversation was conducted behind closed doors, Hitler’s rants could be heard from the floor below: “I, an Austrian by birth, have been sent by Providence to create the Greater German State! And you stand in my way! I will crush you!” He, Hitler, was the better Austrian; he, Hitler, had no Slavic blood—an allusion to the Austrian chancellor’s Slovenian name. According to one report, Hitler threatened to invade Salzburg. He told Schuschnigg that no one would come to his defense.
He demanded that the distraught Austrian chancellor add to his cabinet the moderate Austrian Nazi lawyer—Schuschnigg’s former comrade in arms—Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Schuschnigg was also to amnesty all Nazi terrorists in Austrian jails and concentration camps. Austrians would be free to join the Nazi Party. Hitler also demanded the dismissal of the Austrian general staff chief, Lieutenant Field Marshal Alfred Jansa, who possessed a viable plan for protecting the country against German aggression. For his part Schuschnigg pleaded only that two of his bugbears be removed from Austria, Tavs and Leopold.
Schuschnigg then had to endure lunch, ending with an
Apfelstrudl—
no tribute to the visiting Austrian but prepared to please the vegetarian Führer’s irrepressible sweet tooth. During the meal Schuschnigg looked pale, while Hitler talked on general matters, avoiding politics. The Austrian was desperate for a cigarette, but Hitler delivered one of his monologues against smokers and smoking. He had to wait until the meal ended before he could light up, and then he was allowed only a single cigarette, negotiated for him by a compassionate but wholly unbriefed Ribbentrop, whose one contribution to the debate was to propose a currency and customs union between the two countries.
After lunch and throughout the afternoon, Hitler continued to dictate a settlement to him in a way that would become increasingly infamous. The settlement went much further than the demands made before lunch, calling for a partial removal of Austrian sovereignty. Schuschnigg was to hand over some of his independent foreign policy to Hitler, inasmuch as it touched on the matter of mutual German-Austrian interest; there was to be a lifting of all bans on National Socialist activity, which was declared “compatible with Austrian sovereignty”; Seyss-Inquart was to be named minister of the interior to ensure that National Socialism was allowed full liberty; Schuschnigg had to fire his press secretaries; Edmund Glaise-Horstenau was to be made minister of war, and there were to be regular exchanges between the two armies; finally, the Austrian economy was to be integrated into that of Germany and Dr. Hans Fischböck made minister of finance. This settlement was based on the so-called Keppler Protocol, named after Wilhelm Keppler, the Nazi “commissioner for Austria,” who was also present that day. It encapsulated the slow, “evolutionary” Anschluss favored by Hitler at the time.
Schuschnigg conferred with his foreign minister, then informed Hitler that such decisions had no value under the Austrian constitution: Nothing could be done without the agreement of the president. Hitler shouted “Get me Keitel.” According to one account, the general was buckling on his sword in the conservatory below, one of a trio of military men who had been brought in to physically intimidate Schuschnigg. When Keitel appeared, asking for orders, the Austrians feared they were about to be arrested. Hitler grinned and said, “There are no orders. I just wanted to have you here.” Hitler later told his circle that he had asked Keitel how many divisions Germany had at the Austrian border, and what sort of resistance they were likely to encounter from the Austrians. According to Hitler, Keitel replied, “Not worth mentioning, my Führer.”
Papen intervened on Schuschnigg’s behalf and managed to make Hitler agree to only a partial implementation of the Protocol by the 18th, as the rest would require the president’s consent. Hitler told Schuschnigg he had three days to put the agreement into effect and that it was to last five years: “That is a long time and in five years the world will look different, anyway.” Hitler ceased his hectoring while hinting at darker plans: “In tanks, planes and motorised vehicles we are the leading power today. It would be completely irresponsible and unjustifiable merely from a historical point of view not to use a magnificent instrument like the German Wehrmacht.”
Schuschnigg appeared prepared to cooperate. According to Papen, the inclusion of the Nazi wooden horse Seyss-Inquart in the cabinet was the only concession that he had not planned to make before arriving in Berchtesgaden. Other sources suggest that he had been negotiating with Seyss since Tavs’s arrest. The Austrians left at 11 PM after signing the Protocol. On the way back to Salzburg, Papen was the only one to speak: “Now you have some idea, Herr Bundeskanzler, how difficult it is to deal with such an unstable person.”
SCHUSCHNIGG RETURNED to Vienna at once. The next day he conferred with the president, Dr. Wilhelm Miklas, who reluctantly agreed to give in to the appointment of Seyss-Inquart as minister for security and the amnesty for the Nazis then languishing in custody. Despite reservations, and in the face of mounting pressure, the Austrian parliament approved the agreement. Austrian Nazis in uniform were free to roam the streets again.
Hitler’s policy was always to push for a little more. With that in mind, he turned up the heat. General Keitel summoned the Abwehr chief, Wilhelm Canaris, and ordered him to step up the campaign of sabotage until Tuesday the 15th. Canaris, who was still deeply involved in the dirty tricks in Austria and in whipping up the ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland, was provided with the detailed plans for “Operation Otto.” Hitler also made concessions and appointed Major Hubert Klausner as gauleiter to replace Leopold, who was perceived to have overstepped the mark. Despite reservations, the Austrian parliament approved the agreement.
The Italian foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, got wind of the talks. He had been pleased with the news of Ribbentrop’s appointment as foreign minister because “he has made clear his hostility to the English, who have treated him badly.” The Anschluss, on the other hand, he thought inevitable. In his opinion, “the only thing to do is delay it as long as possible.” Mussolini thought much the same; he was irritated that Hitler was snatching Austria away, but thought the merger a fait accompli.
Nazi bureaucrats had already carried out the preliminary spadework for the assimilation of Austria. In 1937, SS Department II-112 had drawn up lists of the most important Jews outside of the Reich, with the aim of building a huge personnel index on Austria. Jews were specially selected, as Adolf Eichmann made clear: “We looked at Jewish civil servants and freemasons in every ideological corner. We sat like schoolboys on benches and copied the information onto the cards; then they were arranged alphabetically, letter by letter, and anything that was not urgent was put to one side. With this card-index the first wave of the SD [Sicherheitsdienst—the SS’s own secret service] stormed into Austria.” Vital information had been supplied by Keppler, who also had close contact with the Freundeskreis Heinrich Himmler, the captains of industry who courted the leader of the SS. Keppler was also in touch with the Dresdner Bank, which was keen to mop up the Austrian Mercur Bank in the event of an Anschluss.
The cards for Austrian Jews were completed in June 1937, and in September of that year the head of the department, Herbert Hagen, and his expert on Zionism, Adolf Eichmann, undertook a trip to the Middle East. The two men had already hatched the idea of creating a central bureau for Jewish emigration to speed up the process of evicting the Jews.
The aim of their trip was to reach Palestine, where they wanted to send the Jews, but the British were reluctant to let them in. On October 2, 1937, Eichmann and Hagen docked in Haifa and were given authority to land for only twenty-four hours. They hired a horse-drawn carriage and drove around for the allotted time, even going to the top of Mount Carmel to admire the view. On October 3, they landed in Egypt and made for Cairo, where they spent twelve days. There they met Arab leaders and a couple of Nazi agents who had traveled down from Palestine to talk to them. When the two Germans tried to obtain visas for a better look at Palestine, however, the British authorities thwarted them. The district commissioner for Galilee—L. Y. Andrews—and a policeman had recently been killed by Arab terrorists, and the ensuing unrest proved a useful pretext to keep them out.
HITLER GAVE a speech to the Reichstag on February 20, but Victor Klemperer in Dresden already had a pretty good idea what Hitler was going to say. He noted in his diary “that he has been his own minister of war since February 4, that he has dismissed Blomberg and Fritsch and that he was halfway toward annexing German-Austria.” Hitler spoke for three hours that day, addressing the issues of the return of the colonies, the League of Nations, German-Polish friendship, Russo-German hatred, and the need to protect the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia. The overture to Poland was significant. He needed them on his side if he was to get away with the plans expressed in the Hossbach memorandum. The shambles in the armed forces was to be covered up by aggressive foreign policy: “The German Reich is no longer willing to tolerate the suppression of ten million Germans across its borders. . . . I am glad to say, however, that the Austrian Chancellor has shown insight and satisfactory agreement has been reached with Austria.”