[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].
