by Ian Kershaw
At 11a.m. on 12 February, Papen met the Austrian Chancellor, in the company of Guido Schmidt and an adjutant, on the German-Austrian border at Salzburg, where they had spent the night. The Austrian visitors were not enamoured at hearing that three German generals would be among the party awaiting them at the Berghof.36 Nicolaus von Below, Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, had been told to make sure Keitel was present, and in addition one or two generals of particularly ‘martial’ demeanour. Below’s recommendation of the commanding generals of army and Luftwaffe in Munich, Walter von Reichenau (one of the most thoroughly nazified generals) and Hugo Sperrle (who the previous year had commanded the Legion Condor, the squadrons sent to aid the nationalists in Spain), had met with Hitler’s enthusiastic approval. Keitel had arrived that morning from Berlin, along with Ribbentrop. The two generals had travelled from Munich. They were told by Hitler that their presence was purely intended to intimidate Schuschnigg by the implied threat of military force.37
Hitler, tense and keyed up, received Schuschnigg on the steps of his alpine retreat with due politeness.38 However, as soon as they entered the great hall, with its breathtaking view over the mountains, Hitler’s mood abruptly changed. When Schuschnigg remarked on the beauty of the panorama, Hitler snapped: ‘Yes, here my ideas mature. But we haven’t come together to talk about the beautiful view and the weather.’39
Hitler took Schuschnigg into his study while Papen, Schmidt, Ribbentrop, and the others remained outside. Once inside he launched into a ferocious attack, lasting till lunchtime, on Austria’s long history of ‘treason’ against the German people. ‘And this I tell you, Herr Schuschnigg,’ he reportedly threatened. ‘I am firmly determined to make an end of all this… I have a historic mission (Auftrag), and this I will fulfil because Providence has destined me to do so… You don’t believe you can hold me up for half an hour, do you? Who knows? Perhaps I’ll appear some time overnight in Vienna; like a spring storm. Then you’ll see something.’40
Meanwhile, Ribbentrop had presented Guido Schmidt with Hitler’s ultimatum: an end to all restrictions on National Socialist activity in Austria, an amnesty for those Nazis arrested, the appointment of Seyß-Inquart to the Ministry of the Interior with control over the security forces, another Nazi sympathizer, Edmund Glaise-Horstenau (a former military archivist and historian), to be made War Minister, and steps to begin the integration of the Austrian economic system with that of Germany.41 The demands were to be implemented by 15 February – timing determined by Hitler’s major speech on foreign policy, set for 20 February.42
The negotiations were initially intended to last only until lunchtime. But the first session had been taken up almost solely with Hitler’s rantings. It would be evening before the Austrian visitors could depart. At lunch, however, Hitler was as if transformed – once more the genial host. The generals were brought in. They told Schmidt they had no idea why they had been invited. Conversation avoided the Austrian question. It was mostly small-talk, apart from Sperrle speaking of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, which gave Hitler the opportunity to turn to a pet theme: the dangers of Bolshevism.43 It was late afternoon when Schuschnigg, now apprised by Schmidt of the text of the German demands, returned to Hitler’s study. Hitler threatened to march into Austria if his demands were not met in full. Schuschnigg refused to buckle to the threats. Only the Austrian President, he declared, could make cabinet appointments and grant an amnesty. He could not guarantee that such action would be taken. As Schuschnigg was retreating for further discussions with Schmidt, Hitler’s bellow for Keitel to come immediately could be heard throughout the house. When the general, arriving at the double in Hitler’s study, asked what was required of him, he was told: ‘Nothing. Sit down.’ After ten minutes of inconsequential chat, he was told to go.
But the impact of the charade on Schuschnigg was not lost.44 The threat of military invasion seemed very real. Eventually, Papen brokered a number of alterations in the German demands and, under pressure, the Austrians finally accepted the chief difficulty, the appointment of Seyß-Inquart. Hitler told Schuschnigg: ‘For the first time in my life I have made up my mind to reconsider a final decision.’45 With a heavy heart, Schuschnigg signed.
It was by now late evening. The Austrians, browbeaten and depressed after subjection to such merciless bullying, preferred to travel back hungry than accept Hitler’s invitation to dinner. They returned to Salzburg in complete silence. Only Papen spoke. ‘Now you have some idea, Herr Bundeskanzler, how difficult it is to deal with such an unstable person,’ he remarked, adding that next time it would be different and that the Führer could be ‘distinctly charming.’46
Keitel returned to Berlin early next morning to organize fake military manoeuvres near the Austrian border to exert further pressure on the Reich’s eastern neighbours.47 There was no question of genuine military preparations for an invasion. Keitel had to report to the newly appointed supreme commander of the army, von Brauchitsch, that Hitler was not thinking of a military conflict.48
Hitler was dissatisfied at the outcome of the meeting with Schuschnigg.49 But he told Goebbels that his threats of force had had their effect: ‘cannons always speak a good language’.50 Only when Schuschnigg had complied with his demands, on 15 February, did Hitler’s mood improve.51 ‘The world press rages. Speaks of rape. Not entirely without justification,’ wrote Goebbels.52 Hitler spent the next days largely withdrawn in his private quarters in the Berghof, preparing drafts of his big speech on the 20th, and dictating it to the two secretaries working in rotation on the typewriter.53 In his speech, he thanked the Austrian Chancellor ‘for the great understanding and warmhearted readiness’ in accepting his invitation to talks and his efforts to find a way of serving ‘the interest of both countries’.54
Two weeks after the notorious meeting at the Berghof, when laying down directives for the restless Austrian NSDAP, which had threatened to upset developments through its own wild schemes for disturbances, Hitler emphasized, according to Keppler’s notes of the meeting, that he wanted to proceed along ‘the evolutionary way whether or not the possibility of success could be envisaged at present. The protocol signed by Schuschnigg,’ he went on, ‘was so far-reaching that if implemented in full the Austrian Question would automatically be solved. A solution through force was something he did not now want if it could in any way be avoided, since for us the foreign-policy danger is diminishing from year to year and the military strength becoming year by year greater.’55 Hitler’s approach was at this time still in line with Göring’s evolutionary policy. He plainly reckoned that the tightening of the thumbscrews on Schuschnigg at the February meeting had done the trick. Austria was no more than a German satellite. Extinction of the last remnants of independence would follow as a matter of course. Force was not necessary.
In line with the ‘Trojan horse’ policy of eroding Austrian independence from the inside, following the Berchtesgaden meeting Hitler had complied with demands from Seyß-Inquart – matching earlier representations by Schuschnigg himself – to depose Captain Josef Leopold, the leader of the unruly Austrian National Socialists, and his associates.56 Even so, the meeting at the Berghof and Hitler’s speech on 20 February, his first broadcast in full on Austrian radio – stating that ‘in the long run’ it was ‘unbearable’ for Germans to look on the separation of 10 million fellow Germans by borders imposed through peace treaties – had given the Austrian Nazis a new wind.57 Disturbances mounted, especially in the province of Styria, in the south-east of the country, where resentment at the loss of territory to the new state of Yugoslavia after the First World War had helped fuel the radicalism that had turned the region into a hotbed of Austrian Nazism.58 The situation was by now highly volatile, the Nazis barely controllable by Austrian state forces. Schuschnigg’s own emotional appeals to Austrian patriotism and independence had merely exacerbated the tension within the country and further irritated Hitler.59 At the same time, Schuschnigg, evidently impressed by Hitler’s threats to use fo
rce and anxious to avoid anything that might occasion this, was reassuring Britain, France, and Italy that he had the situation in hand rather than rousing foreign sympathy at German strong-arm tactics.60 The resignation as Foreign Secretary on 21 February of Anthony Eden, despised by the German leadership, and his replacement by Lord Halifax – known particularly since his visit to Germany the previous November to favour a conciliatory approach to revisionist demands in the interests of preserving peace in Europe and preventing a conflict which could threaten Great Britain’s position as a world power – was meanwhile seen in Berlin as a further indication of British appeasement.61
The same tone came across in comments of Sir Nevile Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, when he met Hitler on 3 March. Hitler, in a vile mood, was unyielding. If Britain opposed a just settlement in Austria, where Schuschnigg had the support of only 15 per cent of the population, Germany would have to fight, he declared. And if he intervened, he would do so like lightning (blitzschnell). His aim was nevertheless ‘that the just interests of the German Austrians should be secured and an end made to oppression by a process of peaceful evolution’.62 However inadequately the undermining of the Austrian state from within through a combination of infiltration and agitation, backed by German bullying, could be described as ‘peaceful evolution’, pressure-tactics, not armed takeover, still formed the preferred solution to the Austrian Question.
Such notions were thrown overboard by Schuschnigg’s wholly unexpected decision, announced on the morning of 9 March, to hold a referendum on Austrian autonomy four days later. The Nazis themselves had been pressing for years for a plebiscite on Anschluß, confident that they would gain massive support for an issue backed by large numbers of Austrians since 1919.63 But Schuschnigg’s referendum, asking voters to back ‘a free and German, independent and social, Christian and united Austria; for peace and work, and for the equal rights of all who declare themselves for people and fatherland’, was couched in a way that could scarcely fail to bring the desired result. It would be a direct rebuff to union with Germany.64 German plans were immediately thrown into disarray. Hitler’s own prestige was at stake. The moves that followed, culminating in the German march into Austria and the Anschluß, were all now improvised at breakneck speed.
The German government was completely taken aback by Schuschnigg’s gamble. For hours, there was no response from Berlin. Hitler had not been informed in advance of Schuschnigg’s intentions, and was at first incredulous. But his astonishment rapidly gave way to mounting fury at what he saw as a betrayal of the Berchtesgaden agreement.65 Goebbels recorded the decision to hold an Austrian plebiscite in his diary, though initially without further commentary.66 In the evening, when he was addressing a gathering of newspaper editors at a reception in the Propaganda Ministry, he was suddenly summoned to Hitler’s presence. Göring was already there. He was told of Schuschnigg’s move – ‘an extremely dirty trick’ (ganz gemeinen Bubenstreich) to ‘dupe’ (übertölpeln) the Reich through ‘a stupid and idiotic plebiscite’. The trio were still unsure how to act. They considered replying either by Nazi abstention from the plebiscite (which would have undermined its legitimacy), or by sending 1,000 aeroplanes to drop leaflets over Austria ‘and then actively intervening’.67 For the time being, the German press was instructed to publish nothing at all about Austria.68
By late at night, perhaps egged on by Göring, Hitler was warming up. Goebbels was again called in. Glaise-Horstenau (along with Seyß-Inquart a Nazi sympathizer in the Austrian cabinet), on a visit in southern Germany when suddenly summoned to Berlin by Göring, was also present. ‘The Führer drastically outlines for him his plans,’ Goebbels recorded. ‘Glaise recoils from the consequences.’ But Hitler, who went on to discuss the situation alone with Goebbels until 5a.m., was now ‘in full swing’ and showing ‘a wonderful fighting mood’. ‘He believes the hour has arrived,’ noted Goebbels. He wanted to sleep on it. But he was sure that Italy and England would do nothing. Action from France was possible, but not likely. ‘Risk not so great as at the time of the occupation of the Rhineland,’ was the conclusion.69
Just how unprepared the German leadership had been was shown by the fact that the Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop, was in London, Reichenau had to be recalled from Cairo, and General Erhard Milch (Göring’s right-hand man in the Luftwaffe) was summoned from holiday in Switzerland.70 Göring himself was scheduled to preside over the military court to hear the Fritsch case, meeting for the first time on 10 March. The hearing was abruptly adjourned when a courier brought a message demanding Göring’s presence in the Reich Chancellery.71 Goebbels had also been called there, arriving to find Hitler deep in thought, bent over maps. Plans were discussed for transporting 4,000 Austrian Nazis who had been exiled to Bavaria, together with a further 7,000 paramilitary reservists.72
The Wehrmacht leadership was taken completely by surprise through Hitler’s demand for plans for military intervention. Keitel, abruptly ordered to the Reich Chancellery on the morning of 10 March, spinelessly suggested calling in Brauchitsch and Beck, knowing full well that no plans existed, but wishing to avoid having to tell this to Hitler. Brauchitsch was not in Berlin. Beck despairingly told Keitel: ‘We have prepared nothing, nothing has happened, nothing.’ But his objections were dismissed out of hand by Hitler. He was sent away to report within hours on which army units would be ready to march on the morning of the 12th.73
By this time, Goebbels had again had intensive discussions alone with Hitler. It seems to have been Goebbels who came up with the idea of having the two Nazi supporters in the Austrian cabinet, Seyß-Inquart and Gleise-Horstenau, demand the referendum should follow the procedures laid down for the Saar plebiscite in 1935. Should Schuschnigg refuse, as was to be expected, the two ministers would resign and 600–800 German planes would shower Austria with leaflets on the Saturday, exhorting the people to resistance against their government. The people – meaning the Nazi activists – would rise in revolt. And on the Sunday, 13 March, the day of the referendum, the Wehrmacht followed by the Austrian ‘Legionaries’ – exiled paramilitaries based in Bavaria – would march in. The SA-Obergruppenführer Hermann Reschny, leader of the Austrian stormtroopers, thought that the Austrian army would open fire. This, too, had to be reckoned with. But Mussolini was unable and London unwilling to act, while Paris was handicapped by a government crisis. ‘So it must be risked. In any case, prepare everything. The Führer works out the military plans… March was always the Führer’s lucky month.’74
Around midnight Goebbels had once more been called to see Hitler. ‘The die is cast,’ he noted. ‘On Saturday march in. Push straight to Vienna. Big aeroplane action. The Führer is going himself to Austria. Göring and I are to stay in Berlin. In 8 days Austria will be ours.’ He discussed the propaganda arrangements with Hitler, then returned to his Ministry to work on them until 4a.m. No one was now allowed to leave the Ministry till the ‘action’ began. The activity was feverish. ‘Again a great time. With a great historical task… It’s wonderful,’ he wrote.75
After three hours’ sleep, Goebbels was back with Hitler by 8a.m. dictating leaflets for distribution in Austria.76 An hour later, when Papen arrived post-haste from Vienna, he found the Reich Chancellery in a frenzy of activity. Apart from Goebbels and his propaganda team, Neurath, Frick (with several officials from the Ministry of the Interior), Himmler (‘surrounded by a dozen giant SS officers’), Brauchitsch, Keitel, and their adjutants were all in attendance. Ribbentrop was missing – sidelined in London, where he was making his official farewells as former ambassador, his recall to Berlin now hindered by Göring.77
Prominent in Hitler’s mind that morning was Mussolini’s likely reaction. Around midday, he sent a handwritten letter, via his emissary Prince Philipp of Hessen, telling the Duce that as a ‘son of this [Austrian] soil’ he could no longer stand back but felt compelled to intervene to restore order in his homeland, assuring Mussolini of his undiminished sympathy, and stressed that nothing woul
d alter his agreement to uphold the Brenner border.78 But whatever the Duce’s reaction, Hitler had by then already put out his directive for ‘Case Otto’, expressing his intention, should other measures – the demands put by Seyß-Inquart to Schuschnigg – fail, of marching into Austria. The action, under his command, was to take place ‘without use of force in the form of a peaceful entry welcomed by the people’.79
Hitler, when Papen was ushered in to see him that morning, was ‘in a state bordering on hysteria’.80 During the course of the day, Göring (so he claimed), rather than Hitler, made most of the running. ‘It was not the Führer so much as I, myself, who set the pace and, even overruling the Führer’s misgivings, brought everything to its final development,’ he proudly insisted at his Nuremberg trial, anxious to establish his own ‘Göring myth’ for posterity.81 ‘Without actually discussing it with the Führer,’ he recalled, ‘I demanded spontaneously the immediate resignation of Chancellor Schuschnigg. When this was approved, I put the next demand, so that now the entire business was ready for the Anschluß.’82 This was something of an over-simplification.
Hitler had put the first ultimatum around 10a.m., demanding Schuschnigg call off the referendum for two weeks to allow a plebiscite similar to that in the Saarland in 1935 to be arranged – the idea that Goebbels had raised the previous day. Schuschnigg was to resign as Chancellor to make way for Seyß-Inquart. All restrictions on the National Socialists were to be lifted.83 It was when Schuschnigg, around 2.45p.m., accepted the postponement of the plebiscite but rejected the demand to resign that Göring acted on his own initiative in repeating the ultimatum for the Chancellor’s resignation and replacement by Seyß. Göring reported back to the Reich Chancellery: Seyß had to be named Chancellor by 5.30p.m., the other conditions of the original ultimatum accepted by 7.30p.m.84 He had simply overridden the objections of Seyß himself, who was still hoping to avoid a German invasion and preserve some shreds of Austrian independence.85 Looking harassed and tense, Seyß put the ultimatum to the Austrian cabinet, remarking that he was no more than ‘a girl telephone switchboard operator’.86 At this point, the military preparations in Germany were continuing, ‘but march in still uncertain’, recorded Goebbels. Plans were discussed for making Hitler Federal President, to be acclaimed by popular vote, ‘and then eventually (dann so nach und nach) to complete the Anschluß’.87 In the immediate future, the ‘coordination’ (Gleichschaltung) of Austria, not the complete Anschluß, was what was envisaged.88