1939: Austria

Austria, the former Empire of the Hapsburgs, and after 1918 an independent republic, was reduced in March 1938 to the status of an integral part of the German Reich. At that time Austria represented an area of 32,369 square miles with a population of 6,760,233, according to the census of March 22, 1933. The name of Austria was in 1938 changed into Ostmark. The incorporation of Austria into Germany aggravated two of the outstanding problems created by National Socialism for Germany, the Catholics and the Jews. The number of Catholics in Austria in 1934 was 6,116,250, or more than 90 per cent of the population. The Catholic Church had always been very influential in Austria; it counted there the two archbishoprics of Vienna and Salzburg and four bishoprics. The Concordat between the Vatican and Austria had been especially advantageous to the former. By the inclusion of Austria, and later of Czechoslovakia, the number of Catholics within greater Germany equalled that of Protestants, whereas formerly the Catholics had formed not quite a third of the German population. The number of Jews in Austria was given by the census of 1934 as 191,481, of whom practically all lived in Vienna, a city where the Jews formed more than ten per cent of the population and participated in an active and important way in the cultural and economic life. The number of persons who had some Jewish blood and came therefore under the Nuremberg racial laws was, however, considerably larger than the figure given above. This aggravation of the Catholic and Jewish problems led to an intensification of anti-Catholic and especially of anti-Jewish measures of the National Socialist Government. Whereas the situation of the Jews had, until the beginning of 1938, been somewhat tolerable, in Germany after the annexation of Austria it became completely unbearable. The ferociousness of the Nazi treatment of the Jews made itself felt even more in Austria than in Germany.

'Liquidation' of Austria.

At the beginning, a part of the Austrian population had welcomed the National Socialist occupation and had expected from it a considerable amelioration of its economic situation. These expectations were in no way fulfilled. One of the main reasons of complaint for the Austrian population was the fact that the native Austrian National Socialists were removed from leading positions, and that all important jobs were given to National Socialists coming from Germany. This tendency found its final consummation in the dismissal of the National Socialist Gauleiter, or district leader, of Vienna, Odilo Globocnik, at the end of January. He was replaced by Mr. Burckel who had been up to then the Reichskommissar for the reunion of Austria with the Reich, and who now assumed both positions. By the beginning of February all Austrian social and political life was completely coordinated. Of the existing 115,000 different associations and organizations, most of them of a purely non-political character, only 5,000 were allowed to remain. All others were dissolved and their property, more than 2,000,000,000 marks, confiscated. Among them were the former Austrian trade unions which had 435,000 members altogether and a property of about 50,000,000 marks. March 13, the day of the occupation of Austria by German troops, was declared a public holiday and first celebrated officially in 1939. A further step in the 'liquidation' of Austria and the Austrian tradition was taken at the end of April. All central offices for the former Austria, which still maintained a certain unity under Seyss-Inquart as Reichsstaathalter for the Ostmark, were closed. Austria, or Ostmark, was nothing more than a geographic term. It was divided for administrative purposes into seven Gane, or districts, which were directly subordinated to the central government in Berlin.

Anti-Catholic Measures.

At the same time the struggle against the Catholic Church was intensified. In January 1939 complete inventories were taken of all the property, including libraries and pictures, belonging to monasteries and religious foundations. Government commissioners were appointed to control the properties and financial administration of the larger monasteries. Religious schools were closed, and many of the buildings turned over to National Socialist organizations or the army for use as barracks. On May 12, authorities of the Catholic Church were notified that in the future all changes in the personnel of the clergy would be subject to the approval of the National Socialist Party. A list of candidates for parish priests as well as for higher dignitaries had to be submitted to the Party authorities, who also reserve for themselves the right to pass on candidates for theological schools or religious orders. The Catholic Church was further offended by the passing of a law legalizing the cremation, which, under the former regime, had been forbidden in accordance with the teachings of the church. On May 17 one of the largest and richest monasteries in Austria, the famous Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, was forced to cede all its agricultural estates to the National Socialist Government. At the end of May the residential palace of Archbishop Sigismund Waits of Salzburg was confiscated and occupied by the Hitler Elite Guard. Archbishop Waitz, who was appointed to this historically most important see in 1935, had already been the object of Nazi displeasure, as in October 1938 when some of the windows in the palace were smashed by demonstrators and when he was deprived of the privilege of supervising religious education in the elementary schools of the Salzburg district. Originally the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, who had at first warmly welcomed Hitler's occupation of Vienna, fared somewhat better at the hands of the new authorities, but in October 1938 his palace in Vienna was attacked and sacked by a mob. At the beginning of July 1939, he was forced to abandon a diocesan tour after several attacks by Nazi crowds in which he only barely escaped being knocked down. The worst demonstrations occurred at Konigsbrunn, twenty-five miles from Vienna, where the Cardinal had preached a sermon on peace and was attacked on leaving the church.

The Vatican showed itself most concerned with the situation of the Austrian Catholics. The Austrian Concordat, which had been concluded in 1934 by the Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, was considered by the German Government to have expired from the time of the annexation of Austria. Accordingly the Government immediately repudiated the financial obligations to the clergy which the former Austrian Government had assumed under the Concordat. The Vatican, however, considered the Concordat still in force. In August Pope Pius instructed the Papal Nuncio at Berlin, Mgr. Cesare Orsenigo, to confer with the German Government on the question of whether it regarded Austria now included in the German Concordat, which incidentally had also been repeatedly violated by the German Government. The outbreak of war at the beginning of September put an end to the negotiations. The Austrian population on the whole welcomed the war against Poland, but was greatly disturbed at the war against Great Britain and France, and bore the ensuing grave privations not without increasing complaints.

Anti-Semitic Measures.

The situation of the Jews in Vienna became immediately more desperate than that of the Jews in the older parts of Nazi Germany, and the treatment of them surpassed in brutality even that in Germany. All measures were taken to enforce a quick emigration of Jews from Austria. The small number of Jews outside Vienna were forced into the city. At the end of 1939, the Jews who had not then succeeded in emigrating were threatened with deportation to the newly established reservation in Eastern Poland. See also RELIGION: Jews.

Restoration of the Hapsburgs.

Meanwhile the hope for the restoration of an independent Austria was not given up. Groups of Austrian emigrés in France and in the United States continued to insist upon Austria's right to self-determination. Archduke Otto of Hapsburgs, the son of the last Emperor, maintained his claims to the Austrian crown. Prime Minister Daladier of France included in one of his addresses the restoration of Austria as one of the possible results of the present European war. Plans were discussed for the recreation of a Central European Federation with Vienna as its capital, and perhaps with the Hapsburg as a visible rallying point for the different nationalities which would join, on a footing of complete equality and with all the guarantees of progressive democracy, such a federation for mutual protection and economic cooperation. It was understood that an effort was made to arouse the sympathy of the Vatican and of the Italian government for such a plan. Other plans foresaw the formation of a large southern German Catholic State under Hapsburg leadership and with Vienna as its center. The present war has reopened the problem of the future of Central Europe and of a form of government which would most likely insure the peaceful collaboration, the free development and the economic progress of the several nationalities living in the Danubian basin and the surrounding territories. It is not improbable that if such a reorganization should take place. Austria may be once more destined to play her traditional role in the center of Europe.