Looking for a video of Hitler speaking during the Anschluss

[George L Gregory]

Hi GLG,

The fact that there was no planning in place was not down to Hitler. He is recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum of 5 November 1937 as saying that Austria was to be acquired. He ordered his army commanders to prepare plans for it in late 1937, but was surprised to find out on 10 March 1938 that they had not done so and had Manstein improvise them. Moreover, the political machinations behind the Anschluss had been going on since January. So it is not as if nobody saw it coming, Swastika bunting or no Swastika bunting!

You’re missing the point. I’m not denying that Hitler was willing to use force to achieve his aims, but he didn’t have to because of the Austrians enthusiasm for the German army when they crossed the border. No resistance was presented so no force was needed so there was no invasion. There could have been an invasion, but that isn’t how things turned out.

I think we can safely say that the the speech of which you were looking was stage managed. Indeed, as numerous large, identical Swastika banners were already flying on 13 March, I think we can safely say that they did not appear by random accident either. The Nazis were very efficient in the background stage management, even with such little immediate notice.

Do you have any sources to back up your claims?

You can speculate all you want.

What was not stage managed was the enthusiastic reaction of that minority of the population that did turn out. However, even here the crowds were self-selecting, the camera crews could choose what they did or did not shoot, and it could be further edited in the cutting room.

Only one unhappy face has ever been found.

You post, "that doesn’t mean the “majority” of the people in Linz and Vienna were against the Anschluss." I certainly agree about Linz, though Vienna is more problematical, as it had very strong conservative and leftist traditions.

Indeed, even in Linz all may not have been quite what it seemed from the films. The British military attaché to Berlin 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.”

But nowhere in any of Austria was there any serious resistance.

We simply don't know the real state of public opinion because we can't take as gospel the result of Hitler's multiply rigged plebiscite on Anschluss and we have no other remotely reliable measure of public sentiment at the time. However, I think we can safely say that it fell well short of 99.73% approval, don't you?

I agree with you. The plebiscite doesn’t prove anything and we also know that public opinion differed at times with regards to support for the Anschluss.

You ask if I think it proves something. Yup. I think it is strong evidence that (1) the result of Hitler's plebiscite was some way from an accurate measure of overall popular sentiment and (2) the films and photos taken at the time were also some way from being an accurate representation of wider popular sentiment.

Do I think it proves that a majority of Austrians wouldn't have voted for Anschluss with Germany in a free and fair plebiscite? No. I think it just probably wouldn't have been the enormous landslide claimed.

Cheers,

Sid.

1. We’ll never truly know. What we do need to keep reminding ourselves is that support for the Anschluss in 1938 did not equate to support for the Nazis.

2. Hmmm... I’m not so sure about that. Do you have any photos or film footage of Austrians showing any disapproval of the Anschluss in 1938?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GLG,

There was very definitely an invasion. Hitler and Goering both described it as such just hours before it was launched. However, as we are discussing that on another thread, I will not pursue that further here.

You ask, "Do you have any sources to back up your claims?"

Yes: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xbgf3.

Does that look spontaneous, unorganised or a random accident to you? Whoever stage managed all that at such short notice pulled off a blinder! Respect.

You post, "Only one unhappy face has ever been found." Even if true, which I doubt, so what? If the cameras are only ever pointing at enthusiastic supporters of Hitler, the Nazis, or Anschluss giving the deutscher Gruß and they are then edited, what do you expect Nazi propaganda to show? The cameras are there precisely to show the happy, deutscher Gruß-waving faces.

Besides, we don't tend to memorialize unhappy occasions as we do happy ones, so those opposed or indifferent are hardly likely to be recording their misery or indifference in the same way and I rather doubt Nazi propaganda cameramen were going to seek them out.

You ask, "Do you have any photos or film footage of Austrians showing any disapproval of the Anschluss in 1938?" Well, I have found the following link (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... Hitler.jpg) that shows two Austrians, a Mr. A. Hitler and a Mr. A. Seyss-Inquart, looking rather grim faced during the Anschluss! Their mates don’t look too happy, either! As the camera apparently never lies, at the very least they must be having a bad day!

You post, "But nowhere in any of Austria was there any serious resistance." So? I have already told you why - it was thanks to Dolfuss that there was no bloodshed. Do I have to remind you what Goering said the night before the invasion, or what the Austrian Nazis did in 1934?

Cheers,

Sid.

[George L Gregory]

Hi GLG,

There was very definitely an invasion. Hitler and Goering both described it as such just hours before it was launched. However, as we are discussing that on another thread, I will not pursue that further here.

You ask, "Do you have any sources to back up your claims?"

Yes: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xbgf3.

Does that look spontaneous, unorganised or a random accident to you? Whoever stage managed all that at such short notice pulled off a blinder! Respect.

You’re speculating.

Stop begging the question and trying to reverse the burden of proof. Do you have any sources that such events were organised or not?

You post, "Only one unhappy face has ever been found." Even if true, which I doubt, so what? If the cameras are only ever pointing at enthusiastic supporters of Hitler, the Nazis, or Anschluss giving the deutscher Gruß and they are then edited, what do you expect Nazi propaganda to show? The cameras are there precisely to show the happy, deutscher Gruß-waving faces.

Besides, we don't tend to memorialize unhappy occasions as we do happy ones, so those opposed or indifferent are hardly likely to be recording their misery or indifference in the same way and I rather doubt Nazi propaganda cameramen were going to seek them out.

You ask, "Do you have any photos or film footage of Austrians showing any disapproval of the Anschluss in 1938?" Well, I have found the following link (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... Hitler.jpg) that shows two Austrians, a Mr. A. Hitler and a Mr. A. Seyss-Inquart, looking rather grim faced during the Anschluss! Their mates don’t look too happy, either! As the camera apparently never lies, at the very least they must be having a bad day!

Try and be serious. If you’re going to respond like that then it’s pointless carrying on this debate.

Do you know of any images of any Austrians showing disapproval of the Anschluss?

You post, "But nowhere in any of Austria was there any serious resistance." So? I have already told you why - it was thanks to Dolfuss that there was no bloodshed. Do I have to remind you what Goering said the night before the invasion, or what the Austrian Nazis did in 1934?

Cheers,

Sid.

1934... irrelevant to 1938.

Hitler’s words and Goering’s words were never put into practice precisely because there was no resistance from the Austrians.

Do you know of any substantial resistance from the Austrian people when the German army crossed the border?

[George L Gregory]

“Austrian historians agree today that the Anschluss found broad support in the population at the time and that a large proportion of Austrians were collaborators and co-perpetrators, says Rathkolb. "Much has been written and said about the brutal excesses committed against Jews following the Anschluss. But what's changed is public perception of the Anschluss."

https://amp.dw.com/en/austria-debates-i ... a-16664190

“Popular reaction to the arrival of German troops continued to be delirious right up to the end of the operation. A stream of military reports recounted scenes of “unbelievable euphoria,” “songs and humor,” and “indescribable rapture.” Even in industrial enclaves thousands of blue-collar workers turned out to cheer the advancing troops. From The Iron Mountain district of Styria the commander of the 1000th Mountain Regiment wrote he had seen “not one clinched fist, only eager faces.” After occupying a billet in Floridsdorf, the tenement district of Vienna, an ordnance officer filed a report on the squalor and poverty of the local residents. “It’s understandable that the neighborhood has been a stronghold of Marxism until recently,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, our soldiers have experienced neither insults nor overt hostility, but rather have been welcomed as liberators.”

Evan Burr Bukey, page 32.

On the same page Bukey wrote the following which is certainly interesting and relevant:

“Still, popular enthusiasm was by no means universal. When the first German aircraft flew over Wels on Saturday 12 March, an eight-year-old boy found himself playing in the home of a retired Habsburg officer. “I remember hearing a lot of noise and going out on the balcony to see what happened,” he recalled a half century later. “There were lots of people in the street shouting and happy. But inside that house, I saw the colonel with tears in his eyes. I remember that vividly. I remember wondering what could have happened to make people in the street so happy and him so sad.”

On the next page he wrote that villagers in Lower Austria showed open contempt to the German army and up to 500,000 people (Austrian Jews, Austrians of Jewish ancestry, Austrian Catholics, civil servants, monarchists, etc) in Vienna reacted with “disbelief, dismay and dread” at the Anschluss.

You may also be happy to know that Bukey used the word ‘invasion’ to describe the Anschluss.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GLG,

Yes, I have a source. It is the video you were looking for.

If the event wasn't highly organized, you are asking us to believe Hitler just happened to come across a military parade involving several thousand troops, then stumbled upon a street in Vienna, which was far from a Nazi stronghold, in which large, identical swastika banners just happened to already be hanging and then, by sheer happenstance, walked into a large hall where, miraculously, there were dozens of similarly large, identical swastika banners hanging and where, by another massive stroke of good fortune, there were hundreds of uniformed men carrying Nazi standards and where, luckily for him, there just happened to be a dais with a working microphone and attendant film cameras!

I am completely mystified why this should be a point of contention.

And I was being serious. You are the one relying on how a minority of Austrians appear in photos. I was simply showing you that I could find a photo of two Austrians looking pretty grim during the Anschluss. Was this photo an accurate representation of how the two of them really felt? I very much doubt it!

No, I don't know of any substantial Austrian resistance, because Dolfuss ordered that there shouldn't be any. However, up to that point the Austrian Army was deploying on the River Traun.

But that doesn't really matter, because there doesn't have to be resistance for there to be an invasion.

Here's a little challenge for you - find a single definition of "invade" or "invasion" that specifies resistance has to be offered for the invasion to qualify as such.

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. Just thought I would bring this over from the other thread: "Indeed, when Goering unambiguously said, only hours before it went in, "The invasion is going to happen now, and we shall state that every one who puts up any resistance has to face the consequences." he explicitly describes it as an "invasion" regardless of whether resistance is offered or not. The only issue for him was whether resistance to the "invasion" would require him to inflict "consequences" or not."

[George L Gregory]

That’s not a source. It’s you concluding (speculating) based on your own perception of the newsreel.

Again, I’m not really interested in people’s opinions about things too much... I’m more interested in information that is supported by reliable evidence.

Oh, come on now Sid... using two Nazis (including Hitler) with straight faces was clearly not what I was referring to at all and I know and you know that I did not mean that. I was clearly referring to ordinary Austrian citizens reacting to the German army crossing the border.

Anyway, I have presented evidence that enthusiasm was not universal in Austria during the Anschluss.

The folllowing is some more information for you to read. Burkey wrote:

According to the first soundings by the Nazis—specifically by Odilo Globočnik, the Carinthian activist then angling to become Gauleiter of Vienna—labor was responding affirmatively to government attention. Admitting that Hitler posters and swastika streamers had been torn down in the Seventeenth District, he contended that Communist morale was in the Seventeenth District, he contended that Communist morale was in a state of “panic”. Nazi “work creation schemes and the incorporation of those ineligible for public assistance on the welfare rolls have been exceptionally well received,” he wrote. “A number of Communist leaders are voluntarily turning in forbidden literature.”

Toward the end of May, Nazi authorities learned of serious unrest at the Rannersdorf Brewery. Always sensitive to the danger of residual Marxist influence, the Gestapo undertook an extensive inquiry that did indeed reveal widespread discontent. The disaffection was rooted, however, in personal rivalry and factionalism, not politics ideology. The following month a comprehensive investigation of Communist activity in Vienna concluded that the KPÖ had largely suspended operations and that the rank and file were joining the NSDAP. While it was admitted that a handful of activists were spreading rumors of food shortages or trying to incite disturbances at the Central Market (Naschmarkt), their activities were reported to have had little impact on the working-class sentiment. All in all, there was little evidence to contradict the claim appearing in the Nazi press that “today we Reds are for the Führer.”

This is not to say that Anschluss enthusiasm continued to prevail in Vienna. At the end of May an American correspondent wrote that the metropolis had become a city of “whispers and furtive glances over the shoulder.” A month later the British consul general indicated growing disgust with the “vileness of the anti-Jewish campaign now raging in Vienna, the constant rise in prices and the lack of respect for constitutional law.” So palpable was the spreading disquiet that even the Nazi leadership acknowledged that measures had to be taken to assuage popular sentiment.”

The initial enthusiasm was short-lived for many Austrians.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GG,

Your video very much is a source. Don't disown it after all the trouble you went to find it!

But to play along, perhaps you could explain how else the remarkable string of events it portrays came about if nobody was organizing it?

I know you were ".....referring to ordinary Austrian citizens reacting to the German army crossing the border.". As you well know, because I just told you, that wasn't my point in showing you pictures of Hitler and Seyss-Inquart, probably the two most prominent Austrians on that day, both looking grim in the midst of the Anschluss. My point was that photos are not necessarily reliable in representing how people feel. And they are even less reliable in depicting how those not present may feel because they are not there to be photographed. And those not present were a majority, even in Linz, and certainly in Vienna.

Bukey refers to a source claiming only one unhappy face in millions of photos. This is inherently improbable, if only because quite a few people would surely have had their toes trodden on in the crowds! And think of the logistics. Who can possibly adequately survey every single face in crowd scenes in at least two million photographs? That would require somebody closely scrutinizing well some two hundred photos every day from maturity at 18 to death at 78. Are we to believe that somebody has actually done this?

I think we are agreed on the main point - nobody really knows the true state of Austrian public opinion in March 1939. Over the previous nearly 20 years it had proved somewhat changeable and it was still so in March/April 1938.

Cheers,

Sid.

[GoeringsPetLion]

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xbgf3

They sang the Christian praise song Wir treten zum Beten ("We Come to Pray"). In the video, we hear the first four lines of the second verse.