Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

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Sid Guttridge
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#31

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Apr 2017, 14:15

Hi Michael,

I do not agree that "The best indication of the popularity of the unification with Germany is how Austrians acted after it occurred." This is just one post facto measure. The original Austrian-proposed plebiscite, if held, would have been another and seems likely to have given the opposite result. The fact that Berlin felt the need to immediately depot one of its own German-manned panzer divisions in Vienna, while depoting a new largely Austrian-manned panzer division in Germany, might be another. There are multiple indications that the Germans were not initially at all sure of the real degree of Austrian support for Anschluss and feared that a significant number might relapse into "buyer's remorse".

It is true that "In general, Austrians were loyal to Germany throughout the war, except at the very end where it was that Germany was going to be comprehensively defeated. There was no real resistance, even from the large numbers who had previously been supporters of Leftist parties."

However I disagree that "Those two factors suggest that the majority of Austrians were satisfied with their status as a part of Germany."

There wasn't a lot of resistance in much of occupied Europe for much of the war, but I wouldn't suggest that this reflected "satisfaction" with the situation. (Your France example is a case in point).

Given that the Germans could already use an Austrian-manned mountain division on an independent operation to Narvik by April 1940, Austrian pliability must have been better than the Germans first feared. On the other hand, Austria suffered twice as heavily as the rest of the Reich at Stalingrad, where it lost three divisions, and I would imagine that "buyer's remorse" probably set in pretty rapidly and heavily thereafter.

Cheers,

Sid.

StickShaker
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#32

Post by StickShaker » 24 Apr 2017, 20:36

ljadw wrote:If there were free elections, 95 % of the Austrians would have supported the Anschluss .
Please stop pulling numbers out of thin air


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Annelie
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#33

Post by Annelie » 24 Apr 2017, 22:36

Stickshaker wrote
Please stop pulling numbers out of thin air
Is this of any help?

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.ph ... d=10005447
March 12, 1938. They received the enthusiastic support of most of the population. Austria was incorporated into Germany the next day. In April, this German annexation was retroactively approved in a plebiscite that was manipulated to indicate that about 99 percent of the Austrian people wanted the union (known as the Anschluss) with Germany. Neither Jews nor Roma (Gypsies) were allowed to vote in the plebiscite.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#34

Post by Sid Guttridge » 25 Apr 2017, 10:57

Hi Annelie,

Not really.

As already discussed above, and as your own link indicates for Jews and Gypsies, the plebiscite and its 99% result were rigged. The ballot paper was skewed (see previous post by Knouterer), the process was under close Nazi supervision and most ballot papers were not marked in secret.

Hermann Goering's brother Albert Albert was in Austria at the time and voted there. Quite apart from the skewed ballot paper illustrated above, he records other irregularities.

Each voter was meant to be given a ballot paper and an envelope. He was then to retire to a closed booth to make a secret vote, which he was then to seal in the envelope and put in the ballot box.

However, Albert says he was greeted by officials who handed out the ballot paper and envelope with "Heil Hitler" and told that, as he was going to vote "Yes", he might just as well place his "X" in the "Yes" circle there and then. Albert said that he insisted that proper procedure had to be followed and went to the closed booth, but that he was the only voter out of hundreds present who he observed vote secretly.

So the true scale of Austrian support remains unclear due to the Nazis manipulating a plebiscite they seem quite likely to have won anyway!

Cheers,

Sid

ljadw
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#35

Post by ljadw » 25 Apr 2017, 21:12

StickShaker wrote:
ljadw wrote:If there were free elections, 95 % of the Austrians would have supported the Anschluss .
Please stop pulling numbers out of thin air
there is no thin air : the Austrians wanted the Anschluss in 1919, they wanted also the Anschluss in 1938. Only a few left wing intellectuals were opposing the Anschluss, even the majority of the Austrian Jews supported the Anschluss, the archbishop of Vienna, the leader of the SPÖ,etc.

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#36

Post by BarKokhba » 25 Apr 2017, 21:51

It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that any Jews in Austria, let alone ' a majority' of Jews supported the Anschluss. Jews clearly understood Hitler's evil intent and feared his occupation of an independent Austria. The Nuremberg Laws were in place in Germany since 1933, and many German Jews had fled to Austria, bringing with them the stories of atrocities, confiscations and oppression under nazi rule. And under nazi rule, Jewish refugees in Austria from other countries such as Deutschland were considered 'stateless' and the first to be imprisoned and later deported...to death camps.

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wm
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#37

Post by wm » 26 Apr 2017, 22:42

Austrian and German Jews were quite assimilated and patriotic. What the Austrians supported they supported too. So they certainly supported an Anschluss, but rather were uncomfortable with that Anschluss.
And they stayed that way even after their deportation to ghettos in Poland. Some of them were even talking about victories of "our armies" in Russia - which really made a few locals very angry.

ljadw
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#38

Post by ljadw » 28 Apr 2017, 12:53

BarKokhba wrote:It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that any Jews in Austria, let alone ' a majority' of Jews supported the Anschluss. Jews clearly understood Hitler's evil intent and feared his occupation of an independent Austria. The Nuremberg Laws were in place in Germany since 1933, and many German Jews had fled to Austria, bringing with them the stories of atrocities, confiscations and oppression under nazi rule. And under nazi rule, Jewish refugees in Austria from other countries such as Deutschland were considered 'stateless' and the first to be imprisoned and later deported...to death camps.
Nuremberg Laws in place since 1933 ? :P

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Gorque
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#39

Post by Gorque » 28 Apr 2017, 15:10

There seems to be some disparity regarding the number of Jews living in Austria during the Anschluss:
Before World War II, Jews played an important role in Austria's economic and cultural life. In 1938, Austria had a Jewish population of about 192,000, representing almost 4 percent of the total population. The overwhelming majority of Austrian Jews lived in Vienna, the capital, an important center of Jewish culture, Zionism, and education. Jews comprised about 9 percent of the city's population. However, by December 1939 their number had been reduced to just 57,000, primarily due to emigration.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.ph ... d=10005447

ljadw
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#40

Post by ljadw » 29 Apr 2017, 07:56

1934 : 191000 of whom 176000 in Vienna

1938 :181000 of whom 167000 in Vienna

Unclear is if German Jews who emigrated to Austria are included .

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#41

Post by Sid Guttridge » 29 Apr 2017, 14:24

Hi ljadw,

If the Austrians (let alone Austrian Jews!) so clearly wanted Anschluss with Germany in 1938, why did the Nazis prevent the Austrians from conducting their own plebiscite and then so blatantly rig their own plebiscite?

The Austrians almost certainly overwhelmingly wanted Anschluss with Germany in 1919, when their currency and economy collapsed. (Liechtenstein moved from the Austrian sphere of influence to that of Switzerland at this time.)

However, when self confidence returned in the 1920s Austrians consistently failed to elect a majority of parties in favour of Anschluss.

Furthermore, when the Austrian Nazis assassinated the Austrian President and attempted a coup in 1934, they received little popular support except in the far south and were supressed within days. It is possible that the existence of a threatening Nazi regime in Germany for a while actually made Austrians more wary of Anschluss, not less.

It is clear that Austrian public opinion on Anschluss with Germany fluctuated. As a result the Nazis had to rig their plebiscite in 1938 to be certain of the scale of pro-Anschluss vote they wanted. They might very probably have won anyway, but perhaps not as convincingly as they wanted.

Cheers,

Sid.

ljadw
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#42

Post by ljadw » 29 Apr 2017, 16:44

Hitler wanted to prevent the Schussnig plebiscite, because he knew it would be rigged (he was an expert in rigged elections ).

Self confidence did not return after WWI, and in 1938 the economy still was on its last legs ,while social services were much better in Germany ,they were probably the best in Europe, which was the principal reason for the popularity of the nazi regime .

The adherents of the Österreische Identität were always a minority and they were hostile to the Legitimists who supported Schussnig.

Even after the war was one of the leading socialists (Friedrich Adler,son of his father ) still a defender of the Anschluss . He wrote the following :

"Wenn die ebenso reaktionäre wie widerliche Utopie einer Österreichischen Nation wahrheit würde und ich gezwungen wäre zwischen ihn und der deutschen Nation zu wählen,würde ich mich für jene entscheiden,in der Goethes Faust,Freilligraths revolutionäre Gedichte und die Schriften von Marx,Engels und Lasalle nicht zur ausländischen Literatur gehören ."


A rough translation :

"When the reactionary and revolting utopia of an Austrian nation would come true,and I would have to choose between the Austrian and the German nation, I would decide for the nation where Goethe's Faust, the revolutionary poems of Freilligrath and the works of Marx,Engels and Lasalle would not belong to the foreign literature."

This was the opinion after 1945 of a man whose father was one of the leaders of the SPÖ, who killed the Austrian PM (count Stürkgh ) and who was during more than 20 years the leader of the Socialist Internationale

ljadw
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#43

Post by ljadw » 29 Apr 2017, 17:11

Some one as Starhemberg, pillar of the Schuschnig regime also was talking about the German mission of Austria and Schuschnig himself said on 8 march 1938 :

"I will and must know if the people of Austria want this free,GERMAN,independent, social and only Fatherland that will not allow a split between parties "

He wanted an independent ,but German Austria, a free Austria with only one party .

And 3 days later, he ordered the army not to offer resistance to not shed German blood .

The only partisans of the Österreichische Identität were the communists (til september 1939 ) and some conservatives .

The Austrian democrats were not Austrian patriots and the Austrian patriots were not democrats .

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#44

Post by Sid Guttridge » 29 Apr 2017, 17:14

Hi ljadw,

You are making assertions, not providing facts.

Certainly the wording of the Austrian plebiscite invited a viote for an independent Austria, but there is no reason to believe that the actual ballot paper and electoral process vote would be as blatantly rigged as the German one described in some detail by Hermann Goering's brother, which went far beyond wording inviting a vote in favour of Anschluss. All this proves is that a plebiscite is not necessarily an accurate reflection of opinion and can't be prayed in aid by anyone. It also explains why they are now forbidden under the German constitution.

If the adherents of an Austrian identity "were always a minority", why during the late 1920s and early 1930s did the Austrian electorate not return a majority of parties in favour Anschluss with Germany?

And no, your quote does not indicate that the internationalist socialist Adler was in favour Anschluss in principle. He simply expresses a preference for a socialist Germany of Marx and Engels, amongst others, to a reactionary Austria. One wonders if he would be so keen on a reactionary Germany as opposed to a progressive, socialist Austria?

Cheers,

ljadw
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#45

Post by ljadw » 29 Apr 2017, 17:14

8% of the voters were excluded, not because they would oppose the Anschluss, but on racial grounds,while the nazis were convinced that the others would vote yes, even the communists .

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