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“The New Elite:” Nazi Leadership in austria, 1938–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

John A. Bernbaum
John A. Bernbaum
Affiliation:
Christian College Consortium, (Washington. D.C.)
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Extract

On the morning of March 12, 1938, the German Eighth Army began its invasion of Austria. By early evening the takeover had proved to be remarkably successful, and that night a jubilant Hitler traveled to Linz to make his first speech on Austrian soil in the capacity of chancellor. The following day he issued a basic law of incorporation providing for Austria to become a province of the German Reich—an act that initiated Austria's tragic seven-year experience under Nazi control.

Type
The Nazi Interlude
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 14 , January 1978 , pp. 145 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1978

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References

1 Three of the best studies on the Anschluβ are Ulrich Eichstädt, Von Dollfuβ zu Hitler (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1955),Google Scholar which focuses primarily on Austrian- German relations; Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Anschluss: The Rape of Austria (London: Macmillan and Company, 1963),Google Scholar which concentrates on Kurt von Schuschnigg's chancellorship; and Gehl, Juergen, Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss, 1931–1938 (London: Oxford University Press, 1963),Google Scholar which is largely concerned with the international aspects of the Anschluβ movement.

2 Schroeder, Paul W., “American Books on Austria-Hungary,” Austrian History Yearbook, Vol. II (1966), p. 191;Google ScholarGerhard L. Weinberg's review of Karl Stadler, Österreich 1938–1945. Im Spiegel der NS-Akten, in Austrian History Yearbook, Vol. III–IV (1968–1969), pp. 502–503.Google Scholar

3 Jedlicka, Ludwig, Der 20. Juli 1944 in Österreich (Vienna: Verlag Herold, 1965), pp. 10–12.Google Scholar In his new survey of modern Austria (Austria [New York: Praeger, 1971]), Karl Stadler titles his first chapter on the post-Anschluβ period “The German Occupation”—an expression which implies domination by forces from the outside.

4 “Declaration on Austria,” Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. I (Washington, D. C: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1963),Google Scholar Annex 6 of the protocols of the Moscow Conference, November 1, 1943, p. 761.

5 Red-While-Red Book: Justice for Austria! (Vienna: Austrian State Printing House, 1947), especially pp. 82–83, 214–215, and 221.Google Scholar

6 Margaret Feiler, whose dissertation on “The Viennese Municipal Service, 1933- 1950. A Case Study in Bureaucratic Resiliency” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York University, 1964) is a valuable source of information on the bureaucracy in Vienna, found out that all publication plans were dropped because the records for the second volume were lost.

7 Interview of Leopold Tavs, a leading Viennese Nazi, by Herbert Steiner, director of the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes, in Vienna in 1970; a typed record of this interview can be found in the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes. See also the interrogation of August Eigruber on February 5, 1945, National Archives (Washington, D. C), Record Group 238, Nuremberg Interrogations (1945–1946), p. 12.Google Scholar

8 John C. Wiley, American chargé in Vienna, to the secretary of state, telegram No. 98, March 16, 1938, National Archives (Washington, D. C), Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, Decimal File 863.00/1499.

9 Office of Strategic Services report, October, 1943, ibid., Record Group 226, Records of the Office of Strategic Services, Report No. 45,463.

10 Probably the best of the wartime émigré publications was written in Paris and issued under the title Österreich unter dem Reichskommissar (Paris: Editions “Nouvelles d'Autriche,” 1939). See especially pp. 28–30 and 111–113.Google Scholar

11 The party membership records of the National Socialist Party are part of the biographical collection housed in the Berlin Document Center. Until all these materials are open to research scholars, studies of Nazi party membership can only be tentative.

12 For an analysis of the Saar plebiscite, see Wambaugh, Sarah, The Saar Plebiscite (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940).CrossRefGoogle Scholar At present there are no biographies of Buerckel, although his career deserves study.

13 This practice of a new party appointee's taking his staff with him when he was given a new assignment was to be frequently repeated, especially in the occupied territories in the East.

14 The seven others were Seegmueller, Gerland, Meiler, Selzner, Hoffmann, Mages, and Mehnert.

15 For a list of the personnel who served on the staff of the Reich Deputy for the Plebiscite in Austria, see the “Aufgabenverteilung für den Stab der Beauftragte der Führer in Österreich,” March 23, 1938, National Archives microcopy T580, Non-Biographic Records of the Berlin Document Center, Roll 61, File 304. The frames of this microcopy are not numbered.

16 Gau Propaganda Director Karl Wengl, “Richtlinien für die Steigerung des Propagandakampfes für die Volksabstimmung 10. April 1938,” n. d., in ibid. A Reich German deputy brought by Buerckel from the Saarland was attached to the office of the election director in each gau.

17 At least two and perhaps more officials from Bormann's staff were temporarily assigned to Buerckel's office during the first few years of the Nazi administration: Suendermann, who worked in the office of press affairs; and Openhoff, who was a personnel director.

18 For a list of the key personnel on his staff, see the “Geschätsordnung für die Dienststelle des Reichskommissars für die Wiedervereinigung Österreichs mit dem Deutschen Reich,” May 10, 1938, National Archives microcopy T580, Non-Biographic Records of the Berlin Document Center, Roll 62, File 304.

19 “For recent studies of Seyss-Inquart, see Rosar, Wolfgang, Deutsche Gemeinschaft. Seyss-Inquart und der Anschluβ (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1971);Google Scholar and Neumann, H. J., Artur Seyss-Inquart (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1970).Google Scholar

20 Buerckel to Seyss-Inquart, August 8, 1939, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Seyss-Inquart Nachlass, File 3. The various files of this collection are not paginated.

21 Seyss-Inquart to Himmler, August 19, 1939, Office of the United States Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (8 vols. and 3 suppls., Washington, D. C: United States Government Printing Office, 1946), Vol. V, p. 1,050.Google Scholar

22 Engel-Janosi, Friedrich, “Remarks on the Austrian Resistance, 1938–45,” Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. XIII (1953), p. 107.Google Scholar

23 Opdenhoff to Friedrichs, May 10, 1938, National Archives microcopy T580, Non-Biographic Records of the Berlin Document Center, Roll 62, File 304.

24 Opdenhoff's notes, Vienna, February 20, 1939, ibid.

25 Opdenhoff to Friedrichs, May 10, 1938, ibid.

26 For important studies on Seyss-Inquart's administration in the Netherlands, see Warmbrunn, Werner, The Dutch under German Occupation, 1940–1945 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963);Google Scholar and Presser, Jacob, The Destruction of the Dutch Jews (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1969).Google Scholar

27 For a report on what happened to Rintelen after the Anschluβ, see Office of Strategic Services report, February 17, 1944, National Archives (Washington, D. C), Record Group 226, Records of the Office of Strategic Services, Report No. 65,874.

28 Circular of the Reich ministry of interior to all government-presidents in Prussia, September 2, 1938, Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes (Vienna), File No. 4200.

29 Stuckart to Buerckel, April 26, 1938, National Archives microcopy T84, Miscellaneous German Records Collection, Roll 14, Frames 41798–9.

30 Frick to Buerckel, September 14, 1938, ibid., Frames 41804 and 807.

31 Ley to Buerckel, May 10, 1938, National Archives microcopy T580, Non-Biographic Records of the Berlin Document Center, Roll 547, File 659.

32 Opdenhoff's notes, Vienna, February 20, 1939, ibid., Roll 62, File 304.

33 Enclosure 5 (“Personnel Appointments”) in Opdenhoff to Friedrichs, April 2, 1938, ibid.

34 Opdenhoff's notes, Vienna, May 9, 1938, ibid. For further information about these nominations and the persons selected, see Botz, Gerhard, Die Eingliederung Österreichs in das Deutsche Reich (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1972), pp. 92–99.Google Scholar

35 Party Affairs Office (Parteiaufbauamt) of the Reich Commissioner's Staff, “Gauund Kreiseinteilung der NSDAP,” June 11, 1938, National Archives microcopy T580, Non-Biographic Records of the Berlin Document Center, Roll 62, File 304. For the official biographies of the gauleiters, see Völkischer Beobacher (Vienna edition), June 20, 1938.

36 The biographical information used in this study of the staffing of the administrative offices in Vienna was largely culled from the records of the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes and of the Archiv der Stadt Wien, with the aid of several handbooks and guides dealing with the Nazi administration. The able staff of the Berlin Document Center provided the author with the dates of party membership of the leading National Socialist Party officials and information concerning their date and place of birth.

37 For a study of Vienna during the first years after the Anschluβ, see the author's “Nazi Control in Austria: The Creation of the Ostmark, 1938–1940” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, 1972).

38 Organization Office, Vienna, “Verzeichnis der Gau- und Kreis-Wahlleiter,” March 26, 1938, National Archives microcopy T580, Non-Biographic Records of the Berlin Document Center, Roll 61, File 304.

39 For a list of the Viennese Nazi Party leadership in 1938, see the Ostmark-Jahrbuch for 1939.

40 Interview of Leopold Tavs by Herbert Steiner in Vienna in 1970; a typed record of this interview can be found in the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes.

41 Bormann to Schirach, November 2, 1941, National Archives microcopy T120, Records of the German Foreign Ministry, Roll 1026, Serial 1771, Frames 405963–4.

42 The composition of the chief personnel of the Viennese administration can be deduced by studying the detailed organizational charts printed in the back of the Wiener Adreβbuch. Other handbooks and guides, such as the Handbuch des Reichsgau Wien, are also available.

43 The Reich German was Dr. Max Gundel, who ran the Health Office; the Austrians were Hanke, Rafelsberger, Blaschke, Tavs, and Kozich.

44 For a report about these municipal department heads, see “Politische Führung der Stadt Wien,” a personnel study in the Barth Papers, National Archives microcopy T84, Miscellaneous German Records Collection, Roll 13, Frames 10366–76.

45 For the organizational tables of these ministries, see the Wiener Adreβbuch, 1939, Vol. II, Sect. 5, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

46 Statement of Dr. Fritz Sauter, Schirach's defense attorney, at Nuremberg, Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (42 vols., Nuremberg: Secretariat of the International Tribunal, 1947–1949), Vol. XVIII, pp. 460–461.Google Scholar

47 The provincial archives in Austria are still closed for the World War II period; consequently, it is still impossible to make a detailed personnel study of the leadership on the provincial level.

48 Meissner to Seyss-Inquart, July 15, 1939, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Seyss-Inquart Nachlass, File 8.