1938: Hitler's Gamble

by MacDonogh, Giles

  Many are now sceptical of the use of such conversions. One of these is the writer George Clare, who escaped from Vienna via Berlin and ended up in Ireland before joining the British Army. The problem he, like so many others, encountered was how to get to his chosen destination without the necessary transit visas. For some, the English Channel was an insurmountable obstacle: ‘You would have got on the back of a crocodile if it was crossing the Channel.’74

  5

  MAY

  As April blossomed into May, Salzburg enjoyed a copycat performance of the book-burning in Berlin. Special attention was given to the writings of Austrian Jews: Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler, Emil Ludwig and Franz Werfel. In the first week of May, Jews were banished from the cattle and meat markets, which had been a prominent area of activity in the past. Later that month Jews were excluded from the press and the arts. The First of May was National Labour Day. God withheld his blessing, and it was grey and wet. The flag-waving, marching columns and Arcadians on the village green went ahead as planned, combining tradition and the Party. The highlight was a gathering of 150,000 girls and boys at the Olympia Stadium in Berlin. At the Opera House on Unter den Linden, Goebbels awarded the cultural prizes for the year. As promised, Leni Riefenstahl was honoured for her Olympia film. Later there were speeches in the nearby Lustgarten by Hitler, Ley and Goebbels.1 For those who had toadied to the Germans, an Austria Medal was to be struck for services to the Anschluss.

  ROMAN HOLIDAY

  Hitler made his first trip to Rome on 2 May. He was being treated to a state visit in return for that granted to Mussolini in Berlin the year before. The Duce declared a public holiday. It was a huge jamboree with three special trains filled with 500 officials thought worthy to accompany the Führer, together with their wives. ‘The wags called it The Invasion of Italy’.

  They were all got up in their ‘admiral’s uniform’, a diplomatic costume dreamed up by Frau von Ribbentrop and the Nazi theatre designer Benno von Arendt, replacing the morning dress the Wilhelmstrasse had used in the past. Spitzy had to model the new kit, which came in various prototypes ranging from one of Lützow’s riflemen from the Wars of Liberation to a Prussian musketeer or a hotel porter. The final version caused Göring to needle Ribbentrop, saying, ‘You look just like the porter in the Rio-Rita-Bar.’2 When the diplomats finally emerged from their offices into the Wilhelmstrasse, a Berlin street arab exclaimed, ‘Oy! Look at that! A lot of admirals!’3 The party travelled with a bewildering array of costumes ordained by the head of protocol, and were constantly being instructed to change their clothes.4 Germany’s leading clothes-horse, Göring, remained behind in Berlin as acting head of state. On 3 May he received the King of Sweden as he passed through Berlin.

  The Italians accorded the uncouth Brownshirts an operatic reception. A special station had been constructed in Rome, where the Nazis were greeted by the governor, Prince Colonna. Carriages drawn by four horses conveyed the party to their lodgings. Hitler travelled with the king, as he was a guest at the Quirinal. Goebbels observed that the Italian sovereign was ‘stiff’. There were baskets of fruit and bottles of grappa in every room at the Grand.5 Goebbels revelled in the glory that was Rome, and regretted that Germany had nothing to match it. It would be up to the Nazis to provide durable monuments of this sort.6 And there were pretty women wherever he looked – although Ciano thought they only had eyes for Hitler.7 The only thing that marred the Germans’ pleasure at being in the eternal city was the eternal rain.

  Hitler was in raptures over all he saw, although he thought the monarch and his wife were looking down on him. The king was indeed perturbed by his house guest, who allegedly called for a woman at 1 a.m., because he needed to have his bed turned down (and this had to be done by a woman); the king also gained the impression that Hitler was injecting himself with stimulants and narcotics, which was possibly true. Even Mussolini told Ciano he was convinced the Führer had been wearing rouge to hide his pallor.8

  Hitler found compensations: he was able to admire the beauties of Florence and Naples. At a banquet at the Palazzo Venezia, he put the Italians’ minds at rest by stressing that he had no desire to reclaim the quarter of a million Germans stranded in the South Tyrol, whom the Italians had persecuted at least as aggressively as the Czech majority had ridden roughshod over the aspirations of the German minority in the Sudetenland. He understood the strength of the Duce’s opposition to any border changes. Only recently Mussolini had decided to send the German Tiroler off to fight in the front line in Abyssinia, presumably in the hope that they would not return.9 Hitler’s abandonment of the German minority south of the Brenner was the price he was willing to pay for freedom of movement in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

  This was not lost on intelligent Germans.10 The poor Tyroleans had appeared like Banquo’s ghost to watch the cortège pass. Goebbels looked out of the train window and felt pain in his heart.11 Hess agreed. According to Paul Schmidt, the Tyroleans showed no enthusiasm: scarcely a single handkerchief was waved, and there were no fascist salutes.12 There was no sympathy for them among the Blackshirts. They couldn’t wait to see the back of them.13 Some Nazis who had been agitating for the South Tyrol were arrested before the caravanserai set off.14

  Ribbentrop was anxious to foist an outline treaty on Mussolini that would assure mutual assistance in the event of attack on either state. In his vision, the pact would bring Germany, Italy and Japan together against Britain. It was sprung on Ciano as they watched the fireworks over the Bay of Naples from the battleship Cavour. In their new uniforms the diplomats looked very much the part at the naval display. The Italian Fascists wanted to hang on to the Anglo-Italian Agreement they had signed the previous month, and Ciano knew how to face Ribbentrop’s crassness with diplomatic persiflage: the solidarity between the two countries was so great that they hardly need put it in writing. Ribbentrop refused to be fobbed off, and on one occasion a heated argument broke out between the two men. Ciano thought such a pact would endanger his chances of having Chamberlain recognize Italy’s new Mediterranean empire. Mussolini was not opposed to a treaty, but he was distinctly unimpressed by Germany’s new Foreign Minister. He told his son-in-law Ciano – who didn’t like Ribbentrop either – that this man who talked non-stop about making war was to be given a wide berth. ‘He belongs to a category of Germans who are a disaster to their country.’15 Even leading Nazis were pulling their hair out over Ribbentrop’s idiocy. On 4 May Goebbels, Hess and Himmler had a discussion about the Foreign Minister’s ‘megalomania’. Hess agreed with Goebbels that he needed to be reined in soon.16

  After the naval display there was a performance of Aida at the Teatro San Carlo. The Head of Protocol, Vicco von Bülow-Schwante, had slipped up badly. He had sent the Führer along bare-headed and dressed in tails to review the guard of honour, while the king was in full dress uniform. Hitler had felt like some ‘despicable democratic leader’.17 Goebbels thought they were being treated like shoeshine boys. Bülow-Schwante was sacked.18

  Hitler expressed his anger at the court ceremonial in a letter to Winifred Wagner.19 His gaffes caused chortling among his own men as well as the Italians.20 The humiliations suffered by Hitler in Italy had the effect of hardening his resolve, firstly to resist any attempt to restore the monarchy and secondly to move against the nobility. Ciano was sympathetic, and relayed Ribbentrop’s line that the one good thing the Social Democrats had done in Germany was to ‘liquidate the monarchy for ever’.21 As the nobility was still prominent in the army and the diplomatic service, Hitler planned to purge both. Naturally Goebbels egged him on: ‘The nobility is international; it sees the nations only in terms of its own possessions. It should be banished.’22

  One point of agreement struck between the two dictators was a greater coordination in internal affairs. In particular, Italy would finally adopt racial antisemitism. Over the next month Italian newspapers published articles by well-known professors showing that the Italians were racially ‘nordic’ and that the Jew
s were a peril. Many academics had to quit their posts, and senior army and naval officers were dismissed; Jews were banned from the professions. Mussolini had to find a new dentist.23

  One important Roman refused to attend the festivities, however. In Paris Weisl voiced his admiration for the Supreme Pontiff, Pius XI, to the British Board of Deputies, citing ‘[the] Osservatore Romano, the mouthpiece of the Holy See, who [sic] ignored the presence of Kaiser Adolf in the eternal Rome. This policy of the Pope is not only dignified but also clever.’24

  EICHMANN TIGHTENS HIS GRIP

  On 7 May it was announced that Austrian civil servants would be required to furnish baptismal certificates going back to their grandparents. On the 20th the Viennese were warned that the Nuremberg Laws would take effect from 28 June. Der Stürmer celebrated the purification of blood in a brace of cartoons, which showed the appropriation of Moritz Kohn’s dress shop by a proper Aryan, Fritz Schulz.25 It was not as easy as that. All over the Reich, Jewish businesses were now proving hard to sell, because they were expensive, and they had run out of buyers. The German economy was suffering from Nazi mismanagement and there was not a lot of money about. The easiest method was to allow the firm to be bought out by a conglomerate. Buyers then dictated prices. That meant that they sold at between two-thirds and three-quarters of their market price. Some Jews were tempted to hang on and hope that the situation improved, often with disastrous results.26

  The Jewish-owned papers in Vienna were now shut down. These included Die Stimme, Die Neue Welt (owned by Robert Stricker), Die Wahrheit, Der Jude, Jüdische Front and Der Legitimist. They were to be replaced by just one – the Zionistische Rundschau – edited by Emil Reich. Twenty-five issues appeared between 20 May and 4 November 1938, bringing welcome morale to humiliated and despairing people.27 Eichmann was able to write to his old comrade Herbert Hagen on 8 May. He was on top of the work and looking forward to the first issue of the Zionist Rundschau which he had the ‘boring’ job of censoring. It was to be his paper. He was also getting on with the business of forcing Jews into emigration: he had told them that 20,000 indigent Jews had to go before May 1939. The physical pressure was to be exerted by the SD, while the Gauleiter was to deal with the economic issues.28

  The institutions of the Jewish congregation had been re-created, but from now on they were ruled by Eichmann with a rod of iron. In agreement with his Berlin boss, Dr Six, Eichmann had authorized the relaunch of the IKG, the Zionist National Union and the Orthodox organization Agudas Jisroel. The IKG was reopened on 2 May and the Palestine Office the day after. After a hiatus of six weeks, Eichmann’s desire to see the Jews go to Palestine could bear fruit. In theory, at least, this would be legal emigration. His first task was to see that 20,000 poor Jews would leave in the following year. The IKG was instructed to create a Central Emigration Office to deal with all other countries. For Palestine there was the Zionist National Union.29

  His entire aim was to create a self-funding expulsion. To the end of his days Eichmann insisted that what he was doing was not personal: ‘That I was no Jew-hater. I have never been an antisemite; I have never made any bones about that. I don’t want to award myself laurels. I mean that the collaboration with the Central Office [for Jewish Emigration] was correct in all matters.’30

  On 11 May Waldman in New York got wind of a bit of horsetrading at the British Passport Control Office in Vienna.

  I learn from a reliable but indirect source that 300 young Jews will leave Vienna in the next few days secretly, in order to travel without passports by sea to Palestine.

  . . . representatives of these Jews have approached the authorities in Berlin and got their consent for leaving the country and even for the export of the money necessary for the travelling expenses (some 700 Schillings per head). I am informed that the British Consulate of Vienna is aware of the illegal activity, but instead of hindering them the Consulate has so far rather been helpful, though of course not one of the Jews will get a regular visa.

  If the attempt of those Jews should succeed another transport will follow immediately. I may add the leader of this adventurous enterprise is known to have already succeeded three times in bringing secret transports of young Jews from Austria to Palestine. The importance of this news would not consist in the fact of 300 Jews leaving a town of 160,000 but the silent encouragement of the Nazis as well as the British Consulate which should be obliged to hinder them.31

  On 16 May Wiesl reported tensions: ‘Practically every European country [has] hastened to close its doors to Jews from Austria . . . especially France.’ He pointed out that the French were considering new legislation that would affect up to 250,000 foreign Jews who were planning to enter the country. The Premier, Daladier, had already threatened to expel 10,000 Jews, including 2,000 Austrians.32

  A note of Schadenfreude creeps into the correspondence between Wiesl and Waldman in a document written at this time:

  The Nuremberg Aryan Laws have been introduced formally in Austria, notwithstanding grave apprehensions due to the fact that practically the whole of the Viennese bourgeoisie and a good part of the Austrian aristocracy too, has Jewish blood. Exclusion from auctions means Jews can’t sell property at a reasonable price. He has to give away whatever he owns, for a song – for the Horst Wessel Song . . .

  Wiesl gloated: ‘Most of the victims are converted or even half-Jews. The sacrament of baptism did not save them.’33

  The sacrament was not recognized anyhow. The Jews and the Nazis had that in common: as far as they were concerned the converts were still Jews.34 Only the Christian churches had the power to change that, when there was a will. On 18 May Catchpool wrote to Alice Nike after a meeting with Sir Alan Holderness of the Aliens Department of the Home Office. There had been no deviation from official policy as far as the bureaucrat was concerned, and faked references by Jews were causing problems. ‘The greatest difficulty of all, however, is that advice given in Vienna is not a guarantee that the individual who has received it will be allowed to enter this country. The last word is always the immigrant officer at the port of landing . . .’ Miss Stamper of MI6 was out of the picture, having ‘temporarily broken down’. She must have been an ally of Catchpool’s. Catchpool had also been in touch with Gainer through a third party. He wanted to meet Bürckel, and he desired to have use of the diplomatic bag for particulars of individual cases.35

  OPERATION GREEN

  On 20 May Keitel finally sent Hitler an outline of Operation Green for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The slowness might have been a reflection of the OKW’s lukewarm feelings about it. After his success in Austria, Hitler was keener than ever to lay his hands on the western parts of Czechoslovakia. He wanted to achieve his ‘mission’ in his own lifetime.36 His accomplice was the new Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop, who was lusting to prove himself. If possible, Hitler was going to wait for ‘provocation’ rather than risk naked aggression. This meant exploiting ‘increasing diplomatic controversies and tension linked with military preparations so as to shift the war guilt on to the enemy’ or by waiting for a ‘serious incident which will subject Germany to unbearable provocation’ and ‘affording the moral justification for military measures’.37

  Hitler was well aware that the Versailles settlement had given him two potential allies in the rape of Czechoslovakia. Hungary wanted to redeem the Magyars of Slovakia, while the Poles felt that they also had a right to Teschen in the north. Hitler realized that France would be unlikely to rescue Czechoslovakia if they were going to unleash a European war in the process. The only danger, Hitler felt, was from the Soviet Union. The pot came to the boil that very weekend of 19–20 May. The contents of Keitel’s plan were possibly leaked, although this was probably no more than a sham used to make the Czechs tense. German troops were reported to be on the move near the Czech border. Local elections loomed and a worried President Beneš ordered a partial mobilization. Two Germans were killed and a hundred injured by Czech police during a disturbance in Eger. The British ambassa
dor in Berlin, Sir Nevile Henderson, sent his military attachés to report on the situation and demanded assurances from Keitel, thereby further infuriating the already bitterly Anglophobic Ribbentrop.

  In May, Der Stürmer launched its own offensive against the Czechs. Goebbels agreed with Ribbentrop for once, and revelled in the way the Czechs seemed to be hastening their own downfall. Ribbentrop made unseemly threats against the Czech people and during a stormy meeting with Henderson convinced him that Germany would fight. Henderson responded by telling his staff to start packing. The British and the French took the opportunity to warn Germany of the consequences of invading Czechoslovakia and the French and the Russians promised immediate military assistance.

  Hitler was forced to back down, which did little for his mood. Ribbentrop’s impotent rage continued. He ran to the Berghof to find his master yet more hardened in his desire to do away with the Czech state. Halifax was relieved to be communicating with the Under-Secretary of State, Weizsäcker, whom he warned of the consequences of precipitate action, which might put an end to European civilization. Germans felt certain that they were on the verge of war.38 On 23 May the Czech ambassador in Berlin was informed that Germany had no designs on Czechoslovakia. The bubble burst on the 25th when Chamberlain made it clear to the Commons that, on the basis of the military attaché Colonel Mason-Macfarlane’s report, there had been no cause for alarm.

  In the aftermath of the crisis, on the 26th, Henlein gave a self-incriminating interview to the Daily Mail and Beneš lost a good deal of credibility in London and Paris for provoking Germany. Hitler spent a week sulking at the Berghof before returning to Berlin on 28 May and summoning a conference of the service chiefs in the Chancellery. Göring was still dragging his feet; his Research Bureau had tapped various reports that indicated that the French would not let this one pass. On the table was a map of the offending Czechoslovakia and they were to hear how it was to be eliminated. ‘I am utterly determined that Czechoslovakia shall disappear from the map of Europe,’ Hitler told them. On the 30th he voiced his intention to smash the Czechs in the immediate future. Keitel’s plans needed to be effected by 1 October.