From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (60 page)

Read From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism Online

Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

Tags: #History, #Jewish, #Europe, #Austria & Hungary, #Social Science, #Anthropology, #Cultural, #Discrimination & Race Relations, #test

 

Page 268
Quiet AntiSemitism
Superficially, then, the contrast between Hitler's Germany and the Austria of Dollfuss and Schuschnigg could hardly have been greater. In the Third Reich the government itself ostentatiously dismissed Jewish civil servants, journalists, and people in the fine arts; it sponsored the boycott of Jewish shops of 1 April 1933 and the burning of Jewish books six weeks later. In 1935 it codified a "racial" definition of Jews and increased their social segregation. In Austria, Jews were guaranteed equality of legal rights by the constitution, the government actively suppressed physical assaults on Jews, and the chancellors never indulged in Jew baiting. These differences were significant, but they do not tell the whole story.

The fact is that whereas the Austrian government was under pressure from a number of sources to protect the country's Jews, it was also under a great deal of popular pressure from Austrian antiSemites, and economic pressure from Nazi Germany after 1936, to do just the opposite. The government therefore chose a middle position, tolerating political and economic antiSemitism of middle-and lowerlevel officials while not promoting it at the highest levels. For example, the vice-mayor of Vienna, Josef Kresse, made several anti-Semitic speeches advocating that Jews be banned from trade unions and that their businesses be boycotted by Christians.

30
And while Dollfuss and Schuschnigg were assuring foreigners and Jews that they opposed antiSemitism and were in favor of equal rights for Jews, they often tolerated newspapers and organizations that specialized in hate mongering as long as they had no known connections with the illegal Austrian Nazi Party.

We have already noted in Chapter 11 how Christian Social and Catholic publications and organizations like the
Reichspost, Schönere Zukunft
, and the Christian Social Arbeiterverein actually stepped up their anti-Semitic tirades in 1933 in an effort to compete with the Nazis. Even
Sturm über Österreich
, the organ of Chancellor Schuschnigg's own paramilitary organization called the Ostmärkische Sturmscharen, talked about the need for a "better antiSemitism." However, it also said that the "Jewish danger" had to be met with justice, and it rejected the racial antiSemitism of the Nazi variety. It even went so far as to say that religious and national Jews should not be regarded as enemies. But it added that Austria had to "escape from the evil spirit of Jewish economics."
31
In addition to the antiSemitism of the Christian Social periodicals, there were several thinly disguised Nazi newspapers after the official party press had

 

Page 269

been banned along with the party itself in June 1933. Nazis purchased the inexpensive Viennese newspaper called
Depeschen
through "straw men" and for a time were able to operate the paper as an "independent daily" despite the close scrutiny of the police. Two other Viennese newspapers, the
Neue Zeitung
and the
Zwölf-UhrBlatt
, were secretly financed by a pro-Nazi German, Prince Philipp Josias von Coburg. Far better known and more successful, at least for a time, was the
Wiener Neueste Nachrichten
. Having fifty thousand readers, it too was subsidized from Germany. It praised economic developments in the Third Reich and printed numerous anti-Semitic articles while carefully avoiding direct attacks on the Austrian government, in order to escape censorship. Beginning in December 1934, the government allowed Walter Riehl, who, it will be recalled, was one of the first leaders of the Austrian Nazi Party, to resume publication of the
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
.

32

By far the most notorious of the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic newspapers between the outlawing of the Austrian Nazi Party in 1933 and the Nazi Putsch of July 1934 was
Der Stürmer
. In its contents, at least, it was the successor of
Der eiserne Besen
. Scarcely an article in
Der Stürmer
did not encourage hatred and contempt for Austrian Jews. It frequently published falsehoods about Jewsfor example, that the Talmud contained instructions that allowed Jews to cheat Christians and that Jews drank the blood of Christians at Easterthat had long since been disproved by scholars and judicial courts. Every week
Der Stürmer
carried an article about a Jewish criminal, but never about Christian criminals. And, of course, there were the usual articles about all the great thinkers of world history who had been antiSemites.
33
Anti-Semitic publications were not limited to newspapers in the Dollfuss Schuschnigg era. Oswald Menghin, a specialist in prehistory and archaeology at the University of Vienna, published a book in 1934 called
Geist und Blut
(
Spirit and Blood
) in which he argued that every race tried to avoid mixing with foreigners who threatened to change their character. Anton Orel, the Catholic youth leader, also published a book in 1934 entitled
Wahre Ständeordnung
(
True Corporative Order
), which by January 1935 had already gone through three editions. In explaining the collapse of capitalism, Orel described how Jews had destroyed the corporative order in the Christian Middle Ages in the process of building a new liberal-capitalist social and economic system.
34
When Jews complained about these anti-Semitic publications, Chancellor Schuschnigg disingenuously replied that Jews had their own press with which to answer these allegations. It is unclear whether the chancellor was referring to the strictly Jewish press that was read only by Jews, not by the general pub-

 

Page 270

lic, or to those newspapers that had Jewish editors, or both. The former, of course, had a very limited readership which certainly did not include antiSemites. The latter usually ignored Jewish questions. In any event, most of the anti-Semitic accusationsfor example, about the existence of a world Jewish conspiracy and a "Jewish spirit" influencing Austrian culturewere essentially outside the bounds of rational argument, being neither provable nor disprovable. Schuschnigg's response also ignored the government's own unwillingness to tolerate attacks against itself.

35

Apart from anti-Semitic propaganda, Jews suffered some concrete disabilities during the DollfussSchuschnigg regime. Soon after the Socialist uprising in February 1934, large numbers of Jewish physicians who had worked in municipal hospitals did not have their contracts renewed. Officially, these Jews lost their jobs because they belonged to the now illegal Social Democratic Party, not because they were Jews. However, fifty-six of fifty-eight physicians who were released were of Jewish origins, even though four-fifths of them had in no way been active in Social Democratic politics but had merely joined the party as a prerequisite for obtaining their jobs. Moreover, many non-Jewish physicians who had been members of the party were allowed to keep their jobs. No Jewish physiciansdefined raciallywere hired at federal hospitals after the dissolution of Parliament or at any public health-care center in Vienna after February 1934. The government's plan was to have a freeze on Jewish appointments until the number of Jewish physicians at such institutions fell below 20 percent. It need hardly be added that Jews continued to be almost completely excluded from other federal, provincial, and municipal positions. The city of Vienna employed only 154 Jews out of their 22,600 municipal employees in 1937.
36
Jews were also gradually eased out of various aspects of Austria's cultural life after 1934. They had no influence in the Ministry of Education, and the various art associations had long been "Aryan." By 1935 no publishing houses were open to Jewish authors. At the state theaters only Jewish actors with international reputations were able to perform, although at private theaters there remained both Jewish actors and directors. There were still many Jewish journalists in Vienna after 1934, but they dealt mainly with nonpolitical subjects like sports and art critiques. Even the great
Neue Freie Presse
, which had been founded by a Jew in 1864, had become judenrein by 1937. Austrian films were produced without Jews so that they could be shown in Nazi Germany. Austrian sports teams that competed with German teams could have no Jewish athletes.
37

 

Page 271

Jewish lawyers were somewhat more successful than other professionals in maintaining their positions because, unlike physicians, they were not affiliated with any government institutions or insurance programs. However, when the government dissolved the bar association at the end of 1935, all but two of the twelve Jewish members of the executive committee of the bar, including the president, were not reappointed to a new association created by the Justice Ministry. The long-range plan of the Schuschnigg government, according to the American ambassador in Germany, was to reduce the number of Jews in the legal profession, medicine, and banking to their percentage of the total Austrian population.

38

The role of Jews in the commercial life of Austria was left mostly unimpeded. Even here, however, there were instances of large export houses discharging their Jewish employees, especially those doing business with Nazi Germany. After 1 December 1934, syndicates that previously had only an advisory capacity could now decide whether a new business could be started. Not a single Jew was appointed to the section of the Economic Council dealing with trade, credit, and insurance.
39
If it is admitted that, despite these measures, Jewish commercial life was not too seriously disturbed during the DollfussSchuschnigg years, it should be remembered that at least larger Jewish enterprises were also able to operate in Nazi Germany prior to 1938.
The same kind of quiet, creeping antiSemitism existed in the government's own Fatherland Front (Vaterländische Front), an all-encompassing political organization created by Dollfuss shortly before his death to replace the defunct political parties. Although antiSemitism was not in the statutes of the Fatherland Front, and although it resembled the Roman Catholic church and the now dissolved Christian Social Party in rejecting racial antiSemitism, it in fact practiced religious and cultural antiSemitism, albeit to a lesser degree than the Nazis. As in the government and the Heimwehr, it was usually lowerlevel officials rather than the leaders who openly espoused antiSemitism. They still associated Jews with liberalism, individualism, and Socialism.
40
The antiSemitism of the Fatherland Front manifested itself in a variety of ways. Although Jews were allowed to join the organization, they could not rise within its hierarchy. Along with the illegal Nazis, it encouraged the idea after the Socialist uprising in February 1934 that the workers had been misled by their Jewish leaders. In December 1934 Prince Starhemberg, the leader of the Fatherland Front at the time, disbanded its motor corps because it was 80 percent Jewish. The general secretary, Guido Zernatto, thought that Jews ought to be gradually excluded from public positions and the cultural life of

 

Page 272

Austria. Perhaps for this reason no Jews were appointed to a special committee of physicians within the Fatherland Front. The Trade Association and the 400,000-member Trade Union, both associated with the Fatherland Front, barred Jews from membership and openly agitated in favor of a boycott of Jewish businesses in 1937. Finally, a separate organization for Jewish children was created in January 1938 within the Jungvolk (Young People), which was part of the Fatherland Front. Orthodox and Zionist Jews, however, applauded this move as a step toward Jewish autonomy.

41

Barriers to the teaching profession, always difficult to overcome even in the monarchy and during the democratic era before 1933, became virtually impossible to penetrate during the years of the corporative state. There were about 180 Jews among Vienna's 5,ooo school teachers. Of the Jewish teachers who were dismissed after 1934, only one-fifth had belonged to the outlawed Social Democratic Party.
42
An educational issue that aroused a much stronger reaction from Jews was a regulation issued by the Ministry of Education in September 1934 establishing "parallel" (that is to say, segregated) classes for all non-Catholic studentsJews and children without religious affiliation. To be sure,
Jüdische Presse
welcomed the policy as a partial fulfillment of its goal of having religious schools, although it preferred religious Jews being separated from nonreligious ones.
Die Wahrheit
, however, vehemently objected that the new classes would enlarge the already deep gulf between Christians and Jews. Even
Die Stimme
was not pleased with the new ruling because it did not provide for Jewish teachers or a Jewish curriculum. On 26 September the Kultusgemeinde adopted a resolution formally protesting against the action of the Austrian government. The Schuschnigg government responded to these objections by saying that it was simply trying to make religious instruction easier, in accord with Jewish desires. Actually, the ruling was implemented only where there were too many pupils for a single classroom (in just eleven middle-school classes by the end of 1937), in part because of the opposition of most Viennese Jews, but more likely because of potential opposition from abroad.
43
Austrian antiSemitism also manifested itself in relatively trivial and yet significant ways. In January 1937 an Austrian court adopted the Third Reich's racial principles by granting a divorce because of the "racial incompatibility" of the partners, one a Protestant and the other a Jew. In March of the same year two Jewish musicians from the Manhattan String Quartet Anglicized their names on the program of a concert at the insistence of the management of the Konzerthaus; the concert itself was an artistic success. Then in April, after considerable agitation by antiSemites, the bust and memorial tablet of the

Other books

Things I Did for Money by Meg Mundell
Claddagh and Chaos by Cayce Poponea
Two Loves by Sian James
Six Killer Bodies by Stephanie Bond
Confess: A Novel by Colleen Hoover
Falling From Grace by Alexx Andria
The Summer of Me & You by Hachton, Rae
Making the Play by T. J. Kline
Dream New Dreams by Jai Pausch