Civil War?

Pundit Dorothy Thompson (Mrs. Sinclair Lewis), whose first husband was Budapester Josef Bard, wrote last week of the Austrian situation: "Yesterday it looked as though the struggle was over, and the new peace dictated. Today it is still an armistice. Tomorrow? ..."

All who, like Miss Thompson, had quaked with fear lest Nazi Germany had swallowed Austria, were last week highly delighted to hear Austria in the person of Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg talking back to Adolf Hitler. Through a cheering crowd of 40,000 Viennese, Schuschnigg drove to the Austrian Diet to deliver a speech which made him the hero of Central Europe.

Part of the supposedly humiliating agreement which Hitler forced on Austria was that Schuschnigg would order Austrian stations to broadcast Hitler's Reichstag speech last fortnight, but the Austrian simultaneously forced the Fiihrer to agree to order German stations to broadcast Schuschnigg's speech last week. The result was that German radio listeners heard the least Nazi political speech broadcast by the big German stations since 1933. Zealous Nazis were wild with rage. Adolf Hitler himself was late for a public appointment because he had lingered by his radio set listening to Kurt von Schuschnigg. Next day scores of congratulatory messages signed by Germans (many of them round robins) reached Orator Schuschnigg from Germany.

Not once in his address did the Austrian Chancellor mention the Fuhrer by name although he referred in eulogistic terms to Benito Mussolini, who originally advised Schuschnigg to go and bargain with Hitler. He firmly announced that the German Government had engaged itself to respect the political and territorial independence of the Austrian State. Then he added, "Austria will stand or fall with her special German mission! Austria has declared herself to be a German State." In words not pleasing to the ears of pagan, Jew-baiting, Communist-hating Nazis, the Chancellor continued: "We are a Christian State, a German State and a Free State--and in this country everyone is equal before the law. . . . Not all the workers who joined the Revolution [of Socialists in 1918] should be labeled Bolsheviks! ... I give you the Fatherland Front's new slogan: True till death to the Red, White and, Red! . . . The will to freedom of the Austrian people stands like a strong wall. . . . Victory is beyond doubt."

Upon emotional, freedom-loving French legislators the words of Orator Schuschnigg had galvanic effect. Everyone was quoting him in the lobbies of the French Chamber next day. His speech was an important factor in swinging the 439-10-2 vote of the Chamber promising that the French Army would help, if necessary, to maintain Austrian independence.

Meantime intrepid Herr Schuschnigg himself presided at a conference of Austrian police authorities. Present was Interior Minister Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the only Nazi yet forced by the Fuehrer into the Austrian Cabinet. Silent, embarrassed, sat Dr. Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor Schuschnigg ordered the police of Austria to continue the bans against: shouting "Heil Hitler!," appearing in brownshirt Nazi uniform, or holding any sort of political meeting in Austria except those of his Fatherland Front (to which Nazis are now admitted).

Vienna is probably not over 20% Nazi, but in the rural provinces Austrian Nazis run up to as high as 80%. In Graz, the chief city of Lower Austria, adjoining Hungary, the Nazi flag was hoisted above the town hall last week while Schuschnigg was speaking in Vienna. Next day the locally popular Mayor claimed he had resigned before a telegram from the Chancellor demanded he take "a vacation." Graz looked like one big Nazi meeting, with Hitler's picture in every shop whose owner did not want his window smashed, with peddlers selling Nazi lapel buttons, with crowds singing the Nazi Horst Wessel song. To cow Graz, Dr. Schuschnigg promptly sent 16 tanks, army troops, 20 army bombers.

German newspapers gave less than usual encouragement last week to Austrian Nazis, but many Austrians feared this as an ominous lull before a bloody storm. Men pointed out that Berlin was one of the last great German cities to go Nazi, that Austrian Nazis might conquer Austria from Graz, as Hitler conquered Germany from Munich. If the French would fight a German invasion of Austria, it is by no means certain they would invade Austria to suppress an uprising by Austrian Nazis. General Franco has not had to fight the French Army, and it is unlikely that Hitler would give Austrian Nazis less aid than he gave Franco. In such a situation it seemed eminently possible that Austrian Nazis might deliberately foment civil war.

Besides sending troops to suppress Nazi agitation in Graz and Linz, there were rumors in Vienna that Chancellor Schuschnigg had hidden troops in all parts of the capital to prepare for an uprising. Meantime he was reported to have ordered Nazi Seyss-Inquart to go to Graz and quiet the Nazis or be dismissed for inefficiency as Minister of Interior.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.