Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

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Lamarck
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#256

Post by Lamarck » 28 Mar 2018, 18:08

Certainly Bukey is not the only source, but it was you who touted him as the best.
Indeed and just because he doesn't use the words "overwhelming majority" he clearly shows throughout the book the general feeling of the Austrians.
Firstly, in questioning your proposition that Austrian support for Anschluss was "overwhelming", I don't have to provide evidence against it. You are proposing it, so you have to provide evidence for it, if challenged. I am perfectly content that a clear majority of Austrians were in favour of it and this would have been enough, if properly consulted, to justify the Anschluss project. What I am questioning is your more extreme claim that it was "overwhelming". I will happily accept "overwhelming" if only you could come up with some hard evidence.
Every single bit of evidence given to you has been either dismissed or ignored. Forget any plebiscite result, look at the way the Austrians behaved when actual Wehrmacht soldiers crossed the border. Were there any signs of disapproval? Not a single bit. On the contrary, the actual attitude of the Austrians made Hitler change his mind about the future of Austria.

You keep saying you will be okay to use the word 'overwhelming' after "hard evidence" has been provided. What hard evidence is enough for you?

Do you have any problems with the use of a "substantial majority" approved of the Anschluss?
Secondly, Bukey has not demonstrated "without any question a majority of Austrians approved of the Anschluss". Read the bit where he talks about not knowing how many tears were shed privately indoors. You have a propensity for making more extreme statements than the evidence allows, ("overwhelming", "without any question") without nuance or subtlety. Bukey has demonstrated, convincingly, as has pretty much every one else with any expertise it would appear, that a majority of Austrians approved of the Anschluss. However, even he doesn't claim his opinions are "without any question".
The overwhelming majority of Germans supported Hitler and the Nazis. Did many cry tears, especially once WW2 was announced or in 1945? Of course they did. And? Bukey wrote that the "overwhelming majority" of Austrians approved overall of the Nazis' policies. A person can easily argue the Austrians were fiercely more anti-semitic than the Reich Germans. There are plenty of other sources that do indeed use the word 'overwhelming'.
Let's just move on from this time-wasteing, shall we?
Stop being a wind-up merchant Sid.
And if he had such absolute power, why didn't his plebiscite go ahead?
Hitler's decision to stop that might have had something do with it.

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Lamarck
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#257

Post by Lamarck » 28 Mar 2018, 23:10

Mark Allinson, Germany and Austria 1814-2000, on p. 110:
Though Austria did not have to cope with partition between the superpowers after the war, the national socialist past has cast a shadow over the country, just as in Germany. The Austrian state, and much of the country's population, have consistently attempted to ignore responsibility for the Nazi era by maintaining that Austria was the first victim of German aggression and simply did not exist between 1938 and 1945. This explanation ignores Austrians' participation in the structures of the Drittes Reich and their overwhelming support for the Anschluss in 1938. Denazification was relatively unsuccessful in Austria, undermined as early as the late 1940s by the political parties' interest in obscuring their own forerunners' part in the transformation of the Erste Republik into a protofascist state. Instead the major political parties enabled most former NSDAP members to resume their posts throughout public life.
Ian Kershaw in his book Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis on p. 65 wrote at the beginning of the section about the Anschluss how Hitler changed the idea of the Anschluss:
The idea of union (or Anschluß) with Germany now became far more appealing and was overwhelmingly supported in plebiscites in the early 1920s. Hitler's rise to power in Germany changed this. It accentuated the already acute divisions between socialists, pan-Germans, and Catholic-conservatives (with their own Austrian-nationalist brand of fascism). Only for the pan-Germans, by now entirely sucked into the Austrian Nazi Movement, was an Anschluß with Hitler's Germany an attractive proposition.
Already noted is that many prominent political opponents, predominantly socialists, actually supported the Anschluss.

Another important thing to note is that although Gestapo reports showed less than 100% approval in Vienna, F. Parkinsonon in his book Conquering the Past: Austrian Nazism Yesterday & Today on p. 152 wrote:
It is, of course, well known that the Anschluss of 1938 unleashed a torrent of enthusiasm for Nazism in Vienna that overwhelmed contemporary observers (including Hitler) and to this day has not been adequately explained.


Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#258

Post by Sid Guttridge » 03 Apr 2018, 18:06

Hi Lamarck,

You post something that requires clarification before this conversation goes any further.

You write, “Plebiscites in various areas of Austria in 1918 tell us that up to 99% of Austrians wanted to be part of Germany. Why do you think this would have went any further down between 1918 and 1938? If anything, a native Austrian leading Germany would have made it more widespread in Austria.

This would appear to be a defence of the rigged Nazi plebiscite result.

Are you saying that it is your belief that the 99%+ result of the Nazi plebiscite in 1938 was a fully accurate representation of Austrian public will?

I would be grateful if you could address this post separately, before moving on to my next, which follows immediately.

Cheers,

Sid

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#259

Post by Sid Guttridge » 03 Apr 2018, 18:17

Hi Lamarck,

To continue:

You post, “The reason that Germans lived in different states prior to that date was because there was no "Germany" as a country.” Exactly. Just because one is German and identifies as such, doesn’t mean one has to be part of one overarching German state, or even want to be. The default position for Germans over the last 2,000 years at least has been to live in multiple German polities. The ideological obsession with a unitary German state with a full range of national institutions ruling all Germans is a very recent one.

You post, “I have said that Bukey is arguably the most researched book about the Anschluss in 1938. I do have other books that are specifically about the Anschluss and will copy and paste some material in the not too distant future. Many sources are going to contradict each other when there was no complete impartiality.

Firstly, as I have said repeatedly before, Bukey, your “arguably the best researched book about the Anschluss”, nowhere says that support for Anschluss was “overwhelming”. Indeed, he is cautious and says at the top of p.33 “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.

Secondly, in writing, “Many sources are going to contradict each other when there was no complete impartiality”, you are, once again, repeating my point for me. Given this, how can you be so certain that Austrian support for Anschluss was “overwhelming” if the sources are contradictory? The only way to do this would to be to cherry pick your sources by ignoring those that disagree with your “overwhelming” thesis. (In your defence, much of the material I have used to question your “overwhelming” thesis has been supplied by you.)

You post, “A "percentage" (e.g 75% or higher) of approval and "overwhelming" do not necessarily need to be interchangeable, it depends on how the latter word is used.” Again, you want to cherry-pick a definition that suits your preference by ignoring the true enormity of what “overwhelming” actually means. I would remind you that you supplied two percentage examples of “overwhelming”, one of which was at 83.3% and the other at 92%. “Overwhelming” does not simply mean “large”.

You post, “You agree that Austrian would have "largely" voted "Yes" for the Anschluss in 1938 without the Nazis but you dislike the use of "overwhelming"? Interesting.” Not just “interesting”, but about as far as the evidence so far takes us.

You ask, “…..so because there is no impartial plebiscite result there is no proof that an overwhelming majority of Austrians approved of the Anschluss?” Pretty much. Don’t forget that there were no national opinion polls either. So what, beyond opinion and anecdote, are you relying on in support of the fairly extreme position that support for Anschluss, all other things being equal, was “overwhelming”?

So I repeat, “…..how large the margin was in favour of Anschluss is so far impossible to establish through lack of hard evidence. In the absence of this, it is not safe, or even necessary, to say more than that there was plausibly a clear majority of Austrians in favour of Anschluss. This is quite enough to legitimise the process.

You post, “There is no evidence for the exact percentage of the Austrians approval of the Anschluss.” Yup. There is just a variety of (as you admit) contradictory, more or less expert, opinions from which you appear to be cherry-picking just one set to support your “overwhelming” hypothesis.

You post, “The reason I am more inclined to believe the idea that 80% of the Austrian population approved of the Anschluss is when one analyses all of the available evidence then it is quite clearly to any observer that the Austrians in overwhelming numbers enhanced the annexing of Austria to the Reich.” No there isn’t. Might I remind you that you offered a contradictory opinion above: “Many sources are going to contradict each other when there was no complete impartiality.

You go on to say, “There is not a single bit of evidence that there was any sort of rejection of the idea by any marginal numbers of Austrians, neither in the month between the Anschluss and the referendum…..” If Austrians were so entirely in agreement, why did the Nazis use a 100,000 man occupation army, a security police contingent of 40,000 men, arrest tens of thousands of Austrian opponents, exclude others from the voting process, purge the upper echelons of government services, lower the voting age, bribe the electorate, rig the voting process in several ways, etc., etc.? There was no resistance by the Germans at Stalingrad on 3 February 1943. By your rationale, this would be evidence that the 90,000 prisoners taken by the Red Army were happy with their condition! This is a wilfully silly rationale!

You post, “According to you, every historian that has written an 'overwhelming' amount of Austrians approval of the Anschluss is "extreme"?” Really? Where did I write that? I don’t mind honest debate, but blatant misrepresentations like this need to be called out. I have never called any historian “extreme” on this thread (and quite possibly not anywhere else, either). I would suggest that a retraction from you would seem to be in order here.

I think I know what you are trying to say, but I will let you dig yourself out of this hole of your own making. Perhaps you would care to rephrase your point?

When I posted, “A case against the Nazi plebiscite can very easily made without any reference to Schussnigg's plebiscite at all.” You replied, “Not at all”. I have been making that case repeatedly, but to do so yet again, “why did the Nazis use a 100,000 man occupation army, a security police contingent of 40,000 men, arrest tens of thousands of Austrian opponents, exclude others from the voting process, purge the upper echelons of government services, lower the voting age, bribe the electorate, rig the voting process in several ways, etc., etc.?See? No reference to Schussnigg at all!!!!

You haven’t actually addressed this post of mine: “If you are referring only to the ballot papers as printed, the Nazi paper, while skewed, certainly appears fairer than the Schussnigg plebiscite. However, it should be noted that according to your earlier post, anyone could turn up with a piece of blank paper of the right size and vote "No" under the Schussnigg plebiscite rules outlined by you, which might also give infinite scope for multiple "No" votes. By contrast, the number of "Yes" papers was limited to those printed. Furthermore, as you know, the posting of the ballot papers were only the end result of a much larger electoral process, in which, I would suggest, the Nazi plebiscite comes off rather worse than Schussnigg's as far as bias is concerned.

You post, “I find it also eerie I was able to find a copy of Schuschnigg's proposed ballot paper with relative ease yet according to you you that was the first time you had seen one.” What is “eerie” about that? I have had several discussions about the Anschluss plebiscites over the last twenty years on AHF and Feldgrau and never once have I found a Schussnigg plebiscite paper before. Please check. Nor is it readily available on Google Images, etc. As I have already said to you publicly, I am very grateful for you finding an illustration and am happy to acknowledge your success in doing so. However, this does not give you the right to question my integrity on the matter. This discussion has so far been pretty instructive. Please don’t spoil your hard work by such dubious tactics. If you have a case, it should be able to stand on its own merits.

You post, “Have you not thought that the actual percentage differences (presumably between a Schussnigg 75% and a Nazi 99%+ result) could have been because of the actual Austrians approval of the Anschluss?” Yes I have. However, apart from the Nazis, and apparently you(?), nobody else seems to give any credibility to the 99% figure. Everyone seems agreed at the very least that there was plausibly a clear majority of Austrians in favour of Anschluss. The question here is whether it was “overwhelming”.

You post, “If a Nazi plebiscite had been held on the same date as Schuschnigg's desired plebiscite then the result approval would probably have been lower and more closer to 75% (which still coincides with the use of 'overwhelming')” Yup. That is plausible. My longstanding question here is which side of the “75%” threshold it would fall in a free and fair plebiscite?

You post, “As already explained, the actual rigging wasn't even necessary….” Yup, I have already suggested this myself several times. Indeed, I would go further - the rigging was probably never necessary at all in order to achieve a majority in favour of Anschluss. It was only necessary to achieve an overwhelming majority bigger than that in the Saarland in order to make it look as though the Nazi project was still gaining in relative popularity.

You add, “…..because a month after the Anschluss Austrians were reaping the rewards for the annexation of Austria economically and socially.” I presume you are here referring to the bribery of the electorate with German goodies mentioned by Bukey on p.35 and the exclusion of the Jews, neither of which are directly related to the principle of Anschluss?

You go on, “Also, if both were held on the same date and just simply looking at the ballot papers alone, the Nazi ballot paper was….. fairer.” Yup, quite possibly - if you are simply looking at the ballot papers alone. However, as every single ballot paper in the Nazi plebiscite was flawed in its own way anyway, this doesn’t say a lot. Furthermore it totally ignores all the other flaws in the Nazi plebiscite (the Nazis use of a 100,000 man occupation army, a security police contingent of 40,000 men, arrests of tens of thousands of Austrian opponents, excluding others from the voting process, purging the upper echelons of government services, lowering the voting age, bribing the electorate, rigging the voting process in several ways, etc., etc.) most of which were not available to Schussnigg. Again you are cherry-picking one point to the exclusion of all else.

You post, “Indeed and just because he (Bukey) doesn't use the words "overwhelming majority" he clearly shows throughout the book the general feeling of the Austrians.” Yup, he does but he is nuanced in a way that you are not admitting. I refer, yet again to his, “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.” If Bukey doesn’t say Austrian support for Anschluss was “overwhelming” (a word he uses in different contexts elsewhere in the book, incidentally) and is qualified in his phraseology regarding numbers, you cannot honestly use him to support your thesis.

You post, “Every single bit of evidence given to you has been either dismissed or ignored.” The trouble is that you are not offering quantifiable evidence, just cherry-picked impressions and opinions and for every impression or opinion you offer, there is a contradictory one.

You say, “Forget any plebiscite result, look at the way the Austrians behaved when actual Wehrmacht soldiers crossed the border. Were there any signs of disapproval? Not a single bit.” Again, you are presuming that Austrian civilians felt free to protest publicly when not only faced by a fully armed military invasion but surrounded by local Nazi thugs who had already proven themselves more than willing to shed Austrian-German blood in 1934 and a Nazi Party that recognized no legitimate opposition in the Alt Reich. You seem to think that the Nazis were liberal democrats tolerant of loyal opposition – they weren’t.

Yet again I would remind you of what Bukey wrote, “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.”. I would also remind you that, according to Bukey (p.29), in Linz, the hometown of Hitler’s youth, the crowd that welcomed him was “between 60,00 and 80,000”, which only sounds impressive until one learns that this was only 30-40% of the city’s population. Furthermore, on p.31 he says that “more than a quarter of a million people packed the inner city” of Vienna, many of whom came from outside the capital. Again, this sounds impressive until one learns that the population of Vienna was about 1,700,000! Perhaps we should regard staying at home an act of passive resistance?

You ask, “Do you have any problems with the use of a "substantial majority" approved of the Anschluss?” Nope, so long as you insert a word of qualification before “approved”. As you agree, we are not dealing with hard facts here, and so have to be somewhat qualified in our opinions.

You post, “The overwhelming majority of Germans supported Hitler and the Nazis.” When? Certainly not in any free and fair elections before 1933, and there were none in Nazi Germany after that. The Nazis never got a majority in any public elections and never risked free elections even in the late 1930s when they very probably had a significant majority.

You post, “There are plenty of other sources that do indeed use the word 'overwhelming'.” I have no reason to doubt you, but you are taking some time in producing them, which does not help your case.

I sometimes wonder if you read what you post. This is from your Kershaw quote, “Only for the pan-Germans, by now entirely sucked into the Austrian Nazi Movement, was an Anschluß with Hitler's Germany an attractive proposition.” As far as I am aware, nobody has yet suggested that Nazis formed a majority of the Austrian population, let alone an “overwhelming” majority.

I would note that you repeatedly refer to the immediate aftermath of WWI, when Austrian national self-confidence was at its lowest, and to 1939-45, when Austria was embroiled in war. I would remind you that we are discussing 1938. As I have posted many times before, it is clear that support for Anschluss, which was very high after WWI, declined in the 1920s and 1930s and several Austrian political parties dropped it from their political programmes in those years. And once into WWII what choice did Austrians have but to support Germany, given that not to do so would have been treasonous and punishable by death?

You post, “Already noted is that many prominent political opponents, predominantly socialists, actually supported the Anschluss.” Yes, once the Nazis had leaned on them after military occupation. (Incidentally, the Nazi plebiscite came after the Nazis had already legislated Anschluss. The plebiscite merely retrospectively confirmed a fait accompli.) In the 1920s they had also been in favour of Anschluss but had dropped it from their platforms in the 1930s. This all goes to evidence that Austrian political opinion was changeable, not fixed, and therefore not likely to be “overwhelming” in any direction.

You quote, “It is, of course, well known that the Anschluss of 1938 unleashed a torrent of enthusiasm for Nazism in Vienna that overwhelmed contemporary observers (including Hitler) and to this day has not been adequately explained.” And yet the crowd in Vienna doing this “overwhelming” is put by Bukey at only about 250,000, which is about 15% of the city’s population. It is easy to see why contemporary observers might be “overwhelmed” by a crowd of 250,000, but those 250,000 don’t necessarily demonstrate “overwhelming” support for Nazism by the population of Vienna. Indeed, the massive absenteeism might well show exactly the opposite – a combination of overwhelming opposition and/or indifference to the Nazis!

I would remind you again of my football analogy. A very large and enthusiastic crowd might turn out to watch, say, a winning Arsenal team tour the FA Cup through the streets of London, but this very large crowd would not represent the overwhelming views of Londoners as a whole, because most of them support other teams. Such crowds are self-selecting, not representative. That is why minority pro-Anschluss crowd reaction in Linz or Vienna cannot be paraded as necessarily representative of the majority who stayed away. As Bukey says, “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.

Enough for now,

Cheers,

Sid.

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Lamarck
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#260

Post by Lamarck » 03 Apr 2018, 18:45

Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi Lamarck,

You post something that requires clarification before this conversation goes any further.

You write, “Plebiscites in various areas of Austria in 1918 tell us that up to 99% of Austrians wanted to be part of Germany. Why do you think this would have went any further down between 1918 and 1938? If anything, a native Austrian leading Germany would have made it more widespread in Austria.

This would appear to be a defence of the rigged Nazi plebiscite result.

Are you saying that it is your belief that the 99%+ result of the Nazi plebiscite in 1938 was a fully accurate representation of Austrian public will?

I would be grateful if you could address this post separately, before moving on to my next, which follows immediately.

Cheers,

Sid
The idea that support for the Anschluss somehow diminished between 1918 and 1938 is utter claptrap. Plebiscites taken after the end of WW1 demonstrate that in Tyrol and Salzburg there were over 98% and 99% of Austrians wanting an Anschluss with Germany. Austria was renamed "Republic of German-Austria" and the Austrian Social Democrat Karl Renner declared it as part of the German Republic.

I advise you to read Mary Margaret Ball's Post-war German-Austrian Relations: The Anschluss Movement, 1918-1936 for further information on the topic of the Anschluss during the interwar period.

I would say that the Nazi plebiscite represented for the most part an accurate representation of the Austrian public will. Journalists also confirm this and it is in dozens of books, there is clear evidence that a clear majority of Austrians between 1918 and 1938 supported the Anschluss.

Whenever I read such posts from you I always get this feeling that you are somehow confusing support for the Anschluss and support for the Nazis. I have already explained to you that the Austrians supported the Anschluss for a variety of reasons, including both economically and nationalist.

You always seem to be arguing from the case that Hitler was bad and Schuschnigg was good therefore I will easily dismiss the former's plebiscite result. Furthermore, the Austrians openly demonstrated when the German troops crossed the border that most welcomed the Anschluss, which is why it is reasonable to assume that after a month the actual plebiscite result did reflect the general attitude of the Austrians.

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#261

Post by Lamarck » 03 Apr 2018, 18:57

Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi Lamarck,

To continue:

You post, “The reason that Germans lived in different states prior to that date was because there was no "Germany" as a country.” Exactly. Just because one is German and identifies as such, doesn’t mean one has to be part of one overarching German state, or even want to be. The default position for Germans over the last 2,000 years at least has been to live in multiple German polities. The ideological obsession with a unitary German state with a full range of national institutions ruling all Germans is a very recent one.
Do you have any sources to support that this idea is a "very recent one"? If you bothered to research this you would know that it's actually the opposite today, there is no mainstream political party in Austria or Germany advocating for the Anschluss or the unification of all ethnic Germans.

The idea of a Greater Germany to unite all Germans under one nation-state became the prime topic of all affairs in both Austria and Germany after Austria was excluded from Germany in 1866. During the existence of Austria-Hungary, Austrian pan-Germans hoped for the empire to collapse so that German-Austria could be united with the German Reich. The German nationality law in 1913 allowed only those of German descent to be Reich citizens. After WW1 the inhabitants of "German-Austria" had desired to join Germany but the victors forbid the union. This explains why there were sudden bursts of enthusiasm in many parts of Austria during the Anschluss when the native Austrian Hitler annexed Austria.

The idea of Pan-Germanism is the unification of all Germans in a single nation-state known as Großdeutschland was the key to German politics since the mid 19th century.
Firstly, as I have said repeatedly before, Bukey, your “arguably the best researched book about the Anschluss”, nowhere says that support for Anschluss was “overwhelming”. Indeed, he is cautious and says at the top of p.33 “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.
Nice cherry-picking... the next sentence "Among the millions of photographs taken during the Anschluss, only a single snapshot of an unhappy face has come to light." Does that not tell you something? :?
Secondly, in writing, “Many sources are going to contradict each other when there was no complete impartiality”, you are, once again, repeating my point for me. Given this, how can you be so certain that Austrian support for Anschluss was “overwhelming” if the sources are contradictory? The only way to do this would to be to cherry pick your sources by ignoring those that disagree with your “overwhelming” thesis. (In your defence, much of the material I have used to question your “overwhelming” thesis has been supplied by you.)
The idea that Austria was a victim of the Third Reich was believed by many authors. There is as far as I know, no historian out there that claims less than a majority supported the Anschluss.
You post, “A "percentage" (e.g 75% or higher) of approval and "overwhelming" do not necessarily need to be interchangeable, it depends on how the latter word is used.” Again, you want to cherry-pick a definition that suits your preference by ignoring the true enormity of what “overwhelming” actually means. I would remind you that you supplied two percentage examples of “overwhelming”, one of which was at 83.3% and the other at 92%. “Overwhelming” does not simply mean “large”.
I don't normally get personal and generally avoid personal attacks at all costs. However, you quite clearly do not have the ability to comprehend that many words have different meanings and can be used in a wide range of contexts. There is not a single definition of 'overwhelming' that cannot be applied to the Austrians in 1938.
You ask, “…..so because there is no impartial plebiscite result there is no proof that an overwhelming majority of Austrians approved of the Anschluss?” Pretty much. Don’t forget that there were no national opinion polls either. So what, beyond opinion and anecdote, are you relying on in support of the fairly extreme position that support for Anschluss, all other things being equal, was “overwhelming”?
There does not need to be any plebiscites for the use of 'overwhelming'. If I were to make a statement along the lines of "every single Austrian supported the Anschluss" then I would have to demonstrate that by a poll, survey, plebiscite, etc. However, the use of 'overwhelming' is simply being used in the context that a clear majority approved and enthusiastically welcomed of the Anschluss.

This also begs the question, you ask for "hard evidence" to change your mind yet you're asking for something that according to you is not there.
So I repeat, “…..how large the margin was in favour of Anschluss is so far impossible to establish through lack of hard evidence. In the absence of this, it is not safe, or even necessary, to say more than that there was plausibly a clear majority of Austrians in favour of Anschluss. This is quite enough to legitimise the process.
I hardly doubt a linguist is going to argue there is a difference between "clear majority" and "overwhelming" (in the right contexts). You're simply splitting hairs.
You post, “There is no evidence for the exact percentage of the Austrians approval of the Anschluss.” Yup. There is just a variety of (as you admit) contradictory, more or less expert, opinions from which you appear to be cherry-picking just one set to support your “overwhelming” hypothesis.
Once you comprehend how the use of 'overwhelming' can be used in various contexts then maybe you wouldn't have even bothered wasting your time stating this repetitive nonsense.

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#262

Post by Lamarck » 03 Apr 2018, 19:20

You post, “The reason I am more inclined to believe the idea that 80% of the Austrian population approved of the Anschluss is when one analyses all of the available evidence then it is quite clearly to any observer that the Austrians in overwhelming numbers enhanced the annexing of Austria to the Reich.” No there isn’t. Might I remind you that you offered a contradictory opinion above: “Many sources are going to contradict each other when there was no complete impartiality.
Except no sources confirm that less than a substantial majority of Austrians welcomed the Anschluss. However, some sources question the actual true percentage.
You go on to say, “There is not a single bit of evidence that there was any sort of rejection of the idea by any marginal numbers of Austrians, neither in the month between the Anschluss and the referendum…..” If Austrians were so entirely in agreement, why did the Nazis use a 100,000 man occupation army, a security police contingent of 40,000 men, arrest tens of thousands of Austrian opponents, exclude others from the voting process, purge the upper echelons of government services, lower the voting age, bribe the electorate, rig the voting process in several ways, etc., etc.? There was no resistance by the Germans at Stalingrad on 3 February 1943. By your rationale, this would be evidence that the 90,000 prisoners taken by the Red Army were happy with their condition! This is a wilfully silly rationale!
I have a genuine question, are you autistic? I am sick of repeating myself when it is quite simply not registering with you.

How were those German soldiers welcomed? The Austrians welcomed those soldiers as liberators not as invaders.

No Austrian "opponents" were arrested during the initial crossing over the border and Hitler himself was shocked at the actual large approval.

We have already been through the various ways the plebiscite was rigged. Only a minority of Austrians were excluded from the plebiscite.

I did enjoy your apples to oranges analogy except that fails on so many different levels. I think this also exposes your lack of comprehension about the actual Anschluss. Remember, you admitted you had never even seen a single Schuschnigg ballot paper before I showed you, haha!
You post, “According to you, every historian that has written an 'overwhelming' amount of Austrians approval of the Anschluss is "extreme"?” Really? Where did I write that? I don’t mind honest debate, but blatant misrepresentations like this need to be called out. I have never called any historian “extreme” on this thread (and quite possibly not anywhere else, either). I would suggest that a retraction from you would seem to be in order here.
You directed the "extreme" accusation at me but I am simply going by the evidence available from various different sources. Are all of those authors that use the exact words "overwhelming majority" extreme? How is my opinion any different from their opinions?

You are not interested in an "honest debate" in the slightest. You constantly repeat yourself, ask for evidence that is not there e.g you always say something along the lines of "show me hard evidence". I have asked you many times - what hard evidence is sufficient enough for you?
When I posted, “A case against the Nazi plebiscite can very easily made without any reference to Schussnigg's plebiscite at all.” You replied, “Not at all”. I have been making that case repeatedly, but to do so yet again, “why did the Nazis use a 100,000 man occupation army, a security police contingent of 40,000 men, arrest tens of thousands of Austrian opponents, exclude others from the voting process, purge the upper echelons of government services, lower the voting age, bribe the electorate, rig the voting process in several ways, etc., etc.?See? No reference to Schussnigg at all!!!!
I was referring to the ballot papers alone. Do you have serious comprehension problems or something? Do not take what I say out of context.
You haven’t actually addressed this post of mine: “If you are referring only to the ballot papers as printed, the Nazi paper, while skewed, certainly appears fairer than the Schussnigg plebiscite. However, it should be noted that according to your earlier post, anyone could turn up with a piece of blank paper of the right size and vote "No" under the Schussnigg plebiscite rules outlined by you, which might also give infinite scope for multiple "No" votes. By contrast, the number of "Yes" papers was limited to those printed. Furthermore, as you know, the posting of the ballot papers were only the end result of a much larger electoral process, in which, I would suggest, the Nazi plebiscite comes off rather worse than Schussnigg's as far as bias is concerned.
Here comes your analogy of "Hitler was bad and Schuschnigg was good therefore I have to try my best to try and convince everyone that the former's was much more fair to the Austrians". What utter nonsense and you know it.

Where is there any reference as to how many "Yes" papers could be printed? Schuschnigg, like Hitler, had no intention of letting the Austrian public state anything contrary to his opinion.

Also, I am curious as to what you meant by "the posting of the ballot papers were only the end result of a much larger electoral process"?

Another distinction is that the cocky Schuschnigg was confident that the Austrians were largely in favour of him even though he had to rig his proposed plebiscite. Hitler was more reasonable and was not entirely sure of the Austrian mood, although he was fairly confident a majority were in favour of the Anschluss, this was only confirmed once the Anschluss happened. Remember, it was the actual Austrians approval that prompted him to change the future of Austria.

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#263

Post by Lamarck » 03 Apr 2018, 19:34

You post, “I find it also eerie I was able to find a copy of Schuschnigg's proposed ballot paper with relative ease yet according to you you that was the first time you had seen one.” What is “eerie” about that? I have had several discussions about the Anschluss plebiscites over the last twenty years on AHF and Feldgrau and never once have I found a Schussnigg plebiscite paper before. Please check. Nor is it readily available on Google Images, etc. As I have already said to you publicly, I am very grateful for you finding an illustration and am happy to acknowledge your success in doing so. However, this does not give you the right to question my integrity on the matter. This discussion has so far been pretty instructive. Please don’t spoil your hard work by such dubious tactics. If you have a case, it should be able to stand on its own merits.
I typed into Google "Schuschnigg Anschluss 1938 ballot" and found it straightaway! :D Also, if you knew a reasonable amount of German you could have found it without too much hassle. :milwink:
You post, “Have you not thought that the actual percentage differences (presumably between a Schussnigg 75% and a Nazi 99%+ result) could have been because of the actual Austrians approval of the Anschluss?” Yes I have. However, apart from the Nazis, and apparently you(?), nobody else seems to give any credibility to the 99% figure. Everyone seems agreed at the very least that there was plausibly a clear majority of Austrians in favour of Anschluss. The question here is whether it was “overwhelming”.
I don't think that 99% was a genuine result, I have admitted this dozens of times. However, I believe that Roderick Stackelberg's is accurate in his book Hitler's Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies when he wrote on p. 203:
What Bismarck had failed to accomplish in 1871, Hitler achieved without firing a shot. His popularity soared to new heights. A plebiscite throughout the new Greater Reich approved the Anschlussby 99 per cent. While this vote was obviously skewed by government pressures and the absence of a true secret ballot, there can be no doubt but that Anschluss enjoyed overwhelming popular support.
You post, “If a Nazi plebiscite had been held on the same date as Schuschnigg's desired plebiscite then the result approval would probably have been lower and more closer to 75% (which still coincides with the use of 'overwhelming')” Yup. That is plausible. My longstanding question here is which side of the “75%” threshold it would fall in a free and fair plebiscite?
More than likely the Nazis, especially given that even political enemies were in favour of the Anschluss. However, there is no point wasting anymore time about something that is always just going to be pure speculation.
You post, “As already explained, the actual rigging wasn't even necessary….” Yup, I have already suggested this myself several times. Indeed, I would go further - the rigging was probably never necessary at all in order to achieve a majority in favour of Anschluss. It was only necessary to achieve an overwhelming majority bigger than that in the Saarland in order to make it look as though the Nazi project was still gaining in relative popularity.
I think you should learn to make a clear distinction between support for the Anschluss and support for the Nazis! The Nazis managed to gain a majority of Austrians in support of the Anschluss (with or without the Nazis the Austrians were in favour of the idea) but never managed to win over the majority of Austrians.
You add, “…..because a month after the Anschluss Austrians were reaping the rewards for the annexation of Austria economically and socially.” I presume you are here referring to the bribery of the electorate with German goodies mentioned by Bukey on p.35 and the exclusion of the Jews, neither of which are directly related to the principle of Anschluss?
Yes. The Austrians were fiercely more anti-semitic than the Reich Germans! Have you even read the book? 8O The Austrians reaped the rewards of support for the Anschluss economically after the exclusion of the Jews and Gypsies, the former owned a lot of businesses in Austria before the Nazi annexation.
You go on, “Also, if both were held on the same date and just simply looking at the ballot papers alone, the Nazi ballot paper was….. fairer.” Yup, quite possibly - if you are simply looking at the ballot papers alone. However, as every single ballot paper in the Nazi plebiscite was flawed in its own way anyway, this doesn’t say a lot. Furthermore it totally ignores all the other flaws in the Nazi plebiscite (the Nazis use of a 100,000 man occupation army, a security police contingent of 40,000 men, arrests of tens of thousands of Austrian opponents, excluding others from the voting process, purging the upper echelons of government services, lowering the voting age, bribing the electorate, rigging the voting process in several ways, etc., etc.) most of which were not available to Schussnigg. Again you are cherry-picking one point to the exclusion of all else.
A bigger "Yes" is not really "flawed" but rather coercive. The Schuschnigg plebiscite was much less fairer since there was no "No" option. The majority of Austrians (ethnic Germans) still had a choice in the Anschluss plebiscite.
You post, “Indeed and just because he (Bukey) doesn't use the words "overwhelming majority" he clearly shows throughout the book the general feeling of the Austrians.” Yup, he does but he is nuanced in a way that you are not admitting. I refer, yet again to his, “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.” If Bukey doesn’t say Austrian support for Anschluss was “overwhelming” (a word he uses in different contexts elsewhere in the book, incidentally) and is qualified in his phraseology regarding numbers, you cannot honestly use him to support your thesis.
I will repeat what I have already posted since your cherry-picking sentence is certainly counteracted by the next sentence "Among the millions of photographs taken during the Anschluss, only a single snapshot of an unhappy face has come to light."

If that does not tell you something then I'm sure nothing ever will. :|

He uses the word in different contexts because it is a word that can be used in a variety of ways.
You post, “Every single bit of evidence given to you has been either dismissed or ignored.” The trouble is that you are not offering quantifiable evidence, just cherry-picked impressions and opinions and for every impression or opinion you offer, there is a contradictory one.
How come you are not able to refute any of the large quotes I have repeatedly posted which include the use of "overwhelming" by reputable historians?

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#264

Post by Lamarck » 03 Apr 2018, 19:52

You say, “Forget any plebiscite result, look at the way the Austrians behaved when actual Wehrmacht soldiers crossed the border. Were there any signs of disapproval? Not a single bit.” Again, you are presuming that Austrian civilians felt free to protest publicly when not only faced by a fully armed military invasion but surrounded by local Nazi thugs who had already proven themselves more than willing to shed Austrian-German blood in 1934 and a Nazi Party that recognized no legitimate opposition in the Alt Reich. You seem to think that the Nazis were liberal democrats tolerant of loyal opposition – they weren’t.
This is another example of your dishonesty with regards to the Austrians attitude of the German soldiers. I have already posted that Austrians in large numbers appeared on the streets regardless of the weather to show the German soldiers clear approval of the Anschluss, if there had been genuine disapproval then no one would have even bothered to turn up on the streets.

You remind me of the people who like to claim that the Germans had no freedom and that the Gestapo were knocking on everyone's door during the middle of the night, despite the fact that the Gestapo was only able to function the way it did because of the cooperation with the German people themselves.

I would be interested if you could provide a single source that makes the claim that the Austrians simply did not show any disapproval because of the fear of "Nazi thugs"?
Yet again I would remind you of what Bukey wrote, “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.”. I would also remind you that, according to Bukey (p.29), in Linz, the hometown of Hitler’s youth, the crowd that welcomed him was “between 60,00 and 80,000”, which only sounds impressive until one learns that this was only 30-40% of the city’s population. Furthermore, on p.31 he says that “more than a quarter of a million people packed the inner city” of Vienna, many of whom came from outside the capital. Again, this sounds impressive until one learns that the population of Vienna was about 1,700,000! Perhaps we should regard staying at home an act of passive resistance?
Stop repeating yourself over and over again, it is become extremely annoying to keep reading the same text. There is no need.

However, since you have repeated the same quote three times, how about the readers read the sentence that follows that state:

"Among the millions of photographs taken during the Anschluss, only a single snapshot of an unhappy face has come to light."

Only a single photo out of the millions of photographs taken, why do you think that was the case?

I have never made the claim that every single Austrian showed approval of the Anschluss by appearing on the streets when the Germans crossed the border. However, the very fact that thousands upon thousands of Austrians throughout Austria did this clearly shows that the concept of the Anschluss was widely approved. There did not need to be every single Austrian on the street, some Austrians were no doubt very private, etc. A person does not need to be on the streets to approve of someone or something. This is also something you keep repeating.
You ask, “Do you have any problems with the use of a "substantial majority" approved of the Anschluss?” Nope, so long as you insert a word of qualification before “approved”. As you agree, we are not dealing with hard facts here, and so have to be somewhat qualified in our opinions.
There is no need to put any other words, there is clearly other available evidence but according to you that is not hard enough evidence. Oh well, not everyone can be pleased!
You post, “The overwhelming majority of Germans supported Hitler and the Nazis.” When? Certainly not in any free and fair elections before 1933, and there were none in Nazi Germany after that. The Nazis never got a majority in any public elections and never risked free elections even in the late 1930s when they very probably had a significant majority.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

While it is true that before 1933 the Nazis never managed to gain a clear majority in any free election, if you are going to make the claim that the overwhelmingly majority of Germans did not support the Third Reich then you clearly have not read much on the subject. Oh wait... we can only rely on plebiscites and of course every single one during the Third Reich was rigged so there is no "hard evidence"!!! :D :D :D
You post, “There are plenty of other sources that do indeed use the word 'overwhelming'.” I have no reason to doubt you, but you are taking some time in producing them, which does not help your case.
I have other things to do in my life than check this forum all of the time. Nevertheless, over the pages I have posted plenty.
I sometimes wonder if you read what you post. This is from your Kershaw quote, “Only for the pan-Germans, by now entirely sucked into the Austrian Nazi Movement, was an Anschluß with Hitler's Germany an attractive proposition.” As far as I am aware, nobody has yet suggested that Nazis formed a majority of the Austrian population, let alone an “overwhelming” majority.
Your reply to the cherry-picking of the quote I posted makes absolutely no sense.
I would note that you repeatedly refer to the immediate aftermath of WWI, when Austrian national self-confidence was at its lowest, and to 1939-45, when Austria was embroiled in war. I would remind you that we are discussing 1938. As I have posted many times before, it is clear that support for Anschluss, which was very high after WWI, declined in the 1920s and 1930s and several Austrian political parties dropped it from their political programmes in those years. And once into WWII what choice did Austrians have but to support Germany, given that not to do so would have been treasonous and punishable by death?
Germans formed many opposition groups during the existence of the Third Reich, despite the possibility of various punishments, why was that not the case with the Austrians and the Anschluss?
You post, “Already noted is that many prominent political opponents, predominantly socialists, actually supported the Anschluss.” Yes, once the Nazis had leaned on them after military occupation. (Incidentally, the Nazi plebiscite came after the Nazis had already legislated Anschluss. The plebiscite merely retrospectively confirmed a fait accompli.) In the 1920s they had also been in favour of Anschluss but had dropped it from their platforms in the 1930s. This all goes to evidence that Austrian political opinion was changeable, not fixed, and therefore not likely to be “overwhelming” in any direction.
Karl Renner was the chancellor of "German-Austria" in 1918 and during the 1930s various political oppositions still told their followers to support the Anschluss in 1938.

An opinion can be changed. People's opinions do change over time.
You quote, “It is, of course, well known that the Anschluss of 1938 unleashed a torrent of enthusiasm for Nazism in Vienna that overwhelmed contemporary observers (including Hitler) and to this day has not been adequately explained.” And yet the crowd in Vienna doing this “overwhelming” is put by Bukey at only about 250,000, which is about 15% of the city’s population. It is easy to see why contemporary observers might be “overwhelmed” by a crowd of 250,000, but those 250,000 don’t necessarily demonstrate “overwhelming” support for Nazism by the population of Vienna. Indeed, the massive absenteeism might well show exactly the opposite – a combination of overwhelming opposition and/or indifference to the Nazis!
YAWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

This is when the use of 'overwhelming' is being used in the emotional context, not the numbers.
I would remind you again of my football analogy. A very large and enthusiastic crowd might turn out to watch, say, a winning Arsenal team tour the FA Cup through the streets of London, but this very large crowd would not represent the overwhelming views of Londoners as a whole, because most of them support other teams. Such crowds are self-selecting, not representative. That is why minority pro-Anschluss crowd reaction in Linz or Vienna cannot be paraded as necessarily representative of the majority who stayed away. As Bukey says, “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.

Enough for now,

Cheers,

Sid.
I remind you again, look up the various definitions of 'overwhelming'.
Last edited by Lamarck on 03 Apr 2018, 21:45, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#265

Post by Lamarck » 03 Apr 2018, 19:55


Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#266

Post by Sid Guttridge » 05 Apr 2018, 13:22

Hi Lamarck,

I asked you the following question:

"You post something that requires clarification before this conversation goes any further.

You write, “Plebiscites in various areas of Austria in 1918 tell us that up to 99% of Austrians wanted to be part of Germany. Why do you think this would have went any further down between 1918 and 1938? If anything, a native Austrian leading Germany would have made it more widespread in Austria.”

This would appear to be a defence of the rigged Nazi plebiscite result.

Are you saying that it is your belief that the 99%+ result of the Nazi plebiscite in 1938 was a fully accurate representation of Austrian public will?

I would be grateful if you could address this post separately, before moving on to my next, which follows immediately.
"

Your reply was, "I would say that the Nazi plebiscite represented for the most part an accurate representation of the Austrian public will. Journalists also confirm this and it is in dozens of books, there is clear evidence that a clear majority of Austrians between 1918 and 1938 supported the Anschluss."

You are still not answering. We have all seemed agreed from the very start that, at the very least, it is plausible that "a clear majority of Austrians between 1918 and 1938 supported the Anschluss." However, this is very different from suggesting, (as you appeared to do above), that the Nazi plebiscite of 1938 was an accurate representation of the Austrian public will. What does "for the most part" mean? It could range from half plus one of the electorate all the way up to all minus one of the electorate.

Cheers,

Sid

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#267

Post by Sid Guttridge » 05 Apr 2018, 15:18

Hi Lamarck,

You suggest, "I advise you to read Mary Margaret Ball's Post-war German-Austrian Relations: The Anschluss Movement, 1918-1936 for further information on the topic of the Anschluss during the interwar period."

Ever willing to oblige, I have done so, in so far as I am able. Would this be the one published in 1937, the year before the period we are discussing?

Is it also the one that says on p.196, "The tide had apparently turned; Austria had decided that she did not want to join Germany after all. Or perhaps one should say that the forces in power, plus the Socialists, have decided that union with Germany would be quite another thing from union with the 1918-1933 Germany"?

If so, it doesn't seem very supportive of your case for "overwhelming" support for Anschluss in 1938.

Perhaps you could clarify with quotes why you think this books indicates continuity of 99% Austrian support for Anschluss from 1919 to 1938?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#268

Post by Lamarck » 05 Apr 2018, 19:55

I have addressed your question quite clearly.

You wrote: "This would appear to be a defence of the rigged Nazi plebiscite result." These words which are yours clearly demonstrate that you are going to quite evidently regard anything that regards "the overwhelming majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss" as defence of the Nazi plebiscite. Again, your inability to distinguish support for the Anschluss and support for the Nazis is so striking. The Nazis did not need to rig any plebiscite, the vast majority of Austrians supported the Anschluss. If you want to take that as a defence of the Nazi plebiscite result then so be it.

I am absolutely sick of repeating myself because you simply cannot comprehend something. For example,if you can not understand what "for the most part" means then what is the point in continuing this "debate"?

for the most part
phrase of most
1.
in most cases; usually.
"the older members, for the most part, shun him"

The phrase "for the most part" is very basic English, a native speaker should have no problem understanding what that phrase means.

Your clear lack of comprehension of the English language is the problem, not the use of 'overwhelming majority' to describe the Austrians in 1938.

If you have a problem with the use of 'overwhelming' to describe the Austrians support in 1938, I suggest you contact all of the authors that I have contacted and question every single one why he or she decided to use such terminology.

The copy I have of Post-war German-Austrian Relations: The Anschluss Movement, 1918-1936 does not have that quote on p. 196, can you provide a link to the source of that quote?

Why do you keep ignoring my question to finish this "debate" - what "hard evidence" that is available will you "accept" to support for the description that an 'overwhelming majority' of the Austrians approved of the 1938 Anschluss? I have asked this question so many times and you have never give an answer.

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#269

Post by Sid Guttridge » 06 Apr 2018, 17:12

Hi Lamarck,

Indeed, the phrase "for the most part" is very basic English.

"For the most part" is an extremely vague phrase that could mean anything between "half plus one" and "all minus one". It is book-ended by "half" at its lower extremity and "all" at its higher extremity. Or to put it another way, it basically means "most" or "a majority".

If your intention is to be vague, then it undoubtedly serves the purpose. However, I would suggest that vagueness doesn't advance the discussion here much at all.

You say, "The copy I have of Post-war German-Austrian Relations: The Anschluss Movement, 1918-1936 does not have that quote on p.196."

To clarify, what edition do you have? How many pages has it? This will help me steer you to it if the numbering is different. The 1937 Stanford University edition has 304 pages. Has yours? If not, how many?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

#270

Post by ljadw » 06 Apr 2018, 19:42

The quote from Ball ,while exact, can not be used to deny the overwhelming support for the Anschluss in 1938,as the quote was about what happened in 1933.

One must also take in consideration that Bell, an American historian, was biased and not always correct in her comments as she contradicted on P 199 (where she said that the German-Austrian relations were friendly ) what she said on P 196.

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