Images of Austria 1938.

[ljadw]

1 The number of people present to salute Hitler is not an indication of the support/hostility to the Anschluss .The same for the number who were not present .
2 The same for those who were on street to see the funeral procession of Dollfuss ,or the funeral procession of Thatcher, JFK,FDR,...:500000 people present at the funeral of FDR does not mean that 500000 supporters of FDR were present at his funeral .
The NYT was wrong ( as usual ) when it titled that 500000 Austrians mourned Dollfuss .A lot of them were there to be certain that he was dead : Red Vienna was not forgetting the thousand deaths of the 1933 fighting.
3 The elections of July 1945 have nothing to do with the number of people who were at the gates of Buckingham Palace to greet Winston .
4 There is no proof at all that Schussnigg could win the referendum : you fail to understand that his decision to organize a referendum was correctly perceived as a sign of weakness :Nazis and Socialists were numerically much stronger than the supporters of Schussnigg and there was no reason at all for a majority of the Austrians to vote for the Dollfuss regime : the referendum was not about the Anschluss, but about the continuation of the regime,which had lost all support .And if the regime won,the result would be a civil war with thousands of deaths .
The regime had lost all popular support .The issue of the Schussnigg referendum was : Schussnigg or the Anschluss .
Every one knew it : the Austrians hold the regime responsible for the catastrophic social situation .
5 Hitler's referendum was NOT planned as a rigged one : there is no proof that Berlin gave the order to transform systematically NO votes in YES votes .
6 The Schussnigg referendum was not about consulting the population of Austria.
7 That there would be a civil war after the Schussnigg referendum does not mean that the regime had a lot of support,but that it was universally hated .Its opponents would go after the army ,police and Schussnigg militia and kill them .
8 About the SU : after 1953 the Cheka lost its power,but there was still no revolt . The reason was that the Soviet population preferred the regime to something they did not know .In 1990,the situation was totally different as the communist regime had totally failed and no one wanted to die for the regime or to die fighting against the regime .In 1934 the situation in Austria was that no one wanted to die to defend Schussnigg but that the majority of the population was waiting for the day of revenge,the occasion to kill the supporters of Schussnigg .
The other points will follow .

[ljadw]

About the referendum of Schuschnigg : it seems that no one has been thinking on the reason for this referendum,of which Schuschnigg knew that he would lose if it was a free referendum,as the majority of the population hated him .If Hitler came ,Schuschnigg would lose as police and army would not fight for him .(The Anschluss supporters were already infiltrating the army and police since 1936 ).If there was a revolt (communist or Nazis ) he would also lose (for the same reason ).
The only solution was a rigged referendum and hoping that communists and Nazis would vote for him ,which was of course self- deception,but people in the position of Schusschnigg have no other solution than self-deception .
The regime had brought only persecution and poverty for the Austrians.In 1934 it survived only thanks to Mussolini,now it could not expect Italian support .
I expect someone to say that in a few villages in Tirol/Vorarlberg the opponents of Anschluss won .
Yes, BUT ..
if the referendum in these villages was organized by the Nazis, it meant that it was not rigged and thus the claim that the referendum was rigged is not correct .
if the referendum in these villages was organized by the Schusschnigg regime,it was a rigged one as the majority of the Austrians were hostile to the regime .
Conclusion : whatever Shirer and other Western journalist said, the truth is that the dies were already cast BEFORE Schusschnigg went to the Obersalberg and everything he did after his visit only accelerated his downfall .

[George L Gregory]

Guttridge’s views about the Anschluss have remained the same since at least 2017.

From another thread:

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=231738&start=60#p2111031

[George L Gregory]

Does Guttridge really think that 100% of a city’s population or town’s population has to turn out on to the streets to show approval of an event? Do the people also have to support the policies of the person carrying out the event? No matter how rigged the plebiscites were, there’s no evidence of any sort mass protests or demonstrations against the Anschluss, even amongst the opponents of the Nazis.

I mean, it is such a flawed and illogical argument.

As another person has pointed out, a ‘minority’ of the total British population only turned out on to the streets of Britain to celebrate VE Day, does that mean the people who were in their homes did not welcome it? Was every person on the streets a Tory like Winston Churchill? I mean, it is all just absurd.

[George L Gregory]

Also, just because the images were used by the Nazis, does not mean that they were staged or fake. There’s no evidence of any thing like that. The jubilations were genuine and reflected the mood of the Austrians.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GLG,

Yup, you are right. Thank you for pointing out that I have been consistent for years. The link you refer to said:

It seems likely to me that Schuschnigg's cleverly worded proposed plebiscite might also have passed. After all, who could vote against the proposition, "Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

Who would want an unfree, dependent, anti-social, heathen, disunited, war-riven, unemployed, unequal Austria not prepared to stand for its people?

I would suggest that Hitler moved in militarily precisely because Anschluss wasn't pretty much inevitable if Schuschnigg's plebiscite had gone ahead,

I see no reason to change that assessment now.

You ask, "Does Guttridge really think that 100% of a city’s population or town’s population has to turn out on to the streets to show approval of an event?" Nope, he doesn't. But he does believe that a limited 17% turn out in the national capital is far from indicative of popular approval there of German military intervention.

You post, "Do the people also have to support the policies of the person carrying out the event?" Are you suggesting that even some of the 17% who did turn out weren't in support of Nazi policies? That hadn't occurred to me before. It would mean that even 17% attendance may be an exaggeration of Nazi support. If so, I disagree.

You post, "No matter how rigged the plebiscites were, there’s no evidence of any sort mass protests or demonstrations against the Anschluss, even amongst the opponents of the Nazis." ljadw has already explained that the Anschluss was a "fait accompli". As you know, the country was under occupation by the German Army. As you may not be aware, tens of thousands of opponents were arrested and imprisoned. There was almost no scope for any public protests or demonstrations. They didn't occur around occupied Europe for most of WWII for much the same reasons, but this is no indication that the French/Dutch/Belgians/Danes/Czechs/Poles/etc., etc., were in favour of German rule at any point. Besides, the fact that such a high proportion of people (83% in Vienna) chose not to attend demonstrations to greet the German entry might equally be taken as indication of widespread passive resistance, indifference, or opposition to the German invasion.

You post incorrectly, "As another person has pointed out, a ‘minority’ of the total British population only turned out on to the streets of Britain to celebrate VE Day". Actually it was me who pointed out it was VE Day. The "another person" thought it was D-Day. And who says only a minority publicly celebrated VE Day? ljadw only said that the photos of the occasion showed only a minority of the population, which is true. He did not say that ony "a ‘minority’ of the total British population only turned out on to the streets of Britain to celebrate VE Day".

You ask, ".....does that mean the people who were in their homes did not welcome it?" Not at all. Unlike Anschluss in Austria, there was no need to organize public displays. People celebrated spontaneously, unlike 83% of Vienna's population.

You ask, "Was every person on the streets a Tory like Winston Churchill?" Probably not. Indeed, the public demonstrations on VE Day were unrelated to internal political developments, as the election results two months later showed.

You post."Also, just because the images were used by the Nazis, does not mean that they were staged or fake. There’s no evidence of any thing like that." They are certainly not fake. However, the occasions were without doubt to some degree "staged". For example, hundreds of identical, extremely long, swastika penants don't spontaneously appear lining public roads and public buildings without a degree of stage management. What was probably largely genuine was the voluntary attendance of 17% of Vienna's population. However, equally genuine, and numerically far more significant, was the absence of 83% of Vienna's population.

You post, "The jubilations were genuine and reflected the mood of the Austrians." The final generalization about "the Austrians" doesn't have any substance. If only 17% of the population of Vienna attended these demonstrations and even fewer appeared in the photographs, how can they be taken as representatrive of "the Austrians"? Surely, the 83% who did not attend and do not appear in the photographs are far more representative of "the Austrians", at least in the national capital?

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

The 83 % who did not appear in the photographs are not more representative than the 17 % who did appear in the photographs .
You can't say that the 83 % were hostile/indifferent to the Anschluss because they remained at home .The majority of the 83 % approved the Anschluss. See the results of the plebiscite in Vienna : these were not falsified .
There were less than 17 % of the Londoners who were present on May 8 at the gates of Buckingham .They were not more representative than those who were absent .
Those who were absent ( in Vienna and London ) were not absent because they disagreed with the festivities .
In 1966 the British Football team won the World Cup and was applauded by a minority of the British people,but that will not say that the others preferred that Germany would have won .

[ljadw]

Hi GLG,

Yup, you are right. Thank you for pointing out that I have been consistent for years. The link you refer to said:

It seems likely to me that Schuschnigg's cleverly worded proposed plebiscite might also have passed. After all, who could vote against the proposition, "Are you in favour of a free and German Austria, an independent and social Austria, a Christian and united Austria; for peace and employment and for equality for all who stand for their people and their nation?"

Who would want an unfree, dependent, anti-social, heathen, disunited, war-riven, unemployed, unequal Austria not prepared to stand for its people?


Cheers,

Sid.

These words were not clever but the words of a desperate man .
Do you really think that the Austrian voters would read the proposition ? Of course not : they had made their decision long,very long before the plebiscite . Schuschnigg would lose and would be forced to falsify the results which would lead to a mass insurrection .
It took the Nazis a month to prepare their referendum,while Schuschnigg wanted it to do in a few days .
Why should anyone in Austria vote for a man who had brought only persecution and poverty ?

[ljadw]

The 83 % who did not appear in the photographs are not more representative than the 17 % who did appear in the photographs .
You can't say that the 83 % were hostile/indifferent to the Anschluss because they remained at home .The majority of the 83 % approved the Anschluss. See the results of the plebiscite in Vienna : these were not falsified .
There were less than 17 % of the Londoners who were present on May 8 at the gates of Buckingham .They were not more representative than those who were absent .
Those who were absent ( in Vienna and London ) were not absent because they disagreed with the festivities .
In 1966 the British Football team won the World Cup and was applauded by a minority of the British people,but that will not say that the others preferred that Germany would have won .
There is no proof that the 83 % were absent intentionally.

[George L Gregory]

Guttridge,

You post incorrectly, "As another person has pointed out, a ‘minority’ of the total British population only turned out on to the streets of Britain to celebrate VE Day". Actually it was me who pointed out it was VE Day. The "another person" thought it was D-Day. And who says only a minority publicly celebrated VE Day? ljadw only said that the photos of the occasion showed only a minority of the population, which is true. He did not say that ony "a ‘minority’ of the total British population only turned out on to the streets of Britain to celebrate VE Day".

You ask, ".....does that mean the people who were in their homes did not welcome it?" Not at all. Unlike Anschluss in Austria, there was no need to organize public displays. People celebrated spontaneously, unlike 83% of Vienna's population.

You ask, "Was every person on the streets a Tory like Winston Churchill?" Probably not. Indeed, the public demonstrations on VE Day were unrelated to internal political developments, as the election results two months later showed.

You post."Also, just because the images were used by the Nazis, does not mean that they were staged or fake. There’s no evidence of any thing like that." They are certainly not fake. However, the occasions were without doubt to some degree "staged". For example, hundreds of identical, extremely long, swastika penants don't spontaneously appear lining public roads and public buildings without a degree of stage management. What was probably largely genuine was the voluntary attendance of 17% of Vienna's population. However, equally genuine, and numerically far more significant, was the absence of 83% of Vienna's population.

Did a minority or majority of the British population in 1945 appear on the streets of the UK to celebrate VE Day?

Do you have any evidence that the images were “to some degree staged”? That’s your claim, prove it. Provide some sources.

Because…

Reich German cameramen and broadcasters certainly provided extensive coverage of the Anschluss, but neither they nor Propaganda Minister Goebbels had sufficient time to stage-manage events.

[George L Gregory]

Guttridge,

As you know, the country was under occupation by the German Army. As you may not be aware, tens of thousands of opponents were arrested and imprisoned. There was almost no scope for any public protests or demonstrations. They didn't occur around occupied Europe for most of WWII for much the same reasons, but this is no indication that the French/Dutch/Belgians/Danes/Czechs/Poles/etc., etc., were in favour of German rule at any point.

The Germans were welcomed as liberators, not invaders. The Austrians didn’t think of themselves as being “under occupation”.

Thousands of political opponents were arrested and imprisoned AFTER the Anschluss happened. Those people weren’t arrested and imprisoned because they opposed the Anschluss. Again, another straw man argument made by you.

If there had been any form of resistance then it would have formed when the idea of a plebiscite to keep Austria independent was being talked about by many people. There wasn’t even any underground resistance to it. Even opponents of the Nazis didn’t oppose it.

There are many examples of public protests during the Third Reich. In the occupied territories plenty of the occupied peoples openly resisted - why the hell do you think so many became partisans? Why do you think so many occupied peoples helped Jews by giving them ‘Aryan Papers’? Etc.

Bukey:

In what specific ways the April plebiscite reflected the desires and wishes of the Austrian population must remain a matter of speculation. What is perhaps most striking is that the loss of independence was attended by so little protest, or resistance.

No one denies that the plebiscite was rigged to convey that literally EVERY Austrian agreed with the Anschluss - which was obviously not the case - but, historians accept that the overall Austrian population did welcome it and there was no resistance or protest from a sizeable amount of Austrians.

[ljadw]

It is even possible that some of those who were arrested would have voted for the Anschluss in the referendum .
Hostility to the Nazis and hostility to the Anschluss were two different things .The worker districts of Red Berlin voted massively for the Anschluss,but they did not become suddenly supporters of the Nazis .
A lot of the partisans of Schusschnigg ( maybe even the majority ) supported the Anschluss .Schusschnigg asked to vote for a German Austria .

[George L Gregory]

The British newspaper The Independent published an article titled Anschluss and Austria's guilty conscience over a decade ago which included:

Film footage of the jubilant reception given to Hitler in Vienna has frequently been dismissed in Austria as stage-managed Nazi propaganda. "This kind of argument is used by the Austrians who claim that they are innocent and the Nazis were the invaders," said the Viennese author and historian Brigitte Hamann.

However, new independent film material about the period was shown for the first time in Germany this week. The colour footage, shown on Germany's ZDF channel, was taken from 90 minutes of film shot by an Austrian forester called Marilius Mayer in March 1938. The film shows images of a provincial town in which the locals have turned out en masse to demonstrate their support for the invading Nazis. The streets are hung with hundreds of red, black and white swastika banners and the town square has been hastily renamed "Adolf Hitler Platz".

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 6.html?amp

Guttridge has no evidence that video footage was “to some degree staged” (his words), historians have written that Joseph Goebbels didn’t have time to unleash his propaganda during the events and new footage shows genuine support from a small town. The idea that the images and film footage are just simply Nazi propaganda is a way to make out that the Anschluss was an invasion and that most Austrians didn’t want it… which of course is not supported by any evidence.

[George L Gregory]

Guttridge argues the same points he did in 2017, without even conceding that he doesn’t have any evidence to support his argument that the film footage was “to some degree staged” and resorts to using fallacious arguments to back up his claims. Thus, he isn’t even debating but just rambling the same claptrap he has done for a few years now.

[George L Gregory]

Since at least 2018 on this forum Guttridge has been parroting the claim that the crowds in the images and footage were self-selected and staged.

Guttridge:

You go on to post, "The crowds were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the Anschluss." Yup. The trouble is that these self-selecting crowds were a minority of the population, even in Hitler's home city of Linz. They may well have been "overwhelmingly enthusiastic" but this does not prove that Austrian support for Anschluss was even majority, let alone "overwhelming".

You go on to post, "The crowds were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the Anschluss." Yup. The trouble is that these self-selecting crowds were a minority of the population, even in Hitler's home city of Linz. They may well have been "overwhelmingly enthusiastic" but this does not prove that Austrian support for Anschluss was even majority, let alone "overwhelming".

You post, “There was no need for any staged events.” Really? No motorcades? No rallies? No parades? No speaking tours? No banners? No seeding the crowds with swastika flags? (Some good footage on Youtube of this last).

You post, “Overwhelming simply means either "very large in amount" or emotionally "very strong", a clear majority is overwhelming and the crowds in Vienna, Linz, etc were quite evidently emotionally "very strong" (overwhelming).” Leaving aside your confusing sentence construction and dubious definitions of “overwhelming”, I note that you are now moving the target from “overwhelming” support for Anschluss in the general population to “overwhelming” support for Anschluss in the self-selecting, minority, pro-Nazi crowds who welcomed Hitler. Of course they overwhelmingly supported Anschluss, they had come to demonstrate precisely that, but according to Bukey, they only formed perhaps 40% of the population of Linz and 17% of the population of Vienna.

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=231738&start=300#p2136081

Guttridge, did you ever provide a source for your claim that the crowds of Austrians welcoming the Nazis were self-selected and staged?