Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

You post, "The Schuschnig referendum was not about independence, it was about Schuschnigg......"

May I remind you of the wording of his plebiscite. I can find the phrase "independent.....Austria", but nothing about him in it:

"Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You post, ".....In 1936 Schuschnigg himself admitted that Austria was a German state." Yup, that was never in question by anyone on any side of the argument. Even his referendum says so. Here it is again:

"Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You write, "2) The plebiscite was NOT about Austrian independence"

Again, here is plebiscite wording, "Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You write, "What is your proof that the thousands of people who went to the event and were cheering did this at the order of the nazis?" I never said they were there "at the order of the Nazis". That is your invention and, again, I don't have to defend it. However, the event was clearly not spontaneous, it was organized by the Nazis and the crowds were probably self-selecting and therefore cannot necessarily be taken as representative of the population at large.

As an analogy, take a public victory tour on an open top bus by a cup-winning football team. Nobody orders the crowd to attend, but the event is pre-organized and advertised and the crowd is self-selecting because few supporters of other teams are likely to want to attend. You speak of "thousands" attending, but Austria had 6-7 million people, most of whom clearly did not attend!

You post, "Saying that these thousands were only a minority is nonsense." Sorry, but it really is nonsense. Again, Austria had 6-7 million people. The crowds attending may have been representative of majority opinion, but they certainly were a small minority of the population themselves if only in the "thousands", as you post. (Actually, I suspect they were in the hundreds of thousands, but the same logic applies).

You post, "On VE Day, thousands of people were cheering Churchill: do you say that this is saying nothing about public opinion because only thousands were cheering and not 23 million?" Well, he lost an election heavily a couple of months later and so wasn't even in office by VJ Day!

Just as, according to one of Lamarck's sources, Schussnigg's independence referendum may have got 66% of the vote, and another of his sources reckons 66% were in favour of Anschluss, so Churchill's popularity varied according to timing and the subject under public scrutiny.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

I am having a great deal of difficulty in getting an answer from you to this question, which I repeat for at least the third time:

"I ask again, "By the way, do you accept the 99% Anschluss referendum result as unrigged and an accurate reflection of the scale of Austrian support for Anschluss?" An answer would be appreciated this time."

I put it up here alone in the hope that you will address it this time.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

Hi ljadw,

You post, "The Schuschnig referendum was not about independence, it was about Schuschnigg......"

May I remind you of the wording of his plebiscite. I can find the phrase "independent.....Austria", but nothing about him in it:

"Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You post, ".....In 1936 Schuschnigg himself admitted that Austria was a German state." Yup, that was never in question by anyone on any side of the argument. Even his referendum says so. Here it is again:

"Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You write, "2) The plebiscite was NOT about Austrian independence"

Again, here is plebiscite wording, "Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You write, "What is your proof that the thousands of people who went to the event and were cheering did this at the order of the nazis?" I never said they were there "at the order of the Nazis". That is your invention and, again, I don't have to defend it. However, the event was clearly not spontaneous, it was organized by the Nazis and the crowds were probably self-selecting and therefore cannot necessarily be taken as representative of the population at large.

As an analogy, take a public victory tour on an open top bus by a cup-winning football team. Nobody orders the crowd to attend, but the event is pre-organized and advertised and the crowd is self-selecting because few supporters of other teams are likely to want to attend. You speak of "thousands" attending, but Austria had 6-7 million people, most of whom clearly did not attend!

You post, "Saying that these thousands were only a minority is nonsense." Sorry, but it really is nonsense. Again, Austria had 6-7 million people. The crowds attending may have been representative of majority opinion, but they certainly were a small minority of the population themselves if only in the "thousands", as you post. (Actually, I suspect they were in the hundreds of thousands, but the same logic applies).

You post, "On VE Day, thousands of people were cheering Churchill: do you say that this is saying nothing about public opinion because only thousands were cheering and not 23 million?" Well, he lost an election heavily a couple of months later and so wasn't even in office by VJ Day!

Just as, according to one of Lamarck's sources, Schussnigg's independence referendum may have got 66% of the vote, and another of his sources reckons 66% were in favour of Anschluss, so Churchill's popularity varied according to timing and the subject under public scrutiny.

Cheers,

Sid.

1)The Schuschnig plebiscite was organized to save the Schuschnig regime which was collapsing already before Schuschnig went to Berchtesgaden ,otherwise there was no need for a plebiscite .A German and independent Austria are excluding each other : Austria would be German or independent .

2) You said " the proclamation of the Anschluss was a stage managed occasion by the Nazis ".

3) That not 7 million people were present, does not mean that those who were not present, opposed the Anschluss : relatively there were more Austrians present at the proclamation of the Anschluss, than Britons to cheer Churchill at VE Day , but no one will say that those who were not present in front of Buckingham Palace,were hostile to Churchill as war leader . There were no hundreds of thousands, even thousands of Austrians opposing the entry of the Germans .

At the last elections Schuschnig 's party got 35 %, in a free referendum he would not have 15% ,because he had failed .If he was convinced that he would have 66 % in a free referendum, he would have organized a free plebiscite or free elections, but, he chosed deliberatedly a rigged one , which proves that he had no leverage .

There was in the Saar a free referendum, and the partisans of the Anschluss won by 90 % .As Professor Botz argued (an Austrian Anschluss expert ) a free referendum in Austria would not have given an other result .

Schuschnig was doomed : His "Third way" ,avoiding liberal democracy and totalitarian dictatorship,received hardly any support from the general public " .

Source : The Dolfuss /Schuschnig Era in Austria : a reassignment .(Conclusion )

Hardly any support means : LESS than 15 % .

ALL political parties supported the Anschluss;even when it was obvious that Anschluss meant Hitler, the leaders of the Socialists and of the Catholic church supported the Anschluss .

Austrofascists, nazis and socialists shared pan-Germanism and this bound them together .Pan-Germanism was muddying ideological oppositions .

No one forced the Austrians to welcome the Germans enthusiastically . The Blumenkrieg proved that the Austrians expected and welcomed the Anschluss : no one would fight for Dolfuss, no one would even fight for an independent Austria .

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

You post, "The Schuschnig plebiscite was organized to save the Schuschnig regime which was collapsing already before Schuschnig went to Berchtesgaden ,otherwise there was no need for a plebiscite" Perhaps, but that was not the question asked in the plebiscite. Here it is yet again:

"Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You post, "A German and independent Austria are excluding each other". Nope. Austria is German today, in that its culture and language are essentially German, but it is also independent. The same was true of Liechtenstein and most of Switzerland. Just because a society was culturally and linguistically German, it doesn't mean it has to be part of a unified German state. Historically, Germany was divided into multiple independent states. The idea that all had to be united in one state is recent. Being German and yet independent of a centralized German state are not mutually exclusive.

You say I posted "the proclamation of the Anschluss was a stage managed occasion by the Nazis". Yup. It was. The proclamation was organized by the Nazi Party on the back of a physical invasion by the Wehrmacht. It was not a spontaneous action by the Austrian population, even if most of them supported it.

You post, "That not 7 million people were present, does not mean that those who were not present, opposed the Anschluss....." True. In fact, I suspect that a clear majority of them were in favour of Anschluss.

My point is that just because, in your word, "thousands" of Austrian were present and wildly enthusiastic for Anschluss, it doesn't mean that the overwhelming majority of those not present were also wildly enthusiastic about Anschluss. The crowds you describe were self-selecting and attending a managed event organized by the Nazi Party.

You post, "There were no hundreds of thousands, even thousands of Austrians opposing the entry of the Germans." The same, as I posted before, can be said of Czechs, Luxemburgers, Danes, Vichy French and Hungarians. Are you proposing this indicates "overwhelming" Czech, Luxembourgeois, Danish, French and Hungarian support for German occupation? Sometimes the circumstances make physical resistance impracticable.

You post of Schussnigg, ".....in a free referendum he would not have 15%.....". I would suggest that, unless you have a traceable source, you are inventing the 15% figure. What is your source?

Furthermore, your 15% disagrees enormously from the figure of 66% offered by one of Lamarck's sources. As I have said before, you will have to take that up with him, not me.

You post, "There was in the Saar a free referendum, and the partisans of the Anschluss won by 90 %. As Professor Botz argued..... a free referendum in Austria would not have given an other result." Again, one of Lamarck's sources opines that support for Anschluss in Austria stood at about 66%. You yourself have offered a source that opines it might be 80%. The Nazi referendum claimed 99%!!!!!!

All this proves is that there are multiple widely contradictory opinions and almost no hard evidence to go on. A free plebiscite would have helped sort out the settled opinion of the Austrian population but the Nazis prevented Schussnigg's plebiscite and massively rigged their own plebiscite, so we have no such thing to work with.

This means that there is not enough evidence to go on beyond saying that it is plausible, as I have repeatedly said, that a clear majority of Austrians favoured Anschluss. To claim that this support was "overwhelming" is to overstate the available evidence, which is widely variable to the extent of 33% of the electorate!

You post, "No one forced the Austrians to welcome the Germans enthusiastically." True, but even by your proposition of "thousands" and my proposition of "hundreds of thousands" of such enthusiasts, this doesn't tell us what the millions of other Austrian felt. For that we need more substantive evidence.

You post, ".....no one would fight for Dolfuss, no one would even fight for an independent Austria." You keep repeating the same mantras without taking on board any of the evidence presented to you. To repeat - the Austrian army and air forc appear to have undertaken all the defensive deployments ordered by Schussnigg without any dissidence by any of their officers, who appear to have honoured their oath to be prepared to defend an independent Austria, until ordered by Schussnigg not to resist in a hopeless military and diplomatic situation. So, we simply don't know if "no one would fight for Dolfuss" or "no one would even fight for an independent Austria." They were never required to.

I still don't understand why you so badly want Austrian support for Anschluss to have been "overwhelming", when the balance of evidence, such as it is, doesn't seem to support it? Why isn't a plausible "clear majority" good enough for you?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

Can you please clarify where you stand?

You posted, "The evidence shows that even though the Nazis rigged the plebiscite, a clear majority approved of the Anschluss."

This is exactly my position - a clear majority is plausible.

This is not the same as an "overwhelming" majority.

Which is your position - (1) Clear majority or (2) Overwhelming majority?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Lamarck]

Hi Lamarck,

I am having a great deal of difficulty in getting an answer from you to this question, which I repeat for at least the third time:

"I ask again, "By the way, do you accept the 99% Anschluss referendum result as unrigged and an accurate reflection of the scale of Austrian support for Anschluss?" An answer would be appreciated this time."

I put it up here alone in the hope that you will address it this time.

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid,

I have answered the question over and over again. The plebiscite was rigged, there is no doubt about that at all. However, the enthusiasm that the Nazis received when they went into Austria was not planned by the Nazis and was largely spontaneous. The approval of the Austrians made Hitler change his mind about the future of Austria.

I accept the plebiscite was rigged and was not 99% but I accept that overall reflection of the Austrians in the footage, anecdotal and other forms of evidence as genuine. There is no evidence to the contrary.

Hi Lamarck,

Can you please clarify where you stand?

You posted, "The evidence shows that even though the Nazis rigged the plebiscite, a clear majority approved of the Anschluss."

This is exactly my position - a clear majority is plausible.

This is not the same as an "overwhelming" majority.

Which is your position - (1) Clear majority or (2) Overwhelming majority?

Cheers,

Sid.

Both. Stop trying to create straw mans.

An overwhelming majority of the Austrians supported the Anschluss in 1938.

[Lamarck]

However, the event was clearly not spontaneous, it was organized by the Nazis and the crowds were probably self-selecting and therefore cannot necessarily be taken as representative of the population at large.

Please provide some sources for this assertion.

As an analogy, take a public victory tour on an open top bus by a cup-winning football team. Nobody orders the crowd to attend, but the event is pre-organized and advertised and the crowd is self-selecting because few supporters of other teams are likely to want to attend. You speak of "thousands" attending, but Austria had 6-7 million people, most of whom clearly did not attend!

Another straw man. Comparing football teams and the annexing of a country is like comparing apples and oranges. I think it would be great if you would start using rationale in your arguments rather than petty comparisons like this one.

Throughout the whole of Austria, thousands upon thousands of Austrians welcomed their German brothers. There is a well known image of the Germans crossing the border and being greeted by enthusiastic Austrians.

Again, Austria had 6-7 million people. The crowds attending may have been representative of majority opinion, but they certainly were a small minority of the population themselves if only in the "thousands", as you post. (Actually, I suspect they were in the hundreds of thousands, but the same logic applies).

So because the whole popularity never turned out to hear Hitler proclaim the Anschluss the people in the archived footage were just a minority? Stop making such nonsense up. When Hitler made his way through to various parts of Austria the crowds were everywhere. Also, when Hitler made speeches in several different parts of Austria he was greeted by thousands.

Just as, according to one of Lamarck's sources, Schussnigg's independence referendum may have got 66% of the vote, and another of his sources reckons 66% were in favour of Anschluss, so Churchill's popularity varied according to timing and the subject under public scrutiny.

Cheers,

Sid.

Christopher Hitchen's quote "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" is quite applicable here. Who cares what Schussnigg's plebiscite could have been? It never happened so no one will ever know. Based on the evidence available, during the time of the Anschluss, the overwhelming majority of Austrians welcomed the Anschluss.

I do also hope that you're not confusing support for the Anschluss and support for the Nazis. Mind you, after the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Austrian Nazis began to become popular and after the Anschluss many Austrians took part in the more genocidal crimes against the Jews, Gypsies and others.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

You post, "However, the enthusiasm that the Nazis received when they went into Austria was not planned by the Nazis and was largely spontaneous." Yup, I can agree with that. However, the problem is that not only are their numbers are not measurable, but nor are the numbers of those not attending and displaying enthusiasm. The crowds showing such enthusiasm were self-selecting for pro-Nazi/Anschluss enthusiasts. What of those Austrians who were not in the crowds?

To use an analogy I posted earlier to ljadw, ".....take a public victory tour on an open top bus by a cup-winning football team. Nobody orders the crowd to attend, but the event is pre-organized and advertised and the crowd is self-selecting because few supporters of other teams are likely to want to attend."

It is no straw man. In your previous post you referred separately to both "an overwhelming majority" and a "clear majority". My position is that there is plausible evidence that a clear majority of Austrians being in favour of Anschluss at the time of the plebiscite, but not of an overwhelming majority. A clear majority would be anything over the a statistical margin of error. This would be anything above the low 50s in percentage terms. However, the low fifties, or even 66%, are hardly "overwhelming" as even the latter would require only one in six Austrians to change their minds to reverse the result.

So, plausible evidence for a clear majority of Austrians being in favour of the Anschluss at the time of the Nazi plebiscite, but not of this support being overwhelming, especially taking into account your source that opinies that support for Schussnigg's independence plebiscite may also have been of the order of 66% only a month earlier!

One thing you wrote intrigues me: "The approval of the Austrians made Hitler change his mind about the future of Austria." What do you mean by this?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

You post, "However, the event was clearly not spontaneous, it was organized by the Nazis and the crowds were probably self-selecting and therefore cannot necessarily be taken as representative of the population at large." Well, the German Army was present, Hitler was present, senior Nazis were present and the streets were festooned with very large Nazi banners. The event looks more than a series of unlikely and spontaneous coincidences to me!

You post, "Comparing football teams and the annexing of a country is like comparing apples and oranges." Firstly, you can compare apples and oranges. (i.e. oranges tend to me more orange in colour and have thicker skins than apples). What you cannot accurately do is equate them (i.e. Apples and oranges are identical). Secondly, I was not "Comparing football teams and the annexing of a country". I was offering an analogy about crowds that is apt and appropriate. Would the supporters of Arsenal be likely to join the crowds celebrating a Chelsea cup win any more than would opponents of Anchluss be likely to join a pro-Anschluss rally?

You post, "Throughout the whole of Austria, thousands upon thousands of Austrians welcomed their German brothers. There is a well known image of the Germans crossing the border and being greeted by enthusiastic Austrians." Yes, but there were 6-7 million Austrians.

You post. "When Hitler made his way through to various parts of Austria the crowds were everywhere. Also, when Hitler made speeches in several different parts of Austria he was greeted by thousands." Again, yes, but there were 6-7 million Austrians.

Must go early, but I do like your "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". That is exactly my point. The assertion that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming" is without evidence. The only hard figures any of us seem to have in that direction are the Nazi 99% plebiscite results, which we are all apparently agreed were rigged and therefore unreliable.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

Hi ljadw,

You post, "The Schuschnig plebiscite was organized to save the Schuschnig regime which was collapsing already before Schuschnig went to Berchtesgaden ,otherwise there was no need for a plebiscite" Perhaps, but that was not the question asked in the plebiscite. Here it is yet again:

"Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

You post, "A German and independent Austria are excluding each other". Nope. Austria is German today, in that its culture and language are essentially German, but it is also independent. The same was true of Liechtenstein and most of Switzerland. Just because a society was culturally and linguistically German, it doesn't mean it has to be part of a unified German state. Historically, Germany was divided into multiple independent states. The idea that all had to be united in one state is recent. Being German and yet independent of a centralized German state are not mutually exclusive.


You post of Schussnigg, ".....in a free referendum he would not have 15%.....". I would suggest that, unless you have a traceable source, you are inventing the 15% figure. What is your source?

Furthermore, your 15% disagrees enormously from the figure of 66% offered by one of Lamarck's sources. As I have said before, you will have to take that up with him, not me.

You post, "There was in the Saar a free referendum, and the partisans of the Anschluss won by 90 %. As Professor Botz argued..... a free referendum in Austria would not have given an other result." Again, one of Lamarck's sources opines that support for Anschluss in Austria stood at about 66%. You yourself have offered a source that opines it might be 80%. The Nazi referendum claimed 99%!!!!!!

A free plebiscite would have helped sort out the settled opinion of the Austrian population but the Nazis prevented Schussnigg's plebiscite and massively rigged their own plebiscite, so we have no such thing to work with.



Cheers,

Sid.

1) In 1938 being German and independent of a centralised German state were mutually exclusive .That it is different today is irrelevant

2) About the referendum : Schuschnig never held a free referendum, because he knew he would lose . The nazis did not prevent Schuschnigg's referendum, they prevented his rigged referendum. This is totally different .

Hitler OTOH won in several rigged referenda, but also in a free referendum (Saar) where he got 90 % +. An Austrian Anschluss expert said that he would also have 90 % + in a free referendum about the Anschluss, Hitler's enemies said that he would have 80 % .

Thus Schuschnig would have 99 % in his rigged referendum, Hitler would have between 80 % and 90 % in a free referendum and had 99 % in a rigged referendum and Schuschnig would lose in a free referendum .

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

You post. "1) In 1938 being German and independent of a centralised German state were mutually exclusive." Even in 1938 this was not so. I mention, again, Liechtenstein and most of Switzerland. Both were German or largely German and both wanted and actively worked to remain free of a centralized German state. As we have seen, one of Lamarck's sources even opines that two-thirds of Austrians might also have supported Schussnigg's proposed referendum recommending that German Austria should remain independent.

You post, "2) About the referendum : Schuschnig never held a free referendum, because he knew he would lose . The nazis did not prevent Schuschnigg's referendum, they prevented his rigged referendum. This is totally different ." Not so. Firstly, Schussnigg clearly wanted a referendum, he called one and I have given you the text of it previously. Secondly, there is also no doubt that the Nazis prevented it taking place because they invaded Austria to stop it.. Thirdly, we simply do not know to what degree, if any, Schussnigg's referendum would have been rigged, precisely because the Nazis prevented it.

The Saarland plebiscite was rather different. It asked the almost entirely German population of an existing part of Germany whether it wanted to become part of a foreign country (France), continue in limbo under the League of Nations, or revert to Germany. By contrast, Austria had traditionally been independent of a centralized German state and was under no threat from any foreign power.

You post, "Thus Schuschnig would have 99 % in his rigged referendum"..... on what can you possibly base this figure if Schussngig's referendum never took place? It is meaningless nonsense.

You post, ".....Hitler would have between 80 % and 90 % in a free referendum" Again, this is based on no more than the unverifiable opinions of sources you have selected to the exclusion of all others, including those offered by Lamarck. This is pure cherry picking and without substantive validity.

You post, "..... (Hitler would have ) had 99 % in a rigged referendum". Yup. At last you make a proposition based on a hard historical fact! We know this to be true because Hitler did rig his plebiscite and this did produce a figure 99% in his favour.

And you post, ".....and Schuschnig would lose in a free referendum." Perhaps, perhaps not. We will never know, because his cleverly worded plebiscite was not allowed to take place because the Nazis, who were clearly running scared of it, invaded Austria to stop it.

The available evidence seems to support the plausible proposition that the Nazis might have won a free and fair plebiscite in favour of Anschluss with a clear majority. However, it does not support any proposition that Austrian public opinion was "overwhelmingly" in favour of Anschluss, or fixed on the issue, because it appears that Schussnigg's independence plebiscite also had a plausible possibility of passing.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Lamarck]

Sid,

Please do provide some sources for your assertion that:

However, the event was clearly not spontaneous, it was organized by the Nazis and the crowds were probably self-selecting and therefore cannot necessarily be taken as representative of the population at large.

All of the evidence supports to the contrary of that statement so I would be interested in looking at your sources.

You keep going on about the fact that because the plebiscite was rigged that somehow this makes any sort of statement that the overwhelming majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss as void. This is simply not true. The evidence is available for all to see, I don't need to go over any of it again.

You agree that the majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss yet you deny that the overwhelming majority did because the plebiscite was rigged, is that right? Like I said before, it appears you're just simply attempting to create a straw man by refusing to believe an 'overwhelming majority' supported the Anschluss yet you quite openly accept a 'majority' did and your simple evidence for this is because of the rigged plebiscite. Whatever.

I think it's quite obvious nothing is going to change your mind since you just keep harping on about the plebiscite being rigged and that there was a possibility that Schuschnigg could have got 66% of Austrians to vote in favour of his own rigged plebiscite regarding the independence of Austria.

[Lamarck]

Sid, you appear to think all of the territories that Hitler and the Nazis annexed were full of "victims" of the Third Reich. Again, this is simply not true. Up until the Occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the vast majority of the various peoples in the various areas e.g Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Saar, etc, approved of the annexing to the German Reich. They all considered themselves Germans and had hoped to be united with Germany for years.

The Austrians were not victims of the Third Reich, they overwhelming majority welcomed the Anschluss. Stop pretending otherwise.

The myth that the Austrians were Hitler's "first victims" was debunked a long time ago.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi lamarck,

You ask, "Please do provide some sources for your assertion that: "However, the event was clearly not spontaneous, it was organized by the Nazis and the crowds were probably self-selecting and therefore cannot necessarily be taken as representative of the population at large."

To repeat, "Well, the German Army was present, Hitler was present, senior Nazis were present and the streets were festooned with very large Nazi banners. The event looks more than a series of unlikely and spontaneous coincidences to me!" Which of these points do you consider not to be a fact?

You post, "You keep going on about the fact that because the plebiscite was rigged that somehow this makes any sort of statement that the overwhelming majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss as void." No I don't. You are making things up again! My point is simply that because the Nazi plebiscite was so outrageously and obviously rigged, it is not usable as evidence of the real level of support for Anschluss. You need other evidence, preferably of the hard variety, but this seems to be singularly lacking. The lack of such hard evidence makes it impossible to sustain the proposition that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". However, it is circumstantially plausible that those in favour of Anschluss formed a "clear majority".

You post, "You agree that the majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss...." Yes, this seems plausible, as I have repeatedly posted.

You go on, ".......yet you deny that the overwhelming majority did because the plebiscite was rigged, is that right?" No. Please read my preceding paragraph and earlier posts again.

You post, "I think it's quite obvious nothing is going to change your mind since you just keep harping on about the plebiscite being rigged and that there was a possibility that Schuschnigg could have got 66% of Austrians to vote in favour of his own rigged plebiscite regarding the independence of Austria." I am quite prepared to change my mind if only you could come up with some substantive evidence.

As it is, you have offered one source that opines 66% were in favour of Anschluss, which is a bit less than "overwhelming" in that it would require only 1 in 6 Austrian to change their minds to reverse the outcome, and another source that opines the 66% might have supported Schussnigg's referendum on continued independence. If I base my opinion just on the opinions you have offered so far, how can any rational person possibly be persuaded that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming" and fixed?


Cheers,


Sid

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

You post, "you appear to think all of the territories that Hitler and the Nazis annexed were full of "victims" of the Third Reich." No I don't, so I don't have to defend that proposition.

You post, "Up until the Occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the vast majority of the various peoples in the various areas e.g Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Saar, etc, approved of the annexing to the German Reich." A vast majority plausdibly did in the Rhineland, where there was no plebiscite. Similarly, the free and fair League of Nations plebiscite in the Saar proves this to be the case.

However, the Austrian and Sudetenland cases are less clear cut than in the Saar, because the Nazis rigged the plebiscites in an identical manner (have you looked at the skewed ballot papers of both together? I recommend it.) It seems probable that German opinion in the Sudetenland was stronger in favour of Anschluss than in Austria, if only because in Czechoslovakia the Germans had been under Czech and Slovak rule, whereas Austrians were independent. Likewise, support for Anschluss in Danzig and Memel was very probably higher than in Austria.

You post, "They all considered themselves Germans and had hoped to be united with Germany for years." All? This goes beyond not only overwheming, but rigged plebiscite results as well!

Cheers,

Sid.