Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

[ljadw]

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.

1) Switserland was not a part of the German Empire and did not want to be a part of it ; Austria wanted to be a part of the German Empire;this is a historical fact, although you refuse to accept it .

2) We have the proofs that the Schuschnig referendum would be rigged ,because a ) a dictator never holds a free referendum b ) there were only 5 days to organize the referendum: you can't organize a free referendum in 5 days, only a rigged one, besides: there were no electoral lists .

3 ) Hitler's rigged referenda gave him 99 %, Schuschnig's rigged referendum would also give him 99 %, Stalin's rigged elections also gave him 99 % .

4 ) In a free referendum Hitler got 90 + % (Saar ) , in a rigged referendum he would have more .

5) Of course: Schuschnig would lose in a free referendum ,that's why he organized a rigged one .

6) The difference between clear and overwhelming majority is semantics : more than 60 % is overwhelming . In 1962 the French approved in a referendum the election of the president by the people with a majority of 62 %; every one admitted that this was overwhelming .

Schuschnig never organized a free referendum,because he knew he would lose (his result was negative)while the League organised a free referendum where people voted for the Anschluss of the Saar with Germany, knowing the existance of the Gestapo, etc, with 90 %+

A rigged referendum does not mean that the dictator would lose in a free referendum : Stalin would have won free elections, because his results were considered good .

The Austrians considered the results of Schuschnig as very bad : there were 600000 people unemployed in Austria( almost 10 % of the population) , in Germany it was 1 % . Social security was, compared to Germany, very bad in Austria .

If there were in Britain 6 million unemployed and May would organize a referendum about Europe (pro or anti ), she would lose : the Austrians had enough of Schuschnig and since 1918 they wanted the Anschluss with Germany; if someone else ruled Austria, he also would lose ;maybe with less % than Schuschnig. The enemies of Hitler said that Schuschnig would have only 20 % in a free referendum;Schuschnigg knew that he had no chance in a free referendum .

If someone would ask : why would Schuschnig lose in a free referendum , the answer would be : the longing to Great Germany ,and : it's the economy,you stupid .

[Lamarck]

Sid,

You have again failed to provide any sources. The fact that the Nazis and Nazi banners were present doesn't prove a thing. There were many clear acts of genuine spontaneous acts of approval for the Anschluss throughout the whole of Austria. Provide some sources or retract your statement.

The lack of a fair plebiscite proves nothing. There is loads of evidence to support that an overwhelming majority of the Austrians supported Hitler's decision to annex Austria in March 1938.

Your idea that a majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss but an "overwhelming majority" did not is simply utter rubbish. Overwhelming simply means a very large amount of or emotionally very strong - both descriptions fit the approval and mood of the Austrians during the Anschluss. Stop playing games.

Have you even bothered to read about the Austrian reactions of the Anschluss? Throughout the whole thread you have asked for sources (which I have provided) and you have not provided neither sources nor any response when I asked you if you have read any books that are specifically about the Anschluss. I wonder why. Relevant to this repeated question, which biographies of Hitler have you read? Almost every single one of the major biographies go into some type of detail about the Anschluss.

Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, pp. 78-85:

Bock could tell Hitler that the German troops had been received with flowers and jubilation since crossing the border two hours earlier. Hitler listened to the reports of reactions abroad by Reich Press Chief Otto Dietrich. He did not expect either military or political complications, and gave the order to drive on to Linz.

...

Progress was much slower than expected because of the jubilant crowds packing the roadsides. It was in darkness, four hours later, that Hitler eventually reached the Upper Austrian capital. His bodyguards pushed a way through the crowd so that he could go thee last few yards to the town hall on foot. Peals of bells rang out; the rapturous crowd was screaming 'Heil'; Seyß-Inquart could hardly make himself heard in his introductory remarks. Hitler looked deeply moved. Tears ran down his cheeks. In his speech on the balcony of the Linz town hall, he told the masses, constantly interrupting him with their wild cheering, that Providence must have singled him out to return his homeland to the German Reich. They were witnesses that he had now fulfilled his mission. 'I don't know on which day you will be called,' he added. 'I hope it is not far off.' This somewhat mystical remark seemed to indicate that even up to this point, he was not intending within hours to end Austria's identity by incorporating the country into Germany.

Once more, plans were rapidly altered. He had meant to go straight to Vienna. But he decided to stay in Linz throughout the next day, Sunday the 13th, and enter Vienna on the Monday. To the accompaniment of unending cries of 'One people' one Reich, one Leader' ('ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer'), his party took up rooms in the Hotel Weinzinger on the banks of the Danube. Beds were hastily allocated. The restaurant could not cope with the food requirements. The single telephone in the hotel had to be reserved solely for Hitler's use. The extraordinary reception had made a huge impact on him. He was told that foreign newspapers were already speaking of the 'Anschluß' of Austria to Germany as a fait accompli. It was in this atmosphere that the idea rapidly took shape of annexing Austria immediately.

In an excited mood, Hitler was heard to say that he wanted no half-measures. Stuckart, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, was hurriedly summoned to Linz to draft legislation. In an interview he gave to the British journalist Ward Price in the Hotel Weinzinger, Hitler hinted that Austria would become a German province 'like Bavaria or Saxony'. He evidently pondered the matter further during the night. The next day, 13 March - the day originally scheduled for the Schuschnigg's referendum on Austrian independence - the Anschluß, not intended before the previous evening, was completed. Hitler's visit to Leonding, where he laid flowers on his parents' grave and returned to the house where the family had lived, meeting some acquaintances he had not seen for thirty years, perhaps reinforced the belief, stimulated the previous evening by his reception in Linz, that Providence had predestined him to reunite his homeland (Heimat) with the Reich.

From Hitler's perspective, it was a near-perfect result. Whatever the undoubted manipulative methods, ballot-rigging, and pressure to conform which helped produce it, genuine for Hitler's action had unquestionably been massive. Once again, a foreign-policy triumph had strengthened his hand at home and abroad. For the mass of the German people, Hitler once more seemed a statesmen of extraordinary virtuoso talents. For the leaders of the western democracies, anxieties about the mounting instability of central Europe were further magnified.

...

The Anschluß was a watershed for Hitler, and for the Third Reich. The backcloth to it had been one of domestic crisis. Yet almost overnight any lingering threat in the Blomberg-Fritsch affair had been defused by a triumph greater than any that Hitler had enjoyed before. The overwhelming reception he had encountered on his grandiose procession to Vienna, above all his return to Linz, had made a strong impression on the German Dictator. The intoxication of the crowds made him feel like a god. The rapid improvisation of the Anschluß there and then, fulfilling a dream he had entertained as a young Schönerer supporter all those years earlier, proved once more - so it seemed to him - that he could do anything he wanted.

John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, pp. 452-455:

Hitler had not entered his homeland considering Anschluss in the fullest sense of the term, envisioning rather a loose union such as Austria had once had with Hungary. But the enthusiasm of the day was altering his concept and he confided to his valet: "It is fate, Linge. I am destined to be the Führer who will bring all Germans into the Greater German Reich."

Seyss-Inquart returned to the capital that evening to find Viennese Nazis gathered to greet the Führer. A torchlight procession awaited in place and the demonstrators had grown weary from cheering. General Guderian's tanks had left Linz before dusk but it was snowing and the road, under repair, was torn up for miles. At least fifty tanks broke down and the advance guard did not reach Vienna until after midnight. Even at that hour Guderian found the streets filled with excited citizens who broke into "frantic rejoicing" on sighting the first German soldiers. Preceded by an Austrian military band, the invaders marched past the opera house. They were greeted with flowers and raucous friendliness. Enthusiasts tore off the buttons of Guderian's overcoat for souvenirs before hoisting him to their shoulders and carrying him to his quarters.

...

"It is impossible to deny enthusiasm with which both the new regime and last night's announcement of incorporation in the Reich have been received here," telegraphed the British ambassador to Viscount Halifax on Monday. "Herr Hitler is certainly justified in claiming that his action has been welcomed by the Austrian population."

...

Wherever Hitler went he was greeted as savior and Führer. His return to Linz on April 8 was greeted with renewed frenzy. The lobby of the Weinzinger was jammed with citizens who clamored to see him.

James Giblin, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, p. 110:

German soldiers entered Austria promptly at eight A.M. on March 12, 1938, and encountered no resistance. Quite the contrary; in the villages through which they marched, women and children rushed out into the road to pelt the soldiers with flowers. Hitler joined the advancing army that afternoon, riding in an open limousine. His motorcade passed through the town of Braunau, where he had been born almost forty-nine years earlier, but the Führer did not stop. That evening a crowd of 100,000 greeted him in the market square of Linz, the city where he had spent a large part of his youth. When he saluted the cheering throng from the City Hall balcony, observers noticed that tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Let me guess, none of the above proves anything.

How many times do you need to be told? Your absolutely ridiculous statement that it would only take one in six to change the vote of 66% approval that you are trying to use as an argument is laughable. By the same logic, any result of any plebiscite because "it would only take...", how silly. You're simply clutching at straws at using such an 'argument'.

Your repeated arguments are becoming almost ad nauseam.

The cases of the Austrian Anschluss and the annexing of the Sudetenland are not "less clear cut". In both areas the overwhelming majority of the people welcomed the Nazis annexing of the territory to the German Reich.

The idea of union with Germany was stronger in the Sudetenland than in Austria? You have got to be joking me. The idea of an Austrian Anschluss had been discussed and advocated since Austria became excluded from Germany in 1866. The Austrians that lived in Austria when it was part of Austria-Hungary demanded an Anschluss. In 1918 German-Austria attempted to join Germany but was forbidden. The existence of the Sudetenland only came about in the early 20th century and more prominently after WWI. The territory had been part of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary. The idea of joining Germany was equally popular in both areas. The term "Anschluss" refers to the annexation of Austria to Germany, nothing else.

I have provided more than enough evidence. It is now your turn. I am not interested in reading your proof by assertion statements, I would appreciate it if you would start providing some cited sources for your claims.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

You post, "Switserland was not a part of the German Empire and did not want to be a part of it" Which proves my point that being German was not the same as wanting to be part of a centralized German state. The same is true of Liechtenstein, which had been part of the German Confederation but opposed efforts to get it to join the Third Reich.

You post, "Austria wanted to be a part of the German Empire;this is a historical fact, although you refuse to accept it ." There you go, making things up again. As you well know my opinion is that it is entirely plausible that a clear majority of Austrians favoured Anschluss at the time of the Nazi plebiscite. I ask you yet again not to invent my position. It is not honest and doesn't advance the debate at all.

You post, "We have the proofs that the Schuschnig referendum would be rigged ,because a ) a dictator never holds a free referendum" Nonsense. If he thought he was likely to win it without interference, why would he not?

You post, ",b ) there were only 5 days to organize the referendum: you can't organize a free referendum in 5 days, only a rigged one....." Well, as it turned out 5 days were too long, not too short, because the Germans invaded to stop it.

You post, "besides: there were no electoral lists .". There were, but how much they had been updated since 1934 is unclear. If anyone under the age of 28 was able to vote, they must have been updated to some degree.

You post, "3 ) Hitler's rigged referenda gave him 99 %, Schuschnig's rigged referendum would also give him 99 %.....". Again, regarding the Schussnigg part, you are making this up. This is a military-historical forum, not a fantasy forum. Stick to the known facts rather than inventions or your argument suffers. We don't know to what degree Schussnigg's plebiscite would have been rigged and, as it never took place, offering any figure for the result is ridiculous.

You post, "4 ) In a free referendum Hitler got 90 + % (Saar ) , in a rigged referendum he would have more ." Very probably, but Hitler and the Nazis didn't conduct the Saar plebiscite, did they? It was the League of Nations, which explains why it is the only one of these plebiscites that we can be reasonably confident was free and fair. The problem was that it set such a high bar that he had to rig all subsequent plebiscites (or not conduct them at all) so that he got a higher proportion than 90%, or it would look as though his project for Grossdeutschland was losing support, not gaining it.

You post, "6) The difference between clear and overwhelming majority is semantics". No its not. Anything over 50% which is outside the statistical margin of error is a clear majority, but it is not necessarily "overwhelming".

You post, " : more than 60 % is overwhelming ." Hardly. It would only require one person in 10 to change their opinion and it would reverse the result!

You post. "In 1962 the French approved in a referendum the election of the president by the people with a majority of 62 %; every one admitted that this was overwhelming " "Every one"? This is more ridiculous hyperbole that doesn't help your case.

You post, "The Austrians considered the results of Schuschnig as very bad : there were 600000 people unemployed in Austria( almost 10 % of the population) , in Germany it was 1 % . Social security was, compared to Germany, very bad in Austria ." Disputable in detail, but even assuming it was totally true, the Nazis still felt it necessary to invade Austria to ensure they got Anschluss and then rigged the subsequent plebiscite.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

I will provide sources if there are facts in dispute. I asked you which you disagreed with and the only one you have come up with is about Nazi banners being present. If you look at the film available of the parade through Vienna, you will see numerous very large, identical swastika banners many metres long hanging in the streets. Are you telling us that these large, identical banners appeared spontaneously on public buildings? It was unquestionably organized by the Nazis. Who else would have had them and hung them?

You post, "There is loads of evidence to support that an overwhelming majority of the Austrians supported Hitler's decision to annex Austria in March 1938". Well, we are now on Page 14 of this thread and nobody has come up with any hard facts to support "overhelming" yet.

You ask, "Have I even bothered to read about the Austrian reactions to the Anschluss?" Yup. That is why I am questioning the proposition that support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". You are repeatedly referring to crowd reactions. The largest crowd seems to have been that which received Hitler in central Vienna, which was apparently about 250,000. Vienna's population was several times bigger than this and Austria's was at least 30 times bigger than this. Therefore crowd reaction tells us little more than that those Austrians supporting Hitler and Anschluss supported Hitler and Anschluss! It doesn't tell us how typical they were of the wider Austrian population.

Your Ian Kershaw quote says nothing abouit Austrian support for Anschluss as being "overwhelming". It only says his reception in Vienna was overwhelming. As we have seen, this "overwhelming" reception seems to have consisted of a minority of Vienna's population.

The Toland quote doesn't say "overwhelming" anywhere! Indeed, in saying, "Sweyss-Inquart returned to the capital that evening to find Viennese Nazis gathered to greet the Fuher", it tends to reinforce my point that the reception was a Nazi-organized event and not entitrely spontaneous or representative of non-Nazi Austrians.

A couple more facts: If the crowd in Linz, which was Hitler's home town remember, was 100,000, this amounted to just 60% of it population - and we don't know if all the crowd was from Linz. If the crowd in Vienna was 250,000, this amounted to just 17% of the city's population. Nobody is denying the enthusiasm of those who were in these crowds. The problem is that the great majority of Austrians appear not to have been in them.

Must go.

Sid

[Lamarck]

Sid,

The thread is now on page 13 and you have not once provided a single source or reference for any of your posts. Surprise surprise, you have again refused to provide any sources but instead you have tried to turn the question around. Provide some sources for your claim that it was planned.

Since when did the word "overwhelming" need to be included in the sentences or paragraphs I quoted? Anyone can clearly see by reading them that the approval of the Anschluss was genuine, widespread and approved of by the overwhelming majority of the Austrian people.

Not every single Austrian had to be in the streets welcoming the Germans to mean that he or she approved of the Anschluss. The general consensus among historians is that the plebiscite the Nazis held, although rigged to an unknown degree, reflected the general feeling of the Austrian people in March 1938. Not every single inhabitant of Danzig was out in the streets when the Nazis invaded Poland but the overwhelming majority approved of the annexation of the territory. There is no evidence to the contrary.

Here are some more quotes for you to read:

Contrary to the expressed will of an overwhelming majority of the Austrian population a union of the two German nations was vetoed by the Entente. The victorious powers, by threat of a hunger blockade, prevented a plebiscite on the question of the Anschluss voted for by the Austrian National Assembly on 1 October 1920. Nevertheless some of the provinces carried out such a plebiscite independently, with the result that an overwhelming majority voted for the Anschluss.

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946: Proceedings, p. 360

Dollfuss had held that the Anschluss was merely a matter of time, and in that view he was echoing the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Austrians.

Eugene Davidson, The Unmaking of Adolf Hitler, p. 87

FERDINAND KRONES* "An overwhelming majority of the Austrian population voted for the Anschluss." Today, people claim that Austria was the first victim of Hitler's politics, that Austria was raped by Germany. That's not true. As early as 1919-20, parts of Austria held plebiscites. An overwhelming majority of the population, an average of 95 percent, voted for Anschluss to...

Johannes Steinhoff, Peter Pechel, Voices from the Third Reich: an oral history, p. 95

Two elements are significant here: the spontaneity and extent of Austrians' support for the Reich and actions taken by them to demonstrate that support. It is not enough just to attribute to electoral manipulation the overwhelming Austrian approval of the Anschluss in 1938. Enthusiasm was widespread and genuine.

Stephen J. Lee, European Dictatorships 1918–1945, p. 322

Because even before 1938 most Austrians had become enthusiastic subjects of the German Führer, one cannot possibly talk of Austrian collaboration with Germany; the vast majority of Austrians saw themselves as German nationals and Austria as a group of German provinces that had at last been able to return to the Reich.

Istvan Deak, Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution during World War II, p. 29

The chief cause of the overwhelming Austrian sentiment in favor of the Anschluss came from the post- World War I circumstances in which Austria found itself chronically bankrupt, and dependent on the traditional enemy, Italy, to keep the Nazis from taking power.

Eugene Davidson, The Trial of the Germans: Account of the Twenty-two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, p. 214

Provide some sources that counter these claims. So far all I have read are anecdotal posts from you. Even your so-called refutation of LIFE's conclusion in 1938 that the referendum result was "largely honest" is nothing but your mere opinion.

You're deliberately trying to be awkward by admitting that a majority of Austrians welcomed the Anschluss but an "overwhelming" did not. I have already posted what the word 'overwhelming' can mean and both descriptions are perfectly applicable to the majority of Austrians during the Anschluss.

[Lamarck]

Which proves my point that being German was not the same as wanting to be part of a centralized German state. The same is true of Liechtenstein, which had been part of the German Confederation but opposed efforts to get it to join the Third Reich.

The plebiscites also favoured union with Germany. During the existence of Austria-Hungary, a large amount of Austrians wanted empire to collapse and for Austria to join Germany.

If he thought he was likely to win it without interference, why would he not?

Schussnigg was a dictator and a fascist. How would his referendum have been any fairer? There is clear evidence that his referendum was rigged to favour a majority to vote for his governing of an independent Austria.

Well, as it turned out 5 days were too long, not too short, because the Germans invaded to stop it.

The Germans hardly 'invaded' Austria. The Anschluss was a union between two German states and two countries populated by Germans. The foreign powers didn't threaten anything because no force was needed, the annexation of Austria was welcomed.

This is a military-historical forum, not a fantasy forum. Stick to the known facts rather than inventions or your argument suffers. [/u]We don't know to what degree Schussnigg's plebiscite would have been rigged and, as it never took place, offering any figure for the result is ridiculous.

Practice what you preach. You admit that we would not know the exact result of Schussnigg's plebiscite yet you constantly repeat that a source claims that Schussnigg could have got 66% of the Austrians to vote for him to somehow void the Nazi plebiscite result. Schussnigg's plebiscite would have been no more fairer than the actual Nazi's plebiscite.

The 'free' notion was a load of rubbish, neither Austrian Jews nor Austrian Gypsies would have been any treated any 'fairer' under Schussnigg's rule than Hitler's rule - prejudice against both groups was widespread in Germany.

No its not. Anything over 50% which is outside the statistical margin of error is a clear majority, but it is not necessarily "overwhelming".

It would only require one person in 10 to change their opinion and it would reverse the result!

Yawn yawn yawn. By your own logic, it would take... to change their opinion and reverse the result. What you are constantly repeating is not an argument.

"Every one"? This is more ridiculous hyperbole that doesn't help your case.

62% is an overwhelming majority.

Disputable in detail, but even assuming it was totally true, the Nazis still felt it necessary to invade Austria to ensure they got Anschluss and then rigged the subsequent plebiscite.

Anyone with a basic understanding of how a dictatorship works would know why Hitler and the Nazis wanted to ensure a nigh on 100% approval. The plebiscite result does not invalidate the actual feelings of the majority of Austrians in March 1938.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

You post, "The thread is now on page 13 and you have not once provided a single source or reference for any of your posts. Surprise surprise, you have again refused to provide any sources but instead you have tried to turn the question around. Provide some sources for your claim that it was planned."

I have gone better than sources, I have given you evidence. You are asking us to believe that by sheer coincidence Hitler, much of the senior Nazi leadership, the German Army, the Luftwaffe and many large identical swastika banners appeared spontaneously in central Vienna simultaneously. This is patently ridiculous!

Now, if you dispute any of these points, please tell me which? If you do not believe the Nazis ordered the simultaneous display of numerous very large swastika banners in central Vienna, who are you suggesting put them there? Or don't you believe they were there at all?

Please note, it is you who have to establish that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming" because you are advancing this proposition. I am merely questioning this and it is up to you, not me, to provide some hard sources for your proposition. If you can't (and you haven't yet) it falls.

You post, "Since when did the word "overwhelming" need to be included in the sentences or paragraphs I quoted? Anyone can clearly see by reading them that the approval of the Anschluss was genuine, widespread and approved of by the overwhelming majority of the Austrian people." No it doesn't, because even in Linz, Hitler's home town, is the crowd reported to have been only 60%, and this is clearly not an "overwhelming" majority. In Vienna, the crowd may only have been about 17%. How can this be used to prove "that Anschluss was..... approved of by the overwhelming majority of the Austrian people."?

You post, ".....the plebiscite the Nazis held, although rigged to an unknown degree....." Unknown degree? I have illustrated by reference to the skewed ballot paper, that 100% of the votes were tainted by bias. And this without reference to other evidence. You can't go higher than 100%. The4 whole process was questionable and, far from proving Austrian public opinion, it obscures it.

You post, "Not every single inhabitant of Danzig was out in the streets when the Nazis invaded Poland but the overwhelming majority approved of the annexation of the territory. There is no evidence to the contrary." Yup, and, interestingly, Hitler didn't even bother to hold even a fixed plebiscite in Danzig. By then the usefulness of implausible rigged plebiscites had long gone!

Your quotes,

1) Unknown source, but as you already know I have expressed pretty much the same opinion about the immediate WWI period.

2) You post, "Dollfuss had held that the Anschluss was merely a matter of time, and in that view he was echoing the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Austrians." This says that Anschluss was viewed as inevitable, not necessarily desireable.

3) You post, "An overwhelming majority of the Austrian population voted for the Anschluss." When? In the discredited rigged 1938 Nazi plebiscite that returned a highly implausible 99%+? The rest of the text seems to be talking about post-WWI.

You ask me "Provide some sources that counter these claims." I don't have to. You first have to substantiate them. All appear to be opinion. What are they basing these opinions upon?

You post, "You're deliberately trying to be awkward by admitting that a majority of Austrians welcomed the Anschluss but an "overwhelming" did not." No, I am simply relating the facts so far as the evidence you have so far brought forward here shows.


Sid

[Lamarck]

Sid,

You have not "gone better" but instead you have just posted post after post your opinions and trying to portray them off as facts. You also have frequently refused to answer direct questions (e.g which books you have read that specifically are about the Anschluss).

I asked for evidence that the Nazis planned the crowds and you replied:

I have gone better than sources, I have given you evidence. You are asking us to believe that by sheer coincidence Hitler, much of the senior Nazi leadership, the German Army, the Luftwaffe and many large identical swastika banners appeared spontaneously in central Vienna simultaneously. This is patently ridiculous!

Now, if you dispute any of these points, please tell me which? If you do not believe the Nazis ordered the simultaneous display of numerous very large swastika banners in central Vienna, who are you suggesting put them there? Or don't you believe they were there at all?

My point proven exactly. Now do as you ask of any other member and provide some sources. It's also part of the forum rules to use sources for statements. Every quote I have used I have always provided a cited source.

Regarding what you are claiming, Davidson wrote on pp. 191-192:

Schuschnigg had presented Hitler with the opportunity he had been waiting for. His plebiscite could easily be construed as a breach of the Berchtesgaden agreement he had signed only a few weeks earlier in which he declared his readiness to share respectability and power with pro-Nazis such as Seyss-Inquart and those who professed the National Socialist creed. Now he was demanding the country express its determination unite behind him—for a free, German, independent, social, Christian, and united Austria—to what end if not to break through the Nazi cordon? Even when, under the threat of a German invasion, he called off the plebiscite, the damage was irreversible. Hitler could no longer tolerate Schuschnigg's regime; he ordered Keitel to arrange for army maneuvers between Berchtesgaden and the Austrian border and on March 11 ordered that the strategic and operational plan for invasion be completed by March 12. The OKW, which Keitel headed, had no real general staff with which to carry out a partial mobilization, and it was Beck on whom Hitler had to call to prepare for the march. Schuschnigg for his part could only order Austrian troops not to resist when the Wehrmacht crossed the border.

Beck, with the help of General Fritz von Manstein, had no improvise from scratch in the course of the afternoon and evening of March 10. He performed brilliantly, providing the orders within five hours, and on the whole the operation proceeded smoothly. The troops, supported by plans dropping not bombs but leaflets, were welcomed with rapture by the vast crowds. The photographs of the rejoicing multitudes in the towns and villages of the provinces and in Vienna were not propaganda devices of Goebbels. The Austrians were drunk with the Anschluss, overwhelmed by it once it was underway, and in the future they would provide more than their share of enthusiastic activists in the National Socialist Party and government, including the SS, long after the shouts of jubilation had subsided.

The German army marched past dense throngs of men, women, and children with ecstatic faces and outstretched arms, and the invasion with good reason was christened "the flower war" as the festooned soldiers brought Austria "home into the Reich."

I have already established that an overwhelming majority of the Austrian people supported the Anschluss in 1938. Your problem is that the word "overwhelming" is not valid because of the rigged plebiscite, despite all of the other evidence which has been quoted over and over again. Do you not find it strange that no other member on the forum is disputing the statement that the overwhelming majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss?

The evidence available shows that there were some areas in Austria that the Anschluss was not viewed too favourably but overall the majority of Austrians welcomed and supported the Anschluss. The widespread enthusiasm was genuine.

You wrote:

I have illustrated by reference to the skewed ballot paper, that 100% of the votes were tainted by bias. And this without reference to other evidence. You can't go higher than 100%. The4 whole process was questionable and, far from proving Austrian public opinion, it obscures it.

Bias =/= Rigged

The term 'vote rigging' is not used in context to simply using a bias. The Nazis used a bigger place to tick 'Yes' as opposed to 'No', that is not vote rigging, it is simply using a bias and coercion. Vote rigging is when certain people are banned from voting (e.g in the Anschluss referendums Jews and Gypsies were forbidden from voting), assault, harassment, etc. Technically speaking, there was no interference, Austrians who were eligible to vote were allowed to vote 'No' if he or she wished. I have already quoted two statements which verify that the result was the "largely honest" reflection of the Austrians in 1938. The way the ballot paper looked does not mean that every single vote was rigged.

Can you quote the relevant information that Albert Goering wrote about the difficulty of the Anschluss?

The Anschluss and the annexation of Danzig are separate when it comes to the actual approval. The point I was making was that not every single person had to be in the street to show approval.

Are you just purposely ignoring the quotes which detail quite clearly the mood of the Austrians in 1938?

Of course you have to provide some sources - you are literally claiming that you agree that a 'majority' supported the Anschluss but dispute the term 'overwhelming majority'. How many times do you need to be reminded the actual definition of 'overwhelming'? Both definitions are applicable to the Austrians in 1938.

Davidson wrote...

After the defeat of the Central Powers the Austrian constitution was rewritten to include a clause that declared Austria part of the German Reich. In 1931, in two plebiscites, 90 percent of the voters in Salzburg has voted for union with Germany; the pro-Anschluss figure in the Tirol was 99 percent. Anschluss, union with Germany, had seemed the only hope to the people of the truncated empire deprived of some of its richest farmlands and-with the loss of Bohemia and Moravia to the Czechs-of 70 percent of its industry.

The Austrians clearly voted in the plebiscite by an overwhelming amount in support of the Anschluss. The approval when the German soldiers arrived in Austria confirmed the general feeling of the Austrians in March 1938.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

I think you are confused.

Firstly, I have never refused to answer direct questions.

Secondly, where did you ask about which books I have read that specifically are about the Anschluss?

Thirdly, what does it matter which books I have read? A fact is a fact and a non-fact is a non-fact, whatever book it came from.

Fourthly, We are both agreed that it is probable that a majority of the Austrian population was in favour of the Anschluss at the time of the Nazi plebiscite. We are also agreed that it was rigged.

Fifthly, however, only you are suggesting that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". I am questioning this.

It is therefore up to you, not me, to provide substantive evidence for this proposition. It is not up to me to prove the negative and I am not trying to do so. I am indifferent to the result and am willing to believe anything provided the supporting evidence is strong enough.

The problem is that you are not providing any substantive evidence in support of the "overwhelming" hypothesis, just opinions, sometimes from non-specialist books.

You say, "My point proven exactly." Er, no!

You ask, "Now do as you ask of any other member and provide some sources. It's also part of the forum rules to use sources for statements." Indeed. So I ask yet again, which point do you disagree with that you want me to source ?

That Hitler was present?

That senior Nazis were present?

That the Wehrmacht was present?

That the Luftwaffe was present?

That the streets were festooned with large, identical Nazi banners?

You seem to be suggesting that this was all the purest of coincidences and that the Nazis had no hand in any of it! If not them, then who?

You post, "The troops, supported by plans dropping not bombs but leaflets, were welcomed with rapture by the vast crowds. The photographs of the rejoicing multitudes in the towns and villages of the provinces and in Vienna were not propaganda devices of Goebbels. The Austrians were drunk with the Anschluss, overwhelmed by it once it was underway, and in the future they would provide more than their share of enthusiastic activists in the National Socialist Party and government, including the SS, long after the shouts of jubilation had subsided.

The German army marched past dense throngs of men, women, and children with ecstatic faces and outstretched arms, and the invasion with good reason was christened "the flower war" as the festooned soldiers brought Austria "home into the Reich."

Yes, most Austrians may have been "overwhelmed by it once it was underway". However, this is quite the reverse of there being "overwhelming" support for Anschluss. Being "overwhelmed" is something that happens to one. This formulation of words implies that opinions may have been somewhat different before the event. This supports your earlier source that Schussnigg's proposed independence might have gained 66% support.

But the trouble you have is that these "vast crowds" reportedly only amounted to 60% of the population of Linz, Hitler's own birth place, and around 17% of the population of Vienna. This is hardly overwhelming support, even in Linz!

You post, "I have already established that an overwhelming majority of the Austrian people supported the Anschluss in 1938". If you had, this thread woulkd long since have been over. The problem is that you haven't.

You post, "Your problem is that the word "overwhelming" is not valid because of the rigged plebiscite, despite all of the other evidence which has been quoted over and over again." You are now being dishonest, because I answered this charge previously. The problem you have is that the only hard evidence in support of "overwhelming" support for Anschluss is the rigged plebiscite, which by definition makes its result inadmissable as evidence. Once this id dismissed, you are left with absolutely no hard evidence of "overwhelming" Austrian support for Anschluss, just opinion, and you ignore evidence to the contrary, even when you have (inadvertently?) introduced it yourself.

You ask, "Do you not find it strange that no other member on the forum is disputing the statement that the overwhelming majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss?" No. I find it strange that you support the proposition despite not being able to bring any hard evidence to support it!

Must go,

Sid.

[Lamarck]

Sid,

Of course it matters what material you have read. How else are you going to be able to cite things? Your lack of reading about the subject explains why you have never cited any works in any of your posts.

I'll now ask for the second time, can you post the relevant information that Albert Goering had to say about the difficulty of ticking 'No' in the Anschluss referendum in Austria. You have made reference to him in one of your previous posts but never bothered to quote anything.

So Sid, were the journalists, both German and foreign, lying when they said that the Austrians welcomed Hitler with open arms and that the result was "largely honest"?

Every single bit of evidence that has been provided to support my various statements about the Austrians support for the Anschluss being overwhelmed is never good enough for you. You have simply dismissed evidence, ignored evidence or simply try and turn the question around.

Obviously opinions were different before the Anschluss event. There is clear evidence that even in the 1920s in some parts of Austria over 90 percent of the people in those areas wanted an Anschluss with Germany. I highly doubt that you are going to argue that Germany being led by an Austrian would somehow make the appeal of Austria and Germany united less favourable. On the contrary, as evidence shows, Hitler became more popular than ever and constantly emphasised his Austrian birth to his advantage during the Anschluss.

The Austrian referendums in Austria and Germany were held on 10 April a month after the Germans had annexed Austria. Do you think the Austrians were more or less in favour of the Anschluss a month after the "Ostmark" was proclaimed? In fact, you have raised an important point. You are questioning the referendum results but yet you admit that it's plausible that the majority of Austrians welcomed the Anschluss. Why do you think a month later the Austrians would be less in favour of the Ostmark? Your theory doesn't make any sense.

Are you questioning that an overwhelming majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss prior to the actual event or afterwards?

The other evidence you have simply dismissed.

One example, I gave the evidence of LIFE in 1938 which said that the result was "largely honest", you replied:

In view of this, Life magazine's journalistic opinion that it was "largely honest" is a bit ridiculous!

This type of narrative clearly shows that you are not even interested in reading opinions that are different from your interpretation of the Anschluss. Despite all of the quotes I have posted, nothing will ever be good enough for you to change your mind. It's becoming quite tiresome reading your circular reasoning posts.

You're simply begging the question.

By the way, Linz was not Hitler's birthplace. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

You post, "Of course it matters what material you have read. How else are you going to be able to cite things? Your lack of reading about the subject explains why you have never cited any works in any of your posts."

Wrong. It is you who is proposing that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". It is therefore you who has to provide sources and citations to substantiate this, not me. If someone can pick holes in your proposition in circumstances where they have no sources themselves, it makes it look even weaker!

I am questioning your proposition that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". The fact that I also use some of your own evidence against this proposition may be irritating, but it is entirely legitimate.

It doesn't matter to me one way or the other whether Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". I only want to know what happened and why.

You say it was "overwhelming", but so far the evidence, while plausibly supporting a clear majority, doesn't support "overwhelming".

I will address the rest of your post later.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, here is a little something I found all by myself on my bookshelves. It is on pp.67-70 of the biography Mason-Mac by Ewan Butler (Macmillan, London, 1972). Mason-Mac was Noel Mason-Macfarlane, British military attaché in Berlin, who knew Vienna well. On getting wind of German preparations against Austria, he immediately left Berlin by car, crossed Czechoslovakia and entered Austria

“The small villages near the frontier were already gay with branches of evergreen and home-made swastika flags and Mason-Mac, pausing to talk to the countryfolk, found that they felt no animosity towards the German invaders….. In the industrial centres, however, the feeling was very different.”

He then went on to Vienna where he met military friends and acquaintances in the Nazi camp, including General Muff, (German military attaché?), “There had been anxious moments, he admitted, but in the end the invasion had been a “Bier und Blumenkrieg”….. and he was delighted.”

However, Mason-Mac couldn’t meet those of his friends and acquaintances who were anti-Nazi for fear of putting them at risk.

However, he does record going into a bar with a Swiss friend; “The girl who used to serve there was still on the job. We ordered a round of Ibus, including one for the girl, and with a Prosit all round we started to sample them. Mine bore little resemblance to the drink which I remembered, and I charged the girl with having lost her skill with the shaker. She replied, quite simply: “Don’t you realise that times have changed? You are now drinking a Nazi Ibu, and, like everything Nazi, it is disgusting.” “

Mason-Mac then drove to Linz, through German military traffic. He reached a garage on the outskirts of Linz just before Hitler was due to pass in the opposite direction towards Vienna, so he decided to join the garage staff to watch. “Only a couple of minutes later a couple of large Mercedes, filled with SS bristling with tommy-guns and other lethal weapons, came by; they were closely followed by half a dozen super-cars containing Hitler and his immediate entourage and bodyguard. The garage proprietor and a few of the little knot of spectators which had gathered at the roadside gave the Nazi salute and squawked their “Heil Hitler!”, but the reaction of the majority appeared to be one of fatalistic resignation.”

I think you will agree that by his account Mason-Macfarlane encountered a rather mixed Austrian response to Anscluss – “no hostility” in a country area, a “very different reaction” in urban areas, an instance of hostility in Vienna, and a preponderance of “fatalistic reservation” in a small crowd near Hitler’s birthplace, Linz, even in the transient presence of the Fuhrer himself!

His is not a picture of “overwhelming” Austrian support for Anschluss.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

You are quite right to ask for the source regarding Albert Goering. I originally found it on p.313 of Interrogations by Richard Overy. I have mentioned this before on AHF, but not on this thread. Fortunately, it is quite widely available on the internet. Here is one source:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=suR ... he&f=false

I hope this is of assistance to you, though I am not sure how it helps your case that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming".

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Lamarck,

You ask, "So Sid, were the journalists, both German and foreign, lying when they said that the Austrians welcomed Hitler with open arms and that the result was "largely honest"?

No. Most were probably telling it as they saw it. However, whether the result was "largely honest", we may never know, because the Nazi Anschluss plebiscite was so blatantly rigged.

As I have said to you many times before, a clear majority is plausible. It is your "overwhelming" majority that is not proven.

You post, "Every single bit of evidence that has been provided to support my various statements about the Austrians support for the Anschluss being overwhelmed is never good enough for you." Pretty much true. That is a result of its often poor or contradictory quality.

You post, "You have simply dismissed evidence, ignored evidence or simply try and turn the question around." Not so. I accept much of your evidence. The problem is that it tends not to show what you are claiming for it. For example, how can a source of yours suggesting that 66% of the Austrian population might have supported Schussnigg's independence referendum be used to support the reverse proposition that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming"? What am I meant to do? Ignore it?

You ask, "Are you questioning that an overwhelming majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss prior to the actual event or afterwards?" Both.

You post, "The Austrian referendums in Austria and Germany were held on 10 April a month after the Germans had annexed Austria. Do you think the Austrians were more or less in favour of the Anschluss a month after the "Ostmark" was proclaimed?" How would we ever know, given that that Nazi referendum on the subject was so outrageously rigged? My hunch is that a month after the event, when Anschluss was an established fact that the Nazis would never allow to be reversed regardless of Austrian public opinion, more previously undecided or lukewarm Austrians would have been resigned to it than before. Can I prove it? No.

You say "Your theory doesn't make any sense." What theory? That plausibly a clear majority of Austrians favoured Anschluss?

You are absolutely right that Hitler wasn't born in Linz. He moved to Linz in his childhood and spent from 1898 to 1907 there. It was more accurately the home town of his youth.

Cheers,

Sid

P.S. You quote me as posting, "In view of this, Life magazine's journalistic opinion that it was "largely honest" is a bit ridiculous!" However,, you carefully fail to mention the reason why I said that, which is given in the previous paragraph which you mysteriously omitted. Here it is:

"In view of the rigging, it is not "rather moot compared to the overall feeling of the general Austrian population" because the Nazi plebiscite fails through its limitations to give a reliable impression of "the overall feeling of the general Austrian population". For example, its results disagrees by around 33% (99% v. 66%) with some of the sources you quote."

So yes, in view of this, Life magazine's journalistic opinion that it was "largely honest" is a bit ridiculous!

If you still have doubts, have another look at Albert Goering's experience:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=suR ... he&f=false

[Lamarck]

Hi Sid,

I would like to think that you will agree with me that while it's not correct to simply dismiss Albert Göring's testimony as nonsense, we do need to be careful due to his very openly anti-Nazi views and his comments about Nazi actions. Göring does not say that it was impossible to vote 'No' but that it was more difficult.

Regarding Overy mentioning Göring's testimony, afterwards he does state:

The result of the plebiscite was overwhelming support, 99.08 per cent in favour of union (and within Austria 99.75 per cent). The figures conformed with what Hitler wanted to hear, but the real results from many areas were suppressed. The lowest 'yes' vote was 68 per cent in one constituency, and others recorded actual votes of 70 or 80 per cent. Even these figures, however, reflected a widespread approval of Hitler's policy and marked the highest point of his popularity in the pre-war years.

We have both agreed that the Austrians enthusiasm changed at various times. Before the actual Anschluss in March 1938, it is more than likely the case that a majority but not necessarily an enthusiastic and overwhelming majority welcomed the Anschluss. Although evidence does show that in some areas the overwhelming majority did support the Anschluss, especially after 1918.

However, even though it's clear the plebiscite was rigged, given the events that happened between the month between the Anschluss proclamation and the plebiscite, I don't see how you can disagree with the quote by Stephen J. Lee in his book European Dictatorships 1918–1945, p.322:

It is not enough just to attribute to electoral manipulation the overwhelming Austrian approval of the Anschluss in 1938. Enthusiasm was widespread and genuine.

[ljadw]

Hi Lamarck,

You post, "Of course it matters what material you have read. How else are you going to be able to cite things? Your lack of reading about the subject explains why you have never cited any works in any of your posts."

Wrong. It is you who is proposing that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". It is therefore you who has to provide sources and citations to substantiate this, not me. If someone can pick holes in your proposition in circumstances where they have no sources themselves, it makes it look even weaker!

I am questioning your proposition that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". The fact that I also use some of your own evidence against this proposition may be irritating, but it is entirely legitimate.

It doesn't matter to me one way or the other whether Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming". I only want to know what happened and why.

You say it was "overwhelming", but so far the evidence, while plausibly supporting a clear majority, doesn't support "overwhelming".

I will address the rest of your post later.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, here is a little something I found all by myself on my bookshelves. It is on pp.67-70 of the biography Mason-Mac by Ewan Butler (Macmillan, London, 1972). Mason-Mac was Noel Mason-Macfarlane, British military attaché in Berlin, who knew Vienna well. On getting wind of German preparations against Austria, he immediately left Berlin by car, crossed Czechoslovakia and entered Austria

“The small villages near the frontier were already gay with branches of evergreen and home-made swastika flags and Mason-Mac, pausing to talk to the countryfolk, found that they felt no animosity towards the German invaders….. In the industrial centres, however, the feeling was very different.”

He then went on to Vienna where he met military friends and acquaintances in the Nazi camp, including General Muff, (German military attaché?), “There had been anxious moments, he admitted, but in the end the invasion had been a “Bier und Blumenkrieg”….. and he was delighted.”

However, Mason-Mac couldn’t meet those of his friends and acquaintances who were anti-Nazi for fear of putting them at risk.

However, he does record going into a bar with a Swiss friend; “The girl who used to serve there was still on the job. We ordered a round of Ibus, including one for the girl, and with a Prosit all round we started to sample them. Mine bore little resemblance to the drink which I remembered, and I charged the girl with having lost her skill with the shaker. She replied, quite simply: “Don’t you realise that times have changed? You are now drinking a Nazi Ibu, and, like everything Nazi, it is disgusting.” “

Mason-Mac then drove to Linz, through German military traffic. He reached a garage on the outskirts of Linz just before Hitler was due to pass in the opposite direction towards Vienna, so he decided to join the garage staff to watch. “Only a couple of minutes later a couple of large Mercedes, filled with SS bristling with tommy-guns and other lethal weapons, came by; they were closely followed by half a dozen super-cars containing Hitler and his immediate entourage and bodyguard. The garage proprietor and a few of the little knot of spectators which had gathered at the roadside gave the Nazi salute and squawked their “Heil Hitler!”, but the reaction of the majority appeared to be one of fatalistic resignation.”

I think you will agree that by his account Mason-Macfarlane encountered a rather mixed Austrian response to Anscluss – “no hostility” in a country area, a “very different reaction” in urban areas, an instance of hostility in Vienna, and a preponderance of “fatalistic reservation” in a small crowd near Hitler’s birthplace, Linz, even in the transient presence of the Fuhrer himself!

His is not a picture of “overwhelming” Austrian support for Anschluss.

Cheers,

Sid.

Did Macfarlane speak German ?

And was it not the same Macfarlane who proposed to London to send someone to kill Hitler ?

The seriousness and neutrality of Macfarlane can be questioned .

"The reaction of the majority appeared to be one of fatalistic resignation " is a very feeble argument .