William Tyler
Towards Anschluss
William Tyler - Towards Anschluss
- Thanks and hello to everyone who’s tuned in. I’m talking today about Austria between the wars and you can’t help thinking because it’s so linked with the question of Germany between the wars, you can’t help but think how terrifyingly a parallel that is to the events unfolding in the Ukraine as we meet. And I just thought, “Please God, we are not forced to live our parents and grandparents past all over again.” It’s sickening to think that Europe is back a hundred years, 80 years. I’m sure some of you will want to draw parallels at the end when I’ve finished. Before I start, there’s one caveat, there is a lot of Jewish history in Austria between the wars, but I am not talking about that today because that is going to be covered in a quite separate lecture by Trudy. It’s one of the subjects in which she is particularly interested and particularly knowledgeable, and I have no intention of saying anything, which he will then say, “Well, William is totally wrong.” So we’re not going to do that. We’ve agreed that what I’m going to do is to try and give you an overall chronological picture of what is happening in Austria, and to draw certain things out of it in terms of fascism. Trudy will deal separately with the whole Jewish issue, but many of you know the history anyhow. And you know when I’m going to be talking about Red Vienna, you know that there is Red Vienna was dominated is probably the wrong word to use, but Red Vienna was decidedly red and very Viennese because of the Austrian Jews who lived there. And all of that, as I say, Trudy will cover in a quite separate lecture. So my talk is for the years 1918 to 1938, from the end of the first World War to the declaration of Anschluss by Hitler’s invasion of Austria, German-Austrian Union.
20 years. 20 years of a new small Alpine Republic, Austria, but a small republic retaining an imperial capital, which was marooned by time Vienna. And the politics of Austria outside of Vienna, and the politics of Austria within Vienna were very different. Steve Beller, in his standard history of Austria labels this period 1918 to 1938, “The Land Without Qualities.” And I’m going to read you a paragraph from Beller explaining where that title “The Land Without Qualities” comes from. It’s this. “In 1930,” Beller writes, “Robert Musil published the first volume of the "Man Without Qualities.” The setting of this novel was Vienna in 1913. Its hero, Ulrich, is a man without qualities, all characteristics because he refuses to be diecast by dysfunctional Habsburg society. Instead, he’s determined to be his own man and it can be seen as typically Viennese that this turns into an investigation of his sexual and psychological identity.“ Think Freud. ”‘The Man without Qualities’ is not simply a historical novel about pre-war Vienna, it is also a discussion of Austria and Germany during the period in which it was written the interwar years, our years, 1918, 1938. It is not only about ‘A Man Without Qualities’ but also about ‘The Land Without Qualities,’ a country in a severe identity crisis as well as a spiritual, economic and political crisis that never recovered from the trauma of having had its imperial character stripped from it in 1918.“ So let’s explore a little more that paragraph. Austria suffered from a severe identity crisis in those 20 years because Austria was no new country who had gained its identity through a war of independence, but rather it was a new country that never had popular support when it was formed, it was, you might say, an accident of history.
Austria is an accident of history. It is the unforeseen consequence of the fall of the Austria-Hungarian Empire at the close of the first World War in 1918. We noted last week that when the Republic was proclaimed in 1918 in Vienna, the Austrians called it the Republic of German-Austria, a hyphenated word, the Republic of German-Austria, until the allies, France and Britain and America, insisted that the adjective German be dropped from the title of the Republic. And so for the bulk of the period 1918 to 1938, it is known as the Republic of Austria, but the fact that they called it the Republic of German-Austria to begin with is more than significant. I’m going to begin the story on a specific date on the 12th of October, 1918, when Emperor Charles, the last Habsburg ruler met with the political leaders of German-Austria, finding out whether really, basically whether there was a chance for a monarchy, what he discovered was that the major political parties were in total disagreement about what sort of country Austria should be. Now it to this point we’ve got to add in that when we talk about Austria. To begin with, we’re talking about it in the Austria-Hungarian sense, that is this vast empire was divided into two, the Hungarian half and the Austrian half. And the Austrian half was of course much larger than the country that became Austria. And so that is why there is such confusion over the beginning of this Republic of Austria. On the 21st of October, 1918, the whole thing is about to collapse. The parliament of the Austrian half of the Austrian empire, Austria-Hungarian Empire, met in Vienna, but they only were the German deputies met the Czech, the Slovaks, the South Tyrolese and so on did not meet.
It was only German-Austrians. Whether they lived in what became Austria or whether they lived in somewhere like the Sudetenland, they met and they established what they called a provisional national assembly for German-Austria. They wanted all ethnic Germans to be represented wherever they lived. Now, a moment’s thought tells you this is not going to be possible. Why not? Well, the Czechs and the Slovaks had already walked away and had proclaim Czechoslovakia in Prague. And of course, in the Czechoslovak lands were ethnic Germans living. So the idea that you could create a state in some way or other, a federal state or whatever based on the ethnicity of being German, was no longer possible after the Austria-Hungarian empire collapsed. And if you want the seal was put on that, but by the Declaration of Independence by Czechoslovakia. So the Austrians had to think what they were doing. They had created this Republic of German-Austria. On the 11th, November, 1918, Charles gave up with Austria, washed his hands a bit all together. He saw his future, but of course it was not to be perhaps as king of Hungary, and he simply left the Austrians alone. On the 12th of November, the following day, 1918, and that provisional assembly which had proclaimed the Republic of German-Austria in Vienna now declared it completely, officially. They said "Habsburg has walked away. He didn’t remember abdicate, but he’s left us. There’s a void. We now declare ourselves the republic of German-Austria.”
Now, the important thing is they drafted a provisional constitution. And in that provisional constitution read “German-Austria is an integral part of the German Republic.” That is to say Germany itself. And they proclaim that only one day after the Armistice on the western front on the 11th November, 1918, this is the 12th November. And that’s what stuck in the throats of the French, the British and the Americans. They could not tolerate the idea of a union between Germany and Austria. And that’s why later they insist on the dropping of the word Germany from the title of the new Republic of Austria. They were well aware of problems in Vienna. And the biggest political problem they faced was the possibility of a Marxist coup d'etat which of course happened in Budapest with Béla Kun and was happening in Munich in 1918-1919. And so they decided those who were democratic parties to have a coalition government in an attempt to prevent a Marxist government being established. Karl Renner became councillor and Victor Adler became foreign minister. And they interestingly began a policy of what I think in British terms we would call liberal reforms. They hoped that by having liberal reforms, they would stymie any chance that the Marxists had of appealing to the Austrian population. They co-opted soldier and worker councils and used them in the industrial field. Now you remember from Russia in 1917 that soldier councils and worker councils preceded the establishment of the Bolshevik state of the USSR. They were very sophisticated in the way that the Democratic Russians were not sophisticated. In 1917, the Austrians were sophisticated and sophisticated enough to see off Marxism. And that’s an important moment in European history because they could easily have fallen Marxist. Lenin believed that Germany, Austria, Hungary and others would fall to international communism, but it was not to be.
And in Austria it was not to be because of the liberal politicians. The leader of the social Democrats, Otto Bauer, wrote this, and it’s a really very important couple of sentences. “German-Austria is not an organism which is followed the laws of historical growth. It is nothing but the remnant of what remained of the old empire after other nations have broken away from it. It remained as a loose bundle of divergent lands.” What I said, Austria had never really existed. It had existed as part of the holy Roman empire, it had existed as part of the Austrian Empire, and as part of the Austria-Hungarian empire, and the capital of those empires were under the Habsburg in Vienna. But Austria as a concept, did not register as it were. On the 13th of November, 1918, two days after the German Armistice, one day after the proclamation of German-Austria, the German-Austrian government, Karl Renner the chancellor, and Victor Adler the foreign minister, wrote to President Wilson, sent him a telegram. Wilson is the power, not Lloyd George or Clemenceau, it’s Wilson. And they asked it for his support for a union between Austria and Germany. They argued that Austria had never been a nation on its own and there was no such thing as Austria. They were German and they wanted to be part of German. In other words, exactly as they had been under the holy Roman empire. That of course was unacceptable to Wilson and to his allies. When we move into 1919, then on the 2nd of June, 1919, in the draught Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain, part of the settlement at first side, Austria was told bluntly, “You have to change your name, you cannot be German-Austria, you must simply be the Republic of Germany.” They submitted a formal note of complaint to the allies in Versailles, but of course it had no effect at all. So what was this Republic of Austria?
Well, it was less Czech lands, it was less the Slovakia in Lands, Czechoslovak, it was less South Tyrol, Istria, and the Port of Trieste which went to Italy, and various parts further east down the Dalmatian Coast which went to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes later Yugoslavia. So it lost a lot of what had been Austrian half of the Austria-Hungarian empire. It was reduced to this core of Austria with this imperial capital Vienna without an empire, it was a strange concoction. And there were Germans living outside of this area, most notably in the Sudetenland. And it doesn’t need me to tell you that unresolved problem from a German and Austrian point of view is to blow up in 1938. Article 88 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain said this, “The independence of Austria is inalienable otherwise than with the consent of the council of the League of Nations. Consequently, Austria undertakes in the absence of the consent of the League of Nations to abstain from any act which might directly or indirectly or by any means whatsoever compromise her independence particularly and until her admission to membership of the League of Nations by participation in the affairs of another country.” Bluntly, you cannot join Germany, you may not join Germany. So the Austrians had to live with that. So I’ve explained that they lost a lot of territory. Strangely enough, they gained some territory, which the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary had never had. It was in the Hungarian part. They gained part of Western Hungary where the German population was in a majority. And they asked the allies, “Can we join Austria?” And were told they could. Now, some of you will have read my blog, I hope, about the Ukraine, and some of you may have read the stuff in newspapers and so on, and you know that Putin’s argument that Ukraine was always Russian was nonsense, and that some of it was part of the Austria-Hungarian empire, some of it was part of Poland.
The story is complex one. So is it here with the remaking of Europe? So is it here? And the remaking caused trouble with the Sudetenland and it’s going to cause other trouble. Although they were forced to give up the idea of the Republic of German-Austria and the idea of union with Germany, the Republic of Austria in the interwar years kept at its national anthem during the 1920s. A national anthem whose opening line was “German-Austria, you wonderful country.” So this is the big problem. This is the big problem of Austria. Those who are but not every Austrian-German wanted to be part of Germany. Not everyone, why not? Because Austria is Catholic, it was deeply Catholic in those interwar years, and Germany was dominated by Protestant Prussia. We’re back to the 17th century, in the 30 years war, the division between Protestant and Catholic Germany, they didn’t like the Germans because of their Protestantism and because of their own very deep-rooted Catholicism. There were those who weren’t bothered about religion, but instead saw union with Germany as an ethnic nationalist question. So there isn’t a general view in Austria of whether they should be independent or whether they should be part of Germany. And that argument is an argument politically, which goes all the way through to 1938 when it’s resolved for them in that sense by the arrival of Nazi troops in Vienna. There is one positive in the interwar years, as only as 1921, the Austrian signed a Treaty with Czechoslovakia agreeing the border between Czechoslovakia and Austria. In other words, they agreed not to interfere in internal Czechoslovak affairs on behalf of the German population, think the Sudetenland and elsewhere, the German population of Czechoslovakia. And so you can take that as a plus, but on the other hand, you can also take it as an unresolved question. Throughout the 1920s, there were really questions across Europe, whether Austria could ever survive. It didn’t make sense.
Today, many Europeans think Belgium can’t survive, it’s a very odd country as Belgium, but then so is Austria in the ‘20s. We all take Austria for granted in the 21st century, or if we don’t, younger people than us do. Austria is Austria, and I’m going to talk about that at a later meeting when we discuss how Austria managed to turn itself from being a fascist state into a sound of music state. It’s extraordinary. They have their PR worked magnificently after 1945. But in the 1920s, there were lots of people who thought Austria should not exist and wouldn’t exist. It had never been a real nation, not like Hungary, which of course had been a real nation. But Austria did exist. It had two houses of parliament, an upper house, which was formed by representatives from the various federal lander in Austria, and a lower house which was elected by universal suffrage and women for the first time were able to cast their vote. The president of Austria was elected for a four-year term and he was elected by a full session of both the upper and lower houses. The chancellor, that is to say the equivalent of prime minister, the chancellor was elected by the lower house rather like the prime minister in Britain today is the leader of the major party in the lower House of Commons or the man or woman who can create a coalition in the lower house. That is how it worked. The president was elected by both houses. This is a country which does not look like America or Britain or Canada, but looks… Thinking about the people who might be listening to me, right? But more like Israel, in the sense that it did not have a government of one party. It existed with coalitions. Coalitions can be good, coalitions can be bad. What happened in Austria after 1920 was that the initial party that took control, which had been liberal in order to deal with the threat of Marxism, was replaced by right-wing parties. I’m not pleased, I’m not talking at this stage about fascist parties.
I’m talking about a Christian social party and the greater German peoples party. They were more conservative than the social Democrat party of Karl Renner between 1918, 1919 and 1920, but they are not fascist. However, there is a problem because Vienna, this strange, strange aberration in Austria, this imperial city, this cultured city did not itself run with those right-wing Democratic parties, instead, it ran with Socialist parties. And thus, Vienna was not only a sore thumb in the sense of an imperial capital, but it was a sore thumb in terms of its politics. Because its politics were on the left, it gained the name of Red Vienna and it led to cachets. Now, one of the problems in Austria was the political parties, think Nazi Germany, but we’re talking here about… Or even think back to Germany in 1918, the political parties had paramilitary wings. Now, if we’re British, we know about that with the IRA, with Sinn Féin and the IRA. We know about political parties with paramilitary wings. Well, this is what Austria had in the 1920s. Eventually, this problem paramilitaries, and the fact that Vienna was socialist in a way that the rest of the country wasn’t, led in July, 1927, that’s nearly a decade after the end of the first World War, so what’s called the July Revolt. The July Revolt took place in Vienna. Let me read you a piece from Steven Beller’s book if I may, and he writes this “Red Vienna, for all its heroic self image was a socialist island in a sea that was bourgeois or worse. The new jurisdictional bodies of the federal province could not keep the storms of National Austrian politics out of the Viennese socialist idle. Well, that’s the revolt of July, 1927 when murder death came to the streets of Vienna. The clash between the social democratic party in control of Vienna and their paramilitaries and right-wing alliance of paramilitaries representing wealthy indust and the Catholic church.
The Catholic church is linked definitely to the right. It is not linked as you might expect, think South America to the social justice of the left. No, the Catholic church was linked to the right, not to the left. And that’s important. It’s important because it means that the right is Catholic and therefore not keen on Germany Protestant. What caused this trouble in July, 1927 was the death of a World War I hero and an eight-year-old boy killed by right-wing paramilitaries out in the countryside beyond Vienna. They were brought to Vienna, the people that had killed them were both paramilitaries, were brought to Vienna to face trial. There’s no doubt of their guilt, but they were found innocent. This led the Viennese, remember the Viennese court in Vienna, the Austrian court in Vienna isn’t a Viennese court, this is an Austrian. And the Viennese rioted, massive protests began on the 15th of July. The crowd stormed, for example, the university on the on the Ringstrasse, they attacked a police station, they attacked the parliament building, Austrian parliament building. And they also attacked the Palace of Justice, they broke in, they smashed windows, got in, started burning papers and burning the place to the ground. The fire brigade was called, and they began to cut the hoses of a fire brigade. The authorities acted strongly. Police opened fire on the demonstrators, and 89 protestors were killed along with five policemen. It was over in an hours, but it had a significance. And the significant was noted by a 24-year-old Austrian, a young man who was going to become world famous as a great philosopher of the 20th century, Karl Popper.
And Popper in his 1976 autobiography wrote this, it’s only a sentence, but it’s really important. Popper wrote, "I began to expect the worst that the democratic bastions of Central Europe would fall and that a totalitarian Germany would start another war.” 1924. Sorry, 1927. 1927, 6 years before Hitler and the Nazis came to part in Germany. Popper says, “I began to expect the worst that the democratic bastions of Central Europe would fall.” By which he means Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and that a totalitarian Germany would start another war and Popper was of course right. Let me talk about Vienna though. Let’s, we’ll come back to the politics part. Vienna, I said called Red Vienna. It continue the life of pre-war Vienna, the cultural life, the pre-1914 life. I think I said on an earlier talk, if I could go to Vienna, I think I would choose sort of 1913 and just dance the night away, and oh, how wonderful. But there’s a difference. There’s a difference. Now, the social democrats in control in Vienna wish that culture to be made more widely available. Now, this is not something out of the blue because under the Austria-Hungarian empire, the Austria-Hungarians had a better, for example, adult education service than anywhere else in Europe, far better. So they had already a belief in education and culture, and the authorities in Vienna put money into education and into culture. And they made it possible for ordinary people to go to theatrical events, to art exhibitions, to music concerts because they could afford to go. This was a group of people who previously had been unable to attend such events. I mean, I think it’s extraordinary. They founded in 1919, the social-democratic art place. This is art and culture in a very 21st century way where towns and cities today seek across Europe to make culture and art and music available to all.
But this was a really unusual thing for the Europe of the 1920s. The composer Anton Webern became in 1922, for example, the director of the Workers Symphonic concerts. Wow. They produced a magazine from 1926 called “Art and People.” Arnold Schoenberg wrote, perhaps people argue the greatest of his music between '21 and '24 in Vienna. Jazz opera. And people like Robert Saltz, a whole range of popular melodies all across the board. This was an extraordinary blossoming of culture in a defeated country which had lost its empire. And yet, and yet Vienna was as wonderful as it had been in 1913. But the Red Vienna government of the social Democrats, I said, put money into education, and one of their big things was into housing. They built large blocks of plants. They provided them with running water, with indoor toilets, with natural daylight, and they surrounded them with green areas. This is part of a wider intellectual movement about garden cities, if you like, which in Britain we associate with Ebenezer Howard here in Vienna. They were motivated by ensuring that everyone had a decent place in which to live and bring up their children, and that every child had a real opportunity in education, and all families had access to the cultural life of the city. How did they pay for it? Well, through local taxation. The wealthy in Vienna paid in order to support all these developments. But of course, towards the end of the '20s and into the '30s that couldn’t be sustained.
The economic pressure in Vienna became greater. One of the country’s largest banks was to pale, unemployment was to rise. And looking back with hindsight, this glorious period in Viennese history perhaps was unsustainable at the time. Do you ever feel you want to write an essay about something? Write an essay on that. This is Beller again with a short quotation here. “Red Vienna led by its Mayor Karl Seitz hence became a showcase for the policy prescriptions of interwar socialism. Julius Tangwe instituted a very progressive system of public hygiene and healthcare. Otto Glockel, after having to give up his plans for federal educational reform, continued his campaign for a more open egalitarian school system in Vienna. The socialist leadership influenced by Austria Marxist intellectuals such as Max Adler and Jewish of course, and by the progressive heritage of German and especially Jewish liberalism, and that will be talked about by Trudy at the later talk. Also put a great deal of effort into workers’ educational programmes. Activists such as Josef Luitpold Stern and David Joseph Buck attempted to create a new humanist proletarian counterculture, a new socialist man to match the new socialist world being developed in Vienna.” Not a Marxist Vienna, a Democratic Vienna, but using some of the ideas of Marxism within that socialist city. All of that I think is really, really important to remember. It reminds us that Austria was divided. It was divided between the imperial capital Vienna on the left and the rest of the country, very rural, on the right. An intellectual, many Jewish intellectuals, even if they were only ethnically Jewish and were not Jewish by faith. And outside of that, this Catholic-conservative Austria, Vienna didn’t belong in Austria at all.
It was marooned, was the word I used at the beginning of my talk, it was marooned in this nasty little, vice nasty little right-wing conservative. And I’m not talking about politics in our liberal democracies are right, left. I’m talking here about a move toward a fascist state. This political climate, I’ve written on my notes here, this febrile climate politically could perhaps not continue for long. It had continued through the ‘20s, but the '30s are going to be a different story. Alec Madden write in an article called “The Road to the Alpine Dictatorship” are following. He writes this, he’s an American historian. “The year is 1933. There is commotion in the capitol city of one of Central Europe’s once great empires which was defeated in the Great War. The leader of a far-right party reigning as a democratically-elected prime minister, proclaims that the national parliament is to permanently adjourned and that he shall rule as the sole leader of the country. This leader promises that his rule will be an end to the chaotic infighting and governmental deadlock caused by out of control political stripe. The leader will soon begin to implement fascist policies, repainting the country in a totalitarian image. To enable his autocracy, he will first abolish all opposition parties before then executing a bloody purge of his political rivals leading his nation down a road of ruin, tragedy and world war.” The capital he talks about is Vienna, the country is Austria, and the Austrofascist is Engelbert Dollfuss. Now Dollfuss took office as chancellor, and our words in Britain would be Prime Minister, on the 20th of May, 1932.
In other words, a year before Hitler took in Germany. It was in March of the following year in 1933 that he created a fascist state. In May, 1933, he created his own party, the Fatherland Front, which was heavily Catholic as well as heavily fascist. It was heavily Catholic as well as heavily fascist. But a very important point to note, this is not an embryonic Austrian-Nazi party. There is a separate Austrian-Nazi party to which Dollfuss’s front, his Fatherland Front is opposed. Why? Because the Nazi party of Austria is not Catholic, which of course Dollfuss’s Fatherland Front is. And they did not want, that is to say, Dollfuss and the Fatherland Front wanted an independent Austria. The Austrian-Nazi party wanted Anschluss union with Germany. So there are two… For those of you who know everything about this period, forgive me for being simplistic, but some people perhaps do not and may be confused at what I’m saying. So I’ll put it like this. There were in the 1930s, two fascist parties in Austria. Forget about the right-wing Democratic parties in 1920s, forget about them. We’re talking now about two fascist parties. One led by Dollfuss, the Fatherland Front, and one the Austria-Nazi party. Dollfuss and the Fatherland Front wanted an independent fascist Austria. The Nazi-Austrian party wanted union with Nazi Germany. And that’s an important distinction to make, which I’ve found in the past people are confused about. The democracy, whether of the right in the country as a whole or the left in Vienna of the 1920s is now overcome in the 1930s by two fascist parties. The Nazi party, we can forget about for the moment, for the rest of my talk today because it’s Dollfuss’s Fatherland Front that’s important. In 1934, there was a civil war in Austria.
The civil war, known as sometimes by the Germans as a February Uprising, was skirmishes between fascists forces and socialist forces between the Fatherland Front Dollfuss and the socialist forces of Vienna. At the end of it, Dollfuss forces won, these are the paramilitaries, and they close down the multi-party system, and he declares himself the autocratic ruler, as we said a moment or so ago of the Republic of Austria. Democratic Austria dissolves in 1934. The Constitution was based upon Mussolini fascist constitution in Italy. Employee relations were completely now taken by Dollfuss’s government. He also cracked down on Nazis who were arguing for unification with Germany. The Nazis responded by assassinating him on the 25th of July, 1934. 10 Austrian-Nazis assassinated him. They were subsequently convicted and hanged, but Austrian fascism continued led by the previous Minister of Education, Kurt Schuschnigg, S-C-H-U-S-C-H-N-I-G-G. He’s just offers with another name. It goes on from 1934 to '38 which Šušnik. This is a fascist party which wants an independent Austria is leaning heavily on conservative, you might even say fascist Vatican for support and wants nothing to do with the Nazi party who had assassinated Dollfuss. They have the support of Mussolini. This is before Mussolini, as it were, shake hands with Hitler.
Hitler is rather thrown by these events in Austria, Dollfuss was a popular autocrat. Half a million people turned up for his funeral in Vienna and the population of Austria was only six and a half million. Is any of this important? Yes it is. It’s very important. Why? Because it’s important in the Europe and the world politics of 2022. In December 2021, a new chancellor took office, Karl Nehammer, and Karl Nehammer is a liberal conservative, is how he’s normally described. And he became chancellor and he appointed as one of the cabinet members, a politician who became minister of the interior. A man called Gerhard Karner. And Karner happened to represent as member of Parliament the town in which Dollfuss was born. And that town had a museum dedicated to the memory of Dollfuss. This is in 2021 and 2022. Now, it had never sort of hit the news until their MP became Minister of the Interior and then it hit the fan. And the government in December last year had to say how they regarded Dollfuss. Now I’ve told you that Dollfuss was a fascist. That’s what they believe. The term used is Austrofascist. Now hang on a minute, just think. If you’ve done anything about this period, you know that Mussolini is a fascist, but Hitler is a Nazi. If any of you had to do this at an advanced level at school or at university, you know you had to make a distinction between fascism and Nazism.
One very cruel difference is that Nazism had no economic policy at all except the economics of war. Whereas Mussolini’s history had proper economic policies. There are lots and lots of differences. The Austrian under Dollfuss and Schuschnigg were not Nazis, they were fascists. And so the term in Austria was Austrofascists. And when all this hit the fan last December, people began to question, “Should we have museum dedicated to this Austrofascist Dollfuss?” And Nehammer, the chancellor had to appear on television and distance himself as indeed did the Minister of the Interior. But it wasn’t a very easy job. Oh, I love politicians, don’t you? When they choose words. They wouldn’t use the phrase Austrofascism, they called it instead, the chancellor dictatorship of Dollfuss. Chancellor dictatorship sounds almost acceptable. Whereas a phrase with the word fascism doesn’t, but they’re changing history. And why are they changing history? Because that is strong neofascist elements in the Austria of the 21st century. When the chancellor made a appearance late in December on Austrian television, he said, “Austrofascism,” he now has to accept that phrase, “Austrofascism and Austromarxism merely appear as two sides of the same coin, emanations of a violent and divided society.” So he accepted after two or three weeks that the purpose of this museum was not good. Elevating Dollfuss to be some sort of wonderful man and leader of Austria. The museum is still there. As I understand it, the displays have changed inside the museum. Like many museums are changing their displays today in all countries of the world. They’ve changed the display about Dollfuss. However, there is a large stone tablet outside of the museum which clearly states, I read, “Dedicated to the great chancellor and renewer of Austria.” To the great chancellor and renewer of Austria. Austrian still have problems coming to terms of Dollfuss.
And really difficult to come to terms with Austrofascism. Schuschnigg who is the chancellor or prime minister from '34 through to '38 in our story today said Austrians are Germans, and Austria is a German state. But he said he opposed Anschluss and wish passionately for Austria to remain independent of Germany. But there was increasing pressure coming from Berlin in the second half of the 1930s for Anschluss. And once Mussolini did a deal with Hitler, and thus abandoned Austrofascism of Schuschnigg, Austria is doomed in the sense of being an independent country. Anschluss is coming. We are now very near in time and events to the one event unification in Nazi Germany, the Anschluss which I’m going to turn in my next talk. But before I do, I’ve got about three minutes to share with you a broadcast on the 11th radio broadcast, obviously, on the 11th of March, 1938, made by Schuschnigg as chancellor of Austria. And this is what he said on the 11th of March 38th. “This day has placed us in a tragic and decisive situation. I have to give my Austrian fellow countryman 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 his chancellor,” in other words, to replace Schuschnigg, “to nominate his chancellor, a person designated by the German government in Berlin, and to appoint members of a cabinet on the orders of the German government.” I said at the very beginning, the parallels with Russia and the Ukraine are frightening because that may be Putin’s end game to establish a puppet regime in Kyiv and Hitler is blunt about this, a puppet regime in Austria.
The German government today handed a President Miklas an alternator with a time limit ordering him to nominated his 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. Schuschnigg said, “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 truths, to offer no resistance, so I take leap of the Austrian people with the German word of farewell, uttered from the depth of my heart, God protect Austria.” And so next time, return to the streets of Vienna and people waving flags, throwing flowers, welcoming Hitler’s troops to the old Imperial Capitol. We never thought we would see this again in Europe. I never imagined for one moment in my lifetime that we would see Russia the new Germany, Putin the new Hitler, invading Ukraine the new Czechoslovakia. And for whatever good and proper reasons, the rest of Europe as in '38, standing by. Not in this case believing anything Putin says, but in fear as Schuschnigg himself was in March '38. That terrible bloodshed would follow any resistance as it happening as we sit here in Ukraine. There were no easy answers to any of these questions for politicians at any given moment because history doesn’t completely repeat itself and this is not a complete rerun of Czechoslovakia in '38. But we pray to God the outcome will not be the same outcome of a European war, a wider European war as it proved in 1938-'39. Thanks very much for listening. And I hope that some of you may have come across things that you didn’t know. And I hope those of you knew everything, Jess were pleased to hear it from a different voice. But I guess there’s probably lots of questions for me to go for. Yes, there are.
Q&A and Comments:
May I say, I’m very impressed, the first question was asked even before I opened my mouth this evening. So I think that’s impressive. Monu, it was Monu did it before I started. She liked what I was wearing. What I was trying to wear this evening was as near as I could get from my wardrobe, blue and yellow, the colours of the Ukraine. But I guess you’ll realise that. I have got a proper coloured Ukraine tie on its way, but it didn’t arrive it. Amazon sometimes isn’t as good as it says it is, and it hasn’t yet come, but it will come by next week and I’ll wear it for you next week.
Q: Oh, “How does Austria view itself in Germany today?”
A: We’ll look at that if we may at the end. But remember that Austria is attempting to recreate the Austria-Hungarian empire by looking eastwards rather than westwards within the European Union and with the various groupings in the EU.
Q: “Would I explain?” says Gene. “It should be obvious.” Not necessarily. “But can you explain why the allies were post Austria joining with Germany? Was it to prevent Germany becoming too powerful again?”
A: Absolutely. You’ve answered your own question. Yes, we did not want, it would also of course, place the Czechoslovakia in a real difficulty with the Sudetenland from the beginning.
Yes, we’re both feeling better. Thanks.
Yes, “I’ve been told the Ukrainians find the Ukraine offensive.” Yes they do. Why? Because the Ukraine was a Russian phrase when most of the Ukraine was part of Russia. And we should say Ukraine. There was an interesting… Well, one British MP, quite senior, was on television and referred to the Ukraine. I have to say for people in my generation, if you speak off the cup as sometimes I do, or very often I do, you can make a mistake. I hope I didn’t tonight, but it’s so easy to make that mistake.
Q: “What makes a nation a nation?”
A: Good question. A sense of being a nation is the answer to that. And the Austrians didn’t see themselves as a nation, they saw themselves as German or many of them, and they saw that nation as Germany. So a nation is a nation. In Belgium, the distinction between the Dutch and the French Belgiums, they don’t see themselves as one nation. And you’ll probably know there are three ministers for everything in Belgium, there’s a federal minister, there’s a Dutch minister, and there’s a French minister. And I went on a European Union visit when I was working as principal of the city. I went on a tour of adult education in Belgium and we kept being shown all the Dutch initiatives, which were fantastic. And Muggings here said, “Why aren’t we seeing any French?” And they said, “Because they don’t have any.” And I said, “Well, surely they have the same budget.” And they said “Yes, but they don’t choose to spend it on adult education.” Very interesting.
“Speaking of a city with an imperial pass, this must be an American, I reckon.” Ron. I don’t know whether you are American, maybe that’s not fair to make a guess.
“Speaking of a city,” says Ron “with an imperial pass. The first time I visited London around 1975, at the age of 22,” oh gosh, you are young, “I found what I took to be the trapping to the British empire quite striking and almost comical.” That’s interesting. But the most interesting part is if you go to India, you will see trappings to the British empire. My son had was working with a Indian firm and a British Indian firm he went to India with. And he went to one meeting in a… I don’t quite where it was, it was not so far from Bombay, Mumbai. Well, two things. I got three things I should tell you. First of all, in this meeting, in this government, local government, regional government building, they went into a committee room. And my son said that, well, actually all the furniture was British, 19th century heavy mahogany furniture. He got speaking over coffee break with an Indian. And the Indian said, “How have you found India? Where have you been?” And he said, “Well, I’ve been to Mumbai.” And the Indian replied, “You don’t say Mumbai, you mean you’ve been to Bombay.” And my son said, “Well, I was being polite. You don’t call it Bombay.” He said, “Of course, we call it Bombay,” he said, “that’s what it is, it’s only the government that says it’s…” It’s interesting how empires stagger on in odd ways.
Oh, there’s Peter. Peter, good evening. Peter says… I know this of course, but I’ll read it to all of you don’t. Peter is a friend of mine. Peter says, “William, I was born in Czechoslovakia in 1931. No one has ever explained the history of Austria.” Oh, well thank you. He’s just saying thanks for what I’ve done.
Q: “How long does it take to create a country?”
A: Well, oh, that is a good question. Who is that? Ron again? And he quotes Austria, Lebanon, Jordan, and other countries in Europe. It’s very difficult. I’m not sure how to… There is an answer to that. Jordan? Jordan. Jordan seems oddly to have been the only part of the carved up of the Middle East that accepted the Hashemites. In other words, a king who came from Saudi Arabia and not from Jordan itself, but they turn themselves into being Jordanian. And so the monarchy or the constitutional monarchy in Jordan has succeeded. Lebanon has just been a basket case from the beginning because it really isn’t separate. It really is an oddity. Belgium is an oddity. God knows how Belgium ever holds together, but it seems to. Austria seems to have won that battle. And that’s what I’m going to talk about at a later meeting of how post 1945, Austria, I was going to say recreated itself, but in one cent created itself. And within the EU, Austria has found its place. So there’s a lot of story to come about Austria.
Q: What does Susan ask me? “How would you define the government of Austria today?”
A: Oh, well, if you don’t mind, I will leave that, 'cause that’s another complex question. I will deal with that properly when we get there. That’s a rude answer, but I’m going to stick to my rudeness. Ron said…
Oh, Jackie says, sorry. Jackie says to Ron. I must be part of this three-way conversation. An interesting comment. “I was in a discussion recently talking about national identity. Someone in the group said to a Pakistani friend of ours, en passant. 'Well, Pakistan is an artificially-created country, of course.’ And the reaction was of extreme offence. She felt it was a national country of longstanding. I agreed that it had long history and culture, but as a political entity, it was artificially created partition.” She was quite upset. Yes, no, you are right. It was artificially created, but it was created on the basis of religion. It was created on the basis of Islam. And so it did make sense. What didn’t make sense in 1947 was East and West Pakistan. Now, of course we have Bangladesh in Pakistan and it makes more sense. Although interestingly, Bangladesh is almost a client’s state of India. History is never as simple as you would like it to be.
Q: Paul says, “How did Vienna go from Karl Lueger on the right come Red Vienna?”
A: That’s the story that Trudy will tell you. It’s a really interesting story, she will tell you that. And you’ll then be grateful that I didn’t try and explain it to you.
Q: “Why Dollfuss so easily grabbed the power?”
A: Because he had heavens on the streets, and outside of Vienna, he has a lot of support. And he insured, in the rural of Austria, it was quite backward, and that he had the church on his side. Every Sunday, the Catholic church priests at mass every Sunday would say from the pulpit, “This is the man to preserve our Christian morality, blah, blah, blah.” This is not a good part of the story of the Church of Rome, nor is the whole Nazi period a good story.
Peter, I’ll email you the name of the town. It’s pronounced Schuschnigg. Sorry, the name of the… I actually Peter did go to the pronunciation and the pronunciation was what they said was a German pronunciation but you’ll be more right than they.
Michael, “Otto von Habsburg, the son of Charles, claimed von Schuschnigg was a college professor who could not see beyond his glasses. If he could return as a constitute harmonic, it would prevent plebiscite, the Anschluss.” Well, yeah, where the Habsburg have their own access to grind.
Q: “What is meant by a public regime?”
A: Did I say public regime? I don’t know. If I said public regime, I apologise. You may have misheard me and I don’t… I can’t quickly think what I would’ve said. If I did, I’m sorry, I have no idea. “You said that there was strong fascism in Austria days, the movement different from Nazism.” Yes, everything’s different from Nazism because Nazism was a particular aberration of fascism in Germany from ‘33 to '45. And today we use differing terms and it’s really quite difficult to define those terms. And when I come to Austria, I will do that. “Oh, I said puppet regime.” Ah, thank you, Karina Marion. Yes, I would’ve said puppet regime. Yes, sorry that I’m terribly sorry, Martin, that my pronunciation or was bad. I obviously took a glass of water and slurred my words.
Yeah, I will talk about neo-fascism in Austria today. Yes. But neo-fascism the alternative, right? You get into… It’s difficult. What it is about is a continuum on which people like Trump exist, but they’re at one end of a continuum. But the other end of the continuum are people like Orbán, for example, in Hungary. Although you may feel some of you that Trump and Orbán are cut from the same cloth. Not I think quite true. But yeah, these are difficult terms and we’ve got to look at. Populist is a term we use to describe Trump and a term we use to describe Johnson in Britain. Populist doesn’t have quite the negative, words like alternative, right? Which is also not so bad as you term neo-fascist. Orbán is a neo-fascist.
“The difference between then and now,” Jeanette says “is that the Ukrainian people, unlike the Austrians in '38 have clearly not welcomed their Russian aggressors.” Absolutely right. And that’s what we’re going to look at next week at how the Austrians welcomed Hitler, and after the war had to distance themselves from that imagery in order to create the new Democratic Austria. And I won’t say more, but there’s other bits and pieces next week which arise out of this week. I try and make each week incidentally stand on its own so that people who can’t come or pop in and out, it still makes sense to you. So today’s was meant to have a beginning, a middle and an end, and I hope it did. Next week’s will also, but of course it will also have reverberations from this week.
Q: “Where can you read your blog?”
A: Marcia, it’s very easy. www.talkhistorian, one word, talk, T-A-L-K, www.talkhistorian.com and you’ll get there. And the bit I’ve written about the Ukraine is the first… It’s the top one at the moment. Well, the last one that I put on. Thanks for people. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks. Oh, that’s nice. Somebody said they learned a great deal. Erica, thank you so much for that. That’s what people like me are trying to do. But don’t remember, except what I say. Check for yourselves, read stuff. Make sure that, you know, it’s like the Ukraine. For goodness sake, don’t rely on your politicians in whichever country you live, because they will also be having access to grind, read for yourselves, come to your own conclusions.
Yes, Leslie, you are right. “Whereas Austria welcomed Hitler, Ukraine does not welcome Putin hopefully an important difference.” Yeah, but the problem is that Putin like Hitler may draw from the inaction of the West that he can go elsewhere. Where Putin’s likely to go, of course, is Georgia, which is also not a member of NATO but is also a country that wants to be a member of NATO. So watch out Georgia, and don’t book your holidays in Georgia, whatever you do. There aren’t always differences. As I’ve said, history does not repeat itself precisely, but Putin seems as unbalanced as Hitler and as unbalanced in his direction of his military as Hitler and it’s very difficult. What does seem to be working, however, are some of the financial constraints based on Russia, which of course were not available in a different world on Hitler.
“The Ukraine has a terrible history of trustees of Russians and of course of Jews.” Yes, it does. And that is also important, Carol. The press and politicians always want things to appear. I’m not even sure I can use these words, but I will. Now, I apologise to any Americans who don’t like the terminology. Not everything is white and everything is black. Most things are grey, and the history of Ukraine is a very dark grey when it comes to atrocities.
Absolutely right. Austria etymology comes… I love it. I You don’t need me at all. Maurice, boy, good answer. I see that Jackie has put on the answer to she is of course absolutely right. It’s the eastern empire.
Nicki says, “Relative to your last points on the part of Ukrainian impetus of Europe against Russia. Do you think the UK exit from EU was a signify Putin seeming impunity?” I wouldn’t know, but one of the reasons I voted against leaving EU was precisely for this sort of situation. I thought it was a militarily, I know we’re part of NATO, but I thought it was militarily, I thought it was in intelligence wise in particular, the most stupid of decisions. And one of the reasons I firmly voted to remain in the EU was because I believe that together we are stronger than we are outside of it. And I wouldn’t be a tall surprise if Putin… We also don’t have in Britain published the Russian dossier where we may find it… Hopefully, it will be published and not redacted. Where we will find that Putin was involved in that.
Oh yeah, Peter says, “Austrians are much in common with Bavaria, who which is Catholic and proximity and character.” Absolutely. And that’s why there was always a chance that a unified Germany would take place via Bavaria. Interestingly, if it was Bavaria Catholic, which had unified Germany in the 1870s, then an Anschluss would almost certainly have happened, but it was Protestant pressure that did so. And why? Because Protestant pressure had the military background.
“It is strange to think, while the world is fascinating on Ukrainian issues, the Arab world might take this time to attack Israel.” Yes, it might. But the more worrying aspect in terms of its likelihood is a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Q: “Austrians in unification with Germany today?”
A: No, because they have it to all intents and purposes through the EU are taught more about that.
Q: “Do you think Putin really thought that his troops were welcome?”
A: I have no idea. I don’t think we’re dealing with a rational person in Putin. I have really no idea.
“Israel has helped perform Palestine into a nation.” Marilyn, I’m certainly going to dodge that. That’s a question you’ll have to put to Trudy. And if she’s listening, she’ll be very qualified to say that. But no, no, no, I’m not going down there.
Yes, we’ll talk about Jewish presidents. Yes. All of that I will do. Steven Beller’s book, B-E-L-L-E-R, is simply a concise history… Let me get rid of that. A concise history of Austria, it’s published by Cambridge University Press, a concise history of Austria by Cambridge University Press. It goes right back to the middle ages and up to the present day. And I think a really good book. I think it’s well-written, interestingly written. And as far as I can see, a good accurate book. I think probably I should come to an end, shouldn’t I?
[Judi] Yes, because it’s 25 6, and we have another talk starting in about 40 minutes.
That’s what I thought. I thought I’d better carried away. Yeah.
[Judi] Thank you so much, William, and we’ll see you next week and we’ll see everybody a bit later on this evening.
Thanks very much, Wendy. And bye-bye everyone.
Thank you.
Keep well.
Thank you. Bye
[William] Bye-Bye.