[A.] Austria
[6.1. Austrian structures of Jewry 1919-1938 -
185,246 counted Jews in 1938]
The annexation (Anschluss) of Austria on March 13, 1938,
places 185,246 Jews, a large majority of them in Vienna,
in German hands.
(End note 1: Herbert Rosenkranz: The Anschluss and the
Tragedy of Austrian Jewry, 1938-1945; In: Josef Frankel
(editor): The Jews of Austria; London 1967, p.486)
[Supplement: From the 13 March 1938 on the Hitler regime
calls Germany "Greater Germany" ("Grossdeutschland"). This
is an important fact in the inner Nazi propaganda. The NS
occupation counted some 150,000 more persons as Jews (1/4,
1/2 and 3/4 Jews etc. (p.228), so the NS occupation
counted some 335,246 persons as Jews in Austria].
[Structure of Austrian
Jewry: 80 % of the newspapers are Jewish etc.]
Austrian Jewry was poorer than its German counterpart and
less well organized. Large numbers of Austrian Jews were
dependent on charity, and JDC had had to support relief
operations and loan
kassas
there before 1938. The concentration of Jews in certain
branches of the economy was very marked: 90 % of the
advertising industry was Jewish, as were 85 % of the
people in the furniture business; 80 % of the radio,
newspaper, and shoe industries was Jewish. More important
- because more obvious - 51.6 % of the doctors and
dentists and 62 % of the lawyers in Vienna were Jews.
(End note 2: Ibid [Herbert Rosenkranz: The Anschluss and
the Tragedy of Austrian Jewry, 1938-1945; In: Josef
Frankel (editor): The Jews of Austria; London 1967],
p.480)
[Since decades the concentration of 80 % of the newspapers
in Jewish hands is provoking a big anger in the Austrian
population, and it's a pity that Jewish tactics have not
changed this since 1900].
This occupational concentration made the Jews both
conspicuous and vulnerable. Austrian anti-Semitism was
nothing new. At the beginning of the century, Vienna's
burgomaster, Karl Lueger, had risen to power on the crest
of anti-Semitism; the young Hitler had developed his
hatred of Jews in the slums of Vienna during that period.
[Important supplement
about history of Austrian anti-Semitism and Hitler:
There was a harsh anti-Semitism in Austria even before:
Since the worldwide breakdown of the stock markets in 1873
when the Jews were generally blamed to speculate with all
nations a popular anti-Semitism was coming up. And add to
this the Austrian government helped the Jewish Austrian
banks, but did not help the Austrian population out of the
depths, and above all not to the Austrian farmers. By this
the national movement under Schoenerer came out with a
harsh anti-Semitism which did not see that also many Jews
were suffering by the worldwide stock exchange breakdown.
In these times Hitler went to school and
anti-Semitism was put into his soul by the Austrian school
system.
Then, it was Lueger who was working with a moderate
anti-Semitism. He eliminated the slums in Vienna and
installed new structures of industrialization. But add to
this, Hitler saw the breakdown of democracy in Austria in
1896 by giving equal rights to the Czechs and to the Poles
in the old fashioned monarchy. By this the German
Austrians got into a minority by vote in the parliament
and the monarchy could not be governed regularly any more.
Hitler's fault was that he was not going abroad to see how
democracy functioned in other countries, e.g. in Germany
or in Switzerland. Right in these times many East European
Jews came to Vienna which were very strange for the
population, did not wash often etc. and this provoked also
the anti-Semitism.
Since 1871 (since the German victory against France)
German Austrian nationalism was strong: The German
Austrians wanted the accession with Germany since 1871 but
the emperor in Vienna blocked because otherwise the
emperor in Vienna would have been a second class emperor
against the emperor in Berlin. So the emperor in Vienna
was holding his connections with France for a balance of
power in Europe which provoked a hatred in the German
Austrian population against France, too. Add to this there
were the Slavs (Czechs and Croats and Serbs) who wanted to
destroy Austria by installing a population bridge between
the Balkan and Czechoslovakia. The culmination point was
that the emperor in Vienna let come in Czech and Balkan
police on horses into German Austrian regions to put down
German national demonstrations for a union with Germany.
By all these faults in the policy over decades and by his
own inabilities Hitler's soul was poisoned, and also a big
part of the Austrian population never got rid of these
negative feelings against Jewish banks, against the
emperor and against democracy. Hitler wanted to paint, was
not taken as a pupil two times in Vienna, got to Munich
and got into the German army as an Austrian in 1914.
Since 1919 since the Versailles treaty against Germany
(with robbery of Eastern Prussia and with the
French-Polish manipulations at Versailles) there was also
a mass movement against democracy in Germany (France
and Britain robbed all colonies from Germany). And the
St-Germain treaty against Austria gave a lot of German
Austrian territories to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and
Yugoslavia against any law of nations. By this the new
Austrian government did not want to reorganize the economy
for this new mini state. There was a big unemployment
until 1926, and the feelings of the Austrians and the
Germans were tight together and at the same time France
prohibited a succession of Germany and Mini-Austria in the
Versailles treaty and in the St-Germain treaty. So
national socialism had a wide ground to spread as a force
against criminal France democracy and - add to this -
against Lenin Communism which was financed by "American"
Jewish banks (Schiff). The church supported national
socialism at the end against Communism, and most Communist
leaders were Jews and in this majority they were a target
for any national propaganda.
Add to this the racist economy leaders in "USA" under
Roosevelt supported Nazi Germany with technique and wanted
Hitler would smash Communism. So Communism and Hitlerism
were financed by "US" banks to destroy Europe and Jewry
was between these forces. Jewry did not see this and
declared "USA" - the destructor of Europe - as safe haven.
By this Europe was smashed right. These are facts and not
a "theory"...].
[Split Jewry in Austria
between Zionists and left wing]
Viennese Jewry was split into many factions (there were 88
religious congregations and 356 secular organizations in
Vienna at the time of the Anschluss)
(End note 3: Ibid. [Herbert Rosenkranz: The Anschluss and
the Tragedy of Austrian Jewry, 1938-1945; In: Josef
Frankel (editor): The Jews of Austria; London 1967],
p.481)
and the official community organization (p.223)
- the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG) [Israelite cult
community] - suffered from considerable internal strife.
Two main groups contended for leadership:
-- the Union, a liberal group with strong assimilationist
tendencies in many ways similar to the German Jewish CV
[Central-Verein, engl. Central Union];
-- and the Zionists, themselves split into a large number
of factions.
[1934: Socialists are
eliminated by the Dollfuss government]
Prior to 1934 a third significant group had been the
socialists, Jewish members of the strong Austrian Marxist
party. The defeat of Austrian socialism, in the February
1934 fighting in Vienna, at the hands of the Austrian
proto-Fascist clerical party under Dollfuss endangered the
Jews, because by and large Jewish sympathies were with the
socialists; eleven out of the 30 arrested socialist
leaders were Jews. But two IKG leaders were sent abroad by
the government to show the world that no anti-Semitic
measures were being planned.
[1934-1937: After stock
exchange collapse 1929: Economic misery for Jews in
Austria]
While the political danger receded, economic misery
increased. In 1935 JDC sent $ 20,000 to keep soup kitchens
going for the impoverished Jewish proletariat. In 1934 a
quarter of Vienna's Jews were on relief. The situation did
not improve in 1936/7; in 1937, 35.5 % of the Jewish
working population were unemployed.
(End note 4:
-- 14-51, report, 2/7/34 [7 February 1934];
-- 8-18, report, 2/28/34 [28 February 1934], and
other material in that file
-- see also R62)
[1934: Installation of
Jewish IKG (Israelite cult community) council in Vienna]
After the 1934 events the IKG Council was composed of 20
Zionists (16 middle class and four socialist-Zionists) and
15 Union representatives. At the time of the Anschluss,
the leader of IKG was a Zionist, Dr. Desider Friedmann,
and another Zionist, Dr. Josef Löwenherz, was becoming
increasingly important.
Despite the popularity of the last chancellor of
independent Austria, Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Anschluss
was welcomed by almost all Austrians.
[Schuschnigg was not popular and 99 % of the German
Austrian population wanted the accession because it was
wanted since 1871. By this the population throw flowers to
the soldiers. But Austrians did not know what means a
National Socialist Germany and regretted the accession
bitterly already after three months when NS administration
implemented a new Nazi administration with new borders of
provinces etc. in Austria].
