407. The Nazis in Power: The Conquest of Austria (Part 4)

[Music] Ae-dol-vice, Ae-dol-vice, Every morning you greet me, small and white, clean and bright. You look happy to meet me, Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever. Ae-dol-vice, Ae-dol-vice, Bless my homeland forever. Ae-dol-vice, Ae-dol-vice, That Dominic was Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp and he is standing on the stage of the Salt Spurge Festival. He has his children and his new wife, Julie Andrews, waiting in the wings, Maria, and they are engaged in a complicated plot to escape Nazi-dominated Austria because Captain von Trapp, he was a real person, Georg von Trapp, he had been a very successful submarine commander in the First World War. In the sound of music, the famous Roger St. Hammerstein musical which was turned into a film in 1965, the von Trapp family will be escaping because von Trapp has been summoned to serve in the new German Navy and he doesn't want to do it because he's a principled anti-Nazi. And so the von Trapp's going off into the mountains and they cross into Switzerland. And as you have often pointed out yourself, Dominic, more people listened to the sound of music in the 60s and they did the Sergeant Pepper. So I guess that as a result of that, the sound of music is probably the most celebrated portrayal of the Anseless certainly in the Anglophone world. And when Christopher Plummer is singing that, he's doing it before an audience that joins in in patriotic unison and it's kind of framed as being a reaction to the recent German annexation of Austria. And the idea that the Austrians are the first victims of the Nazi expansion, it's been a very important part of post-war Austrian historiography hasn't it? Yes it has. And I guess that today we're looking at the Anseless that the German takeover of Austria in 1938 and perhaps we could explore the degree to which the sound of music is mythologizing that Austrian sense of themselves as victims or whether it's true to history. Yes, absolutely. You're dead right Tom. The idea that Austria is the first victim of Hitler is a sort of foundational myth of post-war, you know, the Austrian Republic. And it's true that some Austrians are Hitler's victims. No doubt about that. And actually in the second half, we will be telling some terrible stories about what happens to particularly Jewish Austrians after the Nazi takeover. But there were of course Austrian Nazis and there were many people in Austria who turned out to greet Hitler and were delighted to see him. So it's a very complicated story. Do you know what having spent, you know, the last 20 years basically trading on the sound of music popularity in the 1960s. And it's my fact that I kind of bring out to annoy people. It's the ultimate Sandbrook fact that I bring out to annoy people. It hadn't occurred to me to weave the sound of music into this episode. Well that's what teamwork is all about, don't it? Strowk of genius. Well you know I love teamwork on the rest of history Tom. I know you do. So that's what the rest of history is all about. Okay, we ended the last episode, which was about Hitler's kind of road to war. And the fascination of the Nazi war machine might be another way of putting it very good Mr Churchill very good. Yes. We ended with a sort of semi cliffhanger. He's summoned his generals in November 1937. He's going to tell them what is next plan is. But just before we get into telling you what happened in the meeting, we should remind listeners that Hitler is animated throughout by this extraordinary sense of mission. And it's believed that either Germany becomes the world's preeminent power conquers the world or it will be annihilated. There is no middle ground. So it's almost any other dictator in history actually. Musselini, Franco, even Stalin. There is a kind of halfway house where they were just to happily accept stability. Hitler will not. Hitler is restless and he must keep moving. He cannot stand still. So he summons his generals to the right chance to read. And as this is one, he talks for two hours. And he says to them, okay, here is the plan. We need living space. We're going to suffer from national sterility if we don't expand. We're actually running out of food, which is true because his economic model is so terrible. We must act. He says between 1943 and 1945, that is the window because after that point will be two old. The birth rate will be in decline. The wheels will have fallen off the economy. And our neighbors will have caught up and rearmed. So that is the moment. 1943 or so. And he says the priority will be to take two countries first, which are Austria and Czechoslovakia. That will secure our eastern borders because we're secure our eastern borders will be able to see off the French on the west. And that will be the point from which we can strike further east Poland and then the Soviet Union to get the colossal territorial empire that we need. And he says once we've taken Czechoslovakia and Austria, so nice. We're kick out a few million of their people. That will give us a huge food surplus. That means we can feed our population. And who are they proposing to kick out and where? Probably kick them out to the east, force them out. I mean, we will come to this idea about removal and expulsion. And how do the generals feel about this? Do they blanch at all at this idea or not? They do. They do blanch it. Previously, everything that Hitler had said to his generals whenever he was giving them these rants. He kind of said, yeah, it sounds reasonable. He's going a bit faster and more recklessly than we envisaged. But this kind of accords with our reigns. Now, this is the first time that they are really alarmed. They are not alarmed at the idea of fighting the Austrians or the Czechs. But are they alarmed at the idea of expelling millions of people? Morally, is there an expression of concern about that? I mean, that's forcing you to face up to what Lebbins' realm means, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely it is. I just wonder whether there are any moral scruples at all. I don't think there are. There's no sense for them that there's moral scruples at this stage. That's not their reservation. No, it's not their reservation. Their reservation is, this is going to be very, very reckless. Okay. This sounds like it will mean war with Britain and France, with Britain and France. And we don't think we're ready. You know, we might have sometimes chatted later nights over a snap about fighting the French in a spartown. Yeah, we don't really fancy doing it. And he looks around the room and people like the Defence Minister, Verne von Bromberg, his number two, who's the kind of general and charge of the army, who is Verne von Fritch. They are nationalistic and conservative, but they are kind of white with horror. At the thought of all this fighting so soon, you know, we're not ready. It's so reckless. And they say, we can't get into a situation where we're fighting Britain and France. We will lose. Now, there is a really interesting argument to be had about whether they could have blocked his ambitions. About whether actually he had gone too far. I mean, maybe he hadn't, but we will never know because extraordinarily, at about this point, so just a few weeks later. Both those two men that I mentioned, Phil Marshall von Bromberg and Colonel General Fritch, they are forced out in these bizarre scandals to rip out the top echelon of the army leadership. And it's very convenient timing for Hitler, isn't it? It's incredibly convenient, but the weird thing is he doesn't orchestrate it. Let's say what they are because they are excellent sex scandals. They're so weird. So first of all, Phil Marshall von Bromberg, he's widowed and he has five adult children. One day he's walking in the park in Berlin and he meets this young woman. She's 35 years younger than him. And he falls passionately in love with her. She's from a much sort of lower social echelon. And he goes to Hitler because Hitler is the supreme commander of the Bayer Act. So Phil Marshall goes to him and he says, "I want to marry this girl. She's much younger than me. The girl of the people and people will sneer at us and be snobbish." She's a typist, he says, doesn't he? And Hitler says, "This is brilliant." You know, a girl of the people? Yeah. This is exactly what a man like you should be doing. Absolutely splendid. Dominic, that speech he gave to the Hitler youth at Nuremberg in 1934, dissolve all social divisions. Exactly. So this is not his am in practice. Exactly. And Hitler says, "I'll be the witness." Yeah. "I'll be the witness of the wedding." And you know what? Bring along Goering. I'll bring Goering. Yeah, that's my plus one. And he'll be the second witness. So they have the wedding. The bride's mother is there. Bromberg's children, Hitler and Goering. What a terrible wedding that is. They get married at the woman's street. Unfortunately, the days of the marriage. It comes to the attention of the police that this woman, A, had once posed for pornographic pictures taken by a Jewish photographer. And B, had been a prostitute. A licensed prostitute, right? So there's kind of legal trace elements of it. An officially registered prostitute. Yeah. And Goering has to go and see Hitler and say, "We've made a terrible mistake. This is very embarrassing." And Hitler is absolutely horrified. Ashen faced. This typical of Hitler, what Hitler objects to is that he will be embarrassed and everybody will laugh at him. Yeah. And say he went to a prostitute's wedding. And where's the che. - He's kind of weirdly prissy, isn't he, about things like that? - He's very prissy and pure-at-anical. - Yeah. - So he basically says, "Bronberg has to go." And he, "Bronberg does go." He resigns. They have a sort of big rower, but then they end actually in quite sort of amicable term for the shagans and he's given a big payoff and off he goes to Italy. - On a kind of extended honeymoon to Capri. - Yes. - But. Weird thing that Admiral Radar. - Yeah. - He sends an aide to follow them around and suggests that he commits suicide. - And he doesn't, does he? - He keeps leaving guns on the Marital Palace. - No. That's not very romantic. - Yeah. And do you know where he ends up in the war? - He dies after the war, doesn't he? - He dies after the war, but during the war, he ends up in Bad Visi, which is where all the action happened in the Night of the Long Knives. - What is it with Nazis and Spartans? Spartans and hotels? - I don't know. So that's the end of the field, Marshall. And here, it was sitting alone, brooding, and he's very miserable about this. They got on all right and he's embarrassed by the whole thing. Or it's modifying, isn't it, for him? And then suddenly he thinks, "Oh my God, Colonel General von Fritch has been in a scandal as well." And it's Hitler himself who thinks this. He remembers a year or so earlier that had been accusations against Colonel General von Fritch. And it turned out that he was being blackmailed by a Berlin rent boy called Otto Schmidt. And actually, when Fritch hears that Hitler has all heads up about this, he sort of comes clean and says, "Listen, I used to have lunch with this bloke who was 18 years ago, and I did it out of charity because there was a big campaign by the Winter Aid campaign to give free meals to the needy. And because I'm a good Nazi and a pillar of the establishment, I had this bloke and I would take him for meals in public, give him lunch, and there was absolutely no scandal, no impropriety, nothing like this. I was genuinely being charitable. And actually Tom, he was, oh, there was no scandal whatsoever. But Hitler's basically, because he's so pure at anecdotes, and then the context of the Bloomberg business, I mean, you've got to go as well. But is he also utilizing this? Is he clearing the decks? Do you think? Possibly. I think there's got to be an element of this that he's terribly hit up about these scandals and he's very depressed about them and he says it's the worst crisis since he became fira. But there is an opportunity, he hit that was great opportunist. So both of these guys get booted out. He takes the chance to clean house, to get rid of 12 other generals, get rid of loaded guys from the Luftwaffe, and to bring in yes men, people like William Kightle, who is a his side throughout the Second World War, Valtovon Browschitz. So these are people who will basically just do his bidding. They are his creatures. And so Hitler now, I mean, he's already got all the reins of state, but now he's leader of the army as well. Exactly. And there's no one to oppose him at all. Exactly. And Tom, the reason we spent so long on it is that that is a crucial precondition for follows that there is basically nobody to stand in his way. So let's get into the issue of Austria. So we're into 1938 and Hitler is eyeing up Austria, his southern neighbor. Now, of course, Hitler was born in Austria, brought up in Austria. Hitler is tall and intense in purposes, Austrian. And before the First World War, when he'd been growing up, he had been a passionate pan German. So he'd been one of these people who thought, I hate the Habsburgs. I hate the Czechs, the Slovenes, all these other people. I don't like the multiculturalism of Vienna that we looking at it from 2023, think is so brilliant. I hate all that. I wish we could turn our back on all these kind of slavs and Hungarians and Jews who I don't like. This is how I'll fit this being, obviously. And I wish German Austria, the kind of Austrian heartland, could be united with Germany. And those days he would have thought under the hoans on and not under the Habsburgs. And that dream of a kind of pan German unity has never left him at all. And obviously, there's a lot of other people in Austria who'd think that too. So when the Habsburg Empire fell apart in 1918, all the other bits fell away. There'd been 54 million people in the Habsburg Empire. And now there's only 7 million of them left. And they're German speakers. And they think, well, we don't want to live in a country or Austria. We actually want to live in Germany. And obviously, the big thing at the end of the first rule is about national self-determination. And it is a tiny bit unjust that the Allies said, absolutely everybody else, the Czechs, the Serbs, whatever, they can all have national self-determination. But you can't. So you cannot join Germany. For very obvious reasons. Yeah, because they don't want Germany to become bigger. Right. Yeah. Absolutely, which is precisely why Hitler wants to its Austria, presumably. Exactly. The Austrians actually originally wanted to call their country German Austria. And the Allies, in the Treaty of Sanjama, they actually banned them from choosing their name for their own country. They had to call it Austria rather than German Austria. It's just this sort of appendix. I mean, we now think of Austria as part of the European map. But at the time, people just thought of as this weird leftover. It's massively divided. So the Socialists are very popular in Vienna. People talk about Red Vienna. The rest of the country, very Catholic, very, very conservative. All those nuns, singing nuns. Singing nuns? Yeah. Exactly. I've been some monasteries in Austria, Tom. Very nice. And all the time, Hitler, who's been observing this from Germany in the 1920s, he had said German Austria should become part of Germany. And there's no doubt in his mind at all. He had said it must return to the great German Mother Country, one blood demands one Reich. Now, the Austrians themselves, as time goes on, they become a little bit divided about this. So particularly Catholics in Austria are a bit anxious about allying with Nazi Germany. Well, yeah, for understandable reasons. There's been a lot of tension between the Catholic Church and the Nazi regime. They don't want to be necessarily dragged into kind of Hitler's orbit. And Austria is scarred by all kinds of economic problems by faction fighting between the Socialists and the Catholic conservatives and so on. There is a small Austrian Nazi party. But by about 1933, Austria has basically slid into a corporatist Catholic authoritarian dictatorship under this guy called Engelbert Dolphus, who is a very passionate Catholic from rural Austria, crazy name, crazy guy. And Dolphus, he is absolutely tiny. I think it's literally five feet tall, Tom. He's a very short man. He puts lots of people in prison, socialists in prison. He wears a three-piece suit. He sort of walks around with his moustache and his three-piece suit, talking about cardinals and stuff. So he's a bit of a Salazarist, as opposed. He's certainly not a Nazi. The Austrian Nazi party, of course, are not happy with this at all. There's about 70,000 of them. They don't want to live in a Catholic dictatorship. They want to live in a modern, exciting Nazi dictatorship. And in 1934, the summer encouraged by Hitler, they tried to launch a coup. We alluded to this last time. 150 of them dressed up in Army uniforms. They burst into the chancellor in Vienna. They found Dolphus trying to escape. And they shot him and tried to have a coup. And Mussolini, who was obviously quite keen on Dolphus, he said to Hitler, effectively, don't intervene. Back off, who moved his army to the Brenner-Arts between Austria and Italy. Yeah, back off. Hitler had to back down. So the Nazis didn't take over Austria. So weirdly, the one leader who does stand up to Hitler is Mussolini. Yeah. And demonstrates what could be done. It's true. That's weird, isn't it? I hadn't thought of that. That is weird. It's an irony of history. That's great. So we live in irony of history on the rest of the history. We certainly do. The guy who took over Austria, Dolphus, three foot two, had been shot with a man called Shushnik. The Austrians have terrible names. Another crazy name, crazy guy. Yeah. Terrible names. When I'm ever doing this at GCSE, I just thought, could they not have simpler names? Well, we should apologize to all Austrian listeners for Dominics. Very rude comments on the names of your leaders in the 1930s. Yeah. Anyway, his name is Kurt von Shushnik. He had been the Minister of Justice. He is a sort of beaky man with glasses. Again, another Catholic conservative. But Hitler, who has backed off, still fancies another crack of Austria. Basically, it's his dream, of course. Yeah, of course. But his homeland, his native land, will be reunited with the country that he currently rules. There are also really important strategic and economic reasons for the Nazis to be looking at Austria, because the Austrians have some of the raw materials that they need for their armaments program and for their economic agenda. So we said last time that they've adopted what they call the four-year plan under Herman Göring. This is this massive drive to rearm and to get the economy ready for a World War. So they need iron ore, don't they? In Austria has iron ore. They need iron ore. Austria has iron ore in Stiria. And Göring is desperate to get his hands on this iron ore. And in fact, by the time they've become pals with Mussolini in late 1937, Göring is always doing things like he's always showing Mussolini maps, showing Austria as part of the German Reich and sort of saying, "What do you think about this?" Do you like the look of this map? This is a good map. And why is Mussolini kind of shift his opinion on this? Because previously he had been very firm about not wanting Germany to take over Austria, because it must affect Italy's ability to defend itself. Of course. And because Austria is Italy's kind of ancestral enemy and Italy wants to make sure that the Germans in Austria kind of under their thumb, I think. I think it's because Mussolini has lost British and French support because if you. his imperialist war in Abyssinia. He has imperial ambitions in Africa, and indeed in the Balkans. And if he can get Hitler's support for them for his own new Roman empire, so it's a quid pro quo basically. - Yeah, the prize he can give up Austria, they're German speakers anyway, give that up, and he'll get Hitler's backing. Maybe he can have a crack at the Greeks or the Albanians or something. - Yeah. So, mostly he actually doesn't say anything and going thinks, well obviously he loves it. He loves the look of this map. So, early 1938 comes, Austria is still a bit of a basket case, very divided. It's never a code from the Great Depression. Hitler is kind of greedily eyeing it up. And his ambassador in Vienna is a fellow who, we've talked about a few times, but it's like disappeared in the last couple of episodes. Of course. Is our old friend, Franz von Papen. - Yes. - A daily telegraph columnist. - Yes. - The aphetemache of hell. - Yes. - Exactly. - It's actually in a Greyhound's body. - Yeah. - I think he looks like a Greyhound. Anyway, Franz von Papen, who had been Hitler's vice chancellor, almost kind of come to a sticky end at the night of the long night, Hitler sent him off to be ambassador in Vienna. - Kind of exile, right? - Exactly. Papen is a mad Catholic conservative. - People with really long memories, will remember that when he was in charge, a couple of chancellors before Hitler, his dream for Germany to get Germany out of its mess was to bring back the heading people with an axe. - The Prussian axe. - Yes. - The guillotine was too molten. - Yeah. - Exactly. - That's von Papen's contribution. - Sensible policies for a happier Germany. - Yeah. - Exactly. He's in Vienna and he says, listen, there's been a lot of tension between Austrian and Germany since the beginning of 1938. I'm going to organize a meeting, Shushnik and Hitler. And we'll do it at Hitler's kind of Alpine lair. It's kind of Bonville lair, the Burghof, the Ober-Saltberg kind of in the mountains. It's kind of eerie. So Shushnik pitches up on the 12th of February 1938, thinking this is going to be Jorli Han Shakes. - Kind of summit. - Yeah, nice summit. Between fellow German speakers, lovely. Yeah, there's a few tensions, but we're all on the same side. - Robust exchange of views, but then Han Shakes for the cameras. - Exactly, exactly. And sort of a lot of consuming of strudels or something. - Yeah, actually, Hitler's poor dietary issues. - Yes. - Beaming girls in Dirtles. - Exactly. - Yeah. If you're expecting that from Hitler, you're not going to get it, because it will just talk to you for eight hours and drink some gun cleaning fluid. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Anyway, nibble on some celery. - Be a terrible occasion in every conceivable. The views are good. Shushnik arrives. And it's actually worse than Hitler. They were even when we're selling it. Because Hitler's invited some of his generals, purely to intimidate Shushnik. So Vultuban Reich and I are who's a fanatical Nazi. And I got a Hugo Schwerler, who had been the commander of the Condor Legion, bombing Gernichor in Spain. - Yeah. - In Spain, yeah. So when Shushnik sees these, he thinks, "Oh, no, what's going on here?" They admire the view for about five minutes. It's just to assess what a beautiful view you have. And Hitler says, "We haven't come here to talk about "the weather and the view." And then he takes him inside his office and says, "The whole history of Austria "is an uninterrupted act of high treason. "This historical paradox was now reached "it's long over due end. "I am determined to make an end of this, Heshushnik. "I have a historic mission, "and I will fulfill this because Providence "has destined me to do so. "You don't believe you can hold me up for half an hour, do you? "Maybe one night I'll appear overnight in Vienna "like a spring storm." - So not good at the small talk. It would be fair to say. - When someone says that to you and you've gone for a kind of weekend break, it's not what you want at all, is it? It's absolutely not what you want to know. Now meanwhile, Ribbon Trop, who is the former champagne salesman who wears the wrong clathes to gentleman's clubs in St. John's. - It's exactly. - Who is Hitler's foreign minister. Ribbon Trop is basically handing out copies of Hitler's ultimatum. Hitler says, "The Nazis who have been heavily restricted "in Austria, there can be no more restrictions. "Our guy who's a guy called Arthur Sace Inquart." - Go ahead, brilliant name. - The Austrians are their names. What did I tell you? - He is a guy, you should put him in charge of the minister of the interior and give him control of the police. Of course, the Nazis love control of the police. That's how they always get power. You should integrate the Austrian economic system with Germanes, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Schussnick is a poor boy like this. And at first, he actually says, "Not going to." No, absolutely not. And Hitler keeps bringing in more generals, general Kitell, for some reason, come in general Kitell. It just makes them sit down and they say nothing, just stare at Schussnick, wearing intimidating uniforms, particularly. - Exactly, wearing very intimidating uniforms. - And clicking their heels periodically. And eventually, at the end of the day, Schussnick has been a terrible day for him. And he says, "Fine, yes, I agree to most of these demands. "We'll appoint this guy, say Sainte-Kart." But what if he hadn't? - Then he says, "I'll invade. "I'll invade, I think it's already. "We'll strike." - Right. - And he just brab eats and brab eats and brab eats him. And so Schussnick says, "Fine, I'll do it." And he goes back home. He agrees. - Well, doesn't Hitler invite him for dinner? - Yeah, they have to have dinner. And he says, "No." He kind of says, "Oh, I've got a bit of a headache. "I think I'll turn in early." - Exactly, exactly. Hitler kind of sometimes, he will switch. So actually in the middle of all this brow-beating, Hitler had said to him, "Oh, we should go and have lunch." And they went and had lunch. Must have been quite an icy atmosphere. - That's pretty much. - Yeah. - I don't have in there soup or whatever. Celery. - So poor Schussnick, he goes back to Vienna. He agrees to all these demands. He lets an Nazi sasing for become the minister of the interior. Hitler gives a speech on the radio and he says, "You know, it's intolerable that Austria is still not part "of the Reich or this stuff." Lodes of Nazis in Austria, because it does appeal particularly to younger Austrian men who are maybe anti-Clerical. So you could be a socialist in Austria, but you would be suppressed. And in fact, there'd been a little civil war. You could be a kind of Catholic conservative, in which case you'd be on Schussnick's side, or you'd be an Nazi. - Because it's the future. - Yeah, it's exciting. - Exactly. It doesn't involve monks. - Yeah, brilliant. - Exactly. - Exactly. - If you're anti-munk, that's what you do. You've got the socialist order masses. So it looks like they're on this sort of path that will inevitably lead at some point to some kind of economic union, you know, some association, something like this. And then Schussnick does something that nobody has anticipated. On the morning of the 9th of March, Schussnick thinks, "Sorry, I'm not gonna drift "into union with the Germans." I've come up with an idea that will get us out of this mess. A top wease. A wease. We'll have a referendum. The Nazis have been pestering and pestering for ages saying, "Have a referendum on union in the Germany." Schussnick's like, "Great, we'll do it." But I'll write the question. - Yes, so do you want to be locked in the bloodthirsty embrace of the monstrous overbearing tyrant? Or would you prefer to stay true to our fresh, clean, alpine republic? - That's exactly it. - Do you support a free and German independent social Christian and united Austria, peace and work, and the equal rights for those who declare themselves with people and fatherland? And what is more, because Schussnick knows that the Nazis appear this to younger people, he says, "You can only vote if you're over the age of 24." So the under 24's can't vote. So kind of Jeremiah during the vote. What is more, he says, "We'll obviously see "possed his photos, elves." - Yeah. - And he runs a repressive regime. And I suppose the brilliant thing about this is that it is playing the Nazi game, isn't it? I mean, this is what the Nazis are doing all the time. - It's absolutely doing that. - And so I assume Hitler isn't pleased about it at all. - Hitler is absolutely furious. I think what I would compare this to, though, Tom, is as a referendum idea, it's a little bit like David Cameron thinking. I like this. - Yeah. - I haven't entirely thought this through. - Yeah. So Schussnick calls this referendum. And Hitler, for a few hours, he hears the news, he doesn't know what to do. But by the evening, he has gone utterly ballistic. And he'd meet curbels and he says, "Right, no." We'll give an ultimatum. Schussnick must rewrite the text of the referendum. So the referendum must be inviting people now to approve a union with Germany. He will turn that down undoubtedly. When he turns that down, we will instruct the local Nazis in Austria to rise up in rebellion. And on the day of the referendum, Sunday the 13th of March, the Vermacht will cross the border and invade Austria. And curbels who is almost amazing source, of course, because he writes a diary. And curbels loads a bit of a cliché, Tom. He writes, "The die is cast on Saturday, March in. Push straight to Vienna. Big, aeroplane action. The fiora is going himself to Austria, going an eye out to stay in Berlin. In eight days, Austria will be ours." - And will it be, well, I think we should take a break at this point. And when we come back, we'll find out if Austria does indeed end up in the embrace of the fiora. - Hello, everybody. We have absolutely sensational, spectacular, stupendous news about a forthcoming restless history live show. We do, Dominic. Now, sometimes there are complaints that people in Britain don't know enough about the British Empire, that they don't study it in sufficient depth. So we are stepping in to make up for that. And we are going to be telling the story of the ultimate Victorian imperial adventure. And that Dominic is the Abyssinian expedition of 1868. And it's, well, I don't say it's brilliant, but it's mad, isn't it? - It is mad. It's giving people a bit of context. It's an amazing story. story, the Emperor of Abbasinia to Wodros II, he was ignored by Queen Victoria who did not say his letters, so he took some British hostages and then the British sent an expedition to Abbasinia to attack his capital at Magdala, his kind of mountain citadel. It's an amazing, amazing story, a bonkers story and precisely the kind of thing that we enjoy on the rest is history. Yes, and that I think the entire country could profit from hearing about. So that is what we're going to be doing. It is, I think, a very flash man kind of a story. Totally. So anyone who enjoys flash man will enjoy this and we are going to be doing it at the South Bank Centre in London on the 4th of September. We do have a few tickets for that. We're also doing it on the 5th of September and not to base, but that one is already sold out. So if you want to come book your tickets for the 4th of September and you can get them at therestishistory.com. Hello, welcome back to the rest of history and Dominic, we are on the brink. Hitler has ordered his armies to prepare to invade Austria and forcibly embrace it in union with Germany. So what happens? So 10am on Friday the 1st of March, 1938, Hitler sends the ultimatum to Vienna and he says, "Not only must you change your referendum, so it must be now a proving union with the right." It's so interesting showing how important it is to get the right question. In a referendum? Yeah, absolutely. It is. But he says also, "We've lost total confidence and just as an honest broker has chanceled him as resigned and be replaced by this guy, Sase Inquart, who is an arse, the interior minister." Yeah, who's the interior minister who is that man? And if you don't do that, we will invade. Meanwhile, he sends a message to Mussolini. His go between Bizarlie is Prince Philip of Hesse and Prince Philip carries this message to the Ducce from Hitler that says, "Please stand back. Don't intervene this time. This is personal for me. This is my homeland. It will mean everything to me if you will let me do this." It's like plaintive message. And the afternoon, Shustnik says, "Listen, fine. I'll postpone the referendum, but I'm not going to resign." Going then rings this guy Sase Inquart. Sase Inquart, by the way, is a weed of a man and a puppet in all this. He's the kind of Nazi bigwig in Vienna, but he's just basically doing whatever the Nazis tell him to do. And they say to him, "Tell that's not good enough." Sase Inquart is always saying, "Oh, is it maybe good enough?" So I have to. And they force him to say, "He goes and says, 'Look, you absolutely got to give the Nazis whatever they want or they will invade.' Doesn't he complain that he's being treated as no more than a girl telephone switchboard operator?" It doesn't. He doesn't indeed. Very sexist Tom. Very sexist. Or, but he still does it. Yeah, he still does it. And that, Shustnik thinks, "Well, I'll go to the British." And Lord Halifax, who is the foreign secretary, he sends him a really encouraging telegram. The telegram reads, "His majesty's government are unable to guarantee protection." In other words, you know, you're on your own. So do you, you're on your own. We don't care. So Shustnik resigns. There's then a bit of a standoff while the Austrian president, who's a guy called Wilhelm Micklash, is deciding whether or not to appoint the Nazi guy or not. Meanwhile, in the streets in Vienna, loads of people have turned into the streets of kind of Nazi mob. They're all shouting, they're smashing up Jewish shops. They are turning on the show. Exactly. Already, they are throwing bricks through Jewish shop windows, occupying provincial government buildings. The atmosphere is completely sort of hysterical and chaotic. And that evening, the Austrian president gives in. He says, "I'll appoint the Nazi guy as federal chancellor." But by this point, there's nothing the Austrians can do to stop the inevitable. Because the whole thing is just crumbling away. Exactly. Because the whole thing is crumbling. Hitler already has said to the army, "We're not even going to wait to find out what happens in Vienna. Get raids across the border. You're crossing tonight." Meanwhile, Mussolini is considering Hitler's request. And at 1030 that evening, Prince Philip of Hezsa tells Hitler, he says Mussolini says, "Go for it." He went into Vime. And Hitler, we always think of Hitler as sort of utterly cold blooded and calculating him. But he can be very emotional because he says to Prince Philip, "Please, Thomas Lee, never forget him for this. Never, never, never, never, come what may. If you should ever need any help, he can be sure that, do or die, I will stick by him, come what may, even if the whole world rises against him." He's gushing. And Mussolini is kind of embarrassed, isn't he about this? He is. Mussolini is very embarrassed. He gives quite a stiff and formal reply. Thank you very much for your note. Exactly. Because I think if we see Hitler as just this utterly cruel evil automaton, you miss the kind of, well, the hysterical quality, the hysterical, histrionic quality of his nature. He's a man who enjoys projecting spittle. He is. He is. And there's the kind of, he can be sentimental about things. I mean, about dogs. He's sentimental about animals. Yes, animals and little children. Exactly. And Austria. And the destruction of Austria, he's sentimental about, rather than Austria, plus a, because that is what his dream is, to destroy Austria, because he sees it as a historical act of treachery. So at 5.30 on the morning of Saturday, 12th March, the German Army crosses the border. And the Austrians have issued instructions. There is to be no resistance at all. And they are met by massive crowds. People are throwing flowers at them. People are excited. Historians have debated. Is this just because there are a lot of Nazis there? Is it because people are frightened? Or people just apolitical swept up in enthusiasm? Yes, it's exciting. It's, you know, it's a change. I mean, it's incredibly exciting as a spectacle, right? Yeah. And they think wrongly we are going to join as equal partners in this fantastic new empire. I think they don't realize the extent to which Hitler sees them as utterly subordinate. So a kind of England, Scotland kind of union, exactly. But in fact, it's a complete absorption. Because at that point, Hitler is not actually thinking about an Anschluss, even at that point, a complete absorption of Austria. He's actually thinking there'll be some kind of union between the two countries. So not necessarily absorbing Austria into the right straight away. Anyway, the troops continue into Austria. And that afternoon, just before four o'clock, Hitler himself crosses the Austrian border and he crosses at his own birthplace, which was on the border. His father, Alois, was a customs official. So it's a place called Brown out Amin. And they're reigning the church bells. There are tens of thousands of people. So the little towns, populations have been swelled by fans who have come to see him. His car goes really, really slowly. So he doesn't spend much time in Brown out. I mean, because he's only really born there. He spends most of his time when he's a child in lengths, sub-evil lengths. And is there a lot of kind of beetle mania type behavior, total beetle mania behavior, sobbing, weeping, cheering? So we talked about this in the episode that you did about Nuremberg Rallis. Yeah. It's very beetle mania. It takes him about four hours to drive the relatively short distance to lengths. He gets there in the evening. The crowd is so thick in lengths they can't really get through. The bells are ringing. You can't hear a word. Anybody is saying because people are screaming so loud. And Hitler goes that on the balcony of Lentz Town Hall. He is crying. There are tears running down his cheeks. And he says this whole thing that he's saying a lot these days, Providence has chosen me to bring Austria into the Reich. I have fulfilled my mission. And his sense of emotion, his sense that Austria is welcoming what he is doing for it, as he sees it. This changes his mind, doesn't it? Totally. It makes him think, actually, this is what the Austrians want. I'm going to absorb Austria completely into the body politic of Germany. Exactly. Exactly. When we were researching this, I was thinking a lot about Hitler's psychology. He had been an idealistic boy, a dreamer who goes to all these Wagner operas. And the classic case of somebody who life doesn't match up to his dreams because he's so useless. And he has this burning sense of resentment. And this is the moment that probably deep down so many people dream of. It's like going back to your old school, yeah, and all your former enemies bowing down before you. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very common human fantasy that most people will really grow out of a little bit. They may be nursing in a sort of silly way. But for Hitler, I think this is a transcendent moment. Why is crying there on the balcony? He had been scorned. He hadn't got into the flipping art school in Vienna twice, failed the exam. He'd been on the streets. He'd been nothing. And now he is in his own mind, the greatest man in Austrian history. And people are crying in front of him with joy at his very presence. And so what does this mean in practical terms for the future of Austria? Well, the pure practicality is tonne. There's more hotel-based action tremendous, which I know you always enjoy. They go to the hotel, Vint Singer. There aren't enough bedrooms. It's sort of a shambles. The restaurant can't cook, can't produce enough food for them. It's all very unexpected. All those elderly waiters. Yeah. Very faulty towers. Yeah. Oh, bring out dumplings and goulash and schnitzels and stuff. Yeah. The schnitzels are. There's only one telephone in the hotel. So communications with Berlin are very difficult. But basically, Hitler says, you know what? We went brother with all the long business of union. So he sends instructions, and lawyers to the hotel will draft the law in the hotel. And as mad as it sounds, the next day, which is a Sunday, civil servants and lawyers pitch up and they literally sit downstairs in the kind of restaurant and the lobby of the hotel, drafting the laws that will incorporate Austria into the right. So Austria would just become a German province basically. Just become a German province, just like anything else. Like Bavaria had done. Exactly. So it's nationhood, it's sense of distinctiveness, which of course has deep historical roots because it's always been the Habsburg Heartland and it's of course very Catholic when so much of Germany's protestants. That will all just be swept away. So meanwhile while they're drafting the laws and the sort of waiters are running around them, increasingly agitated. Hitler goes off to his parents' grave, puts flowers on his parents' grave. He goes to look at his old childhood house. He meets some old neighbours. It's all, you know, say what do you be up to? But it's very, for him it's very, very moving. Of course. He sends Mussolini another message. Mussolini, I will never forget you for this. Mussolini again. Slightly stiff and barris reply. My stance was determined by the friendship between our two countries sealed in the Axis. And that evening, the Austrians just accept the law. The army is sworn into Hitler. They're basically given, totally given. Sure, we'll be just another part of Germany in like any other part. Next day, Monday, goes to Vienna. Okay, so Vienna, Red Vienna. Yeah. Lots of socialists. Yeah. Lots of Jews. Yes. What's your action there? Total ecstasy. We'll just come into the socialists and the Jews in their second term because it's really important that you mention that. But on the face of it, total beetle mania ecstasy, a quarter of a million people in the streets. Now, this has slightly been rigged. A lot of workplaces and factories have closed and employees have been told they will be paid. Anyway, but they have to go to join the crowd. But all of that said, even in Kurshaw, who really goes into all this says, the enthusiasm is not contrived. The enthusiasm is genuine. Hitler is on the balcony, once again, of their hotel imperial. And then he gives a speech in the helden plats. There are fast, fast crowds of youngsters who are screaming and cheering and sobbing. Every Catholic church in the city has flying the swastika on the orders of their local cardinal cardinal in it. So who's the Archbishop of Vienna? They can't sleep. The Nazis and the hotel. They can't sleep because people are outside cheering them and screaming and saying we want to see the furor. Sending the chambermaids into steal the sheets and let them up and sell them a souvenir and all that thing. Exactly. It's an extraordinary, extraordinary scene. And for Hitler, it's. A pothiosis, I suppose. Absolutely. Pothiosis. Totally invigorating. So it won't be doing anything to stop his Messiah complex, not at all. Eventually he goes back to Berlin. They have a big plebiscite, both in Germany and in Austria, both results, 99% plus, oh yes. There's obviously the usual intimidation and whatnot. But as Kurshaw says, for the mass of the German people, Hitler once more seemed a statesman of extraordinary virtuoso talents. He is pulled off an extraordinary coup. And for the Austrians, they've kind of faded with great enthusiasm for this, beetle mania scenes, all this kind of thing. But as we said earlier, the Nazi High Command are basically set on plundering Austria, aren't they? So how long does it take the Austrians to realize what they've actually signed up to? Weeks, months maybe. They're not equal partners at all. They're mainly the eastern march, Ostmark, is what they're called. And eventually in 1942, the Ostmark itself is divided into two Reich regions, the Alps and the Danube. So Austria vanishes completely from the map. Austria completely vanishes from the map. The local Austrian Nazis, for whom this had been a moment, you know, long dreamed of, they end up being supplanted by people sent from Berlin. So a measure of poetic justice there then? Yes, exactly. All the Austrian institutions, the railways, the banks, the postal service, everything else, the army, all these things. They lose their meaning, of course. And they end up being bossed around and treated like kind of country bumpkins. And they are now. And of course, the I know which is going wanted. That's taken to Germany. He gets his fat hands on it. He gets his fat hands on the gold in Vienna, the Vienna's banks, gold. Their foreign currency reserves, even art is taken. So the classic example of this, we alluded to this in the Newer embeau, rallies episodes. The crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, yeah, are taken from Vienna to Newer embeau. So they've been moved from Newer embeau, can they? To Vienna. Yes. And now they get them back. So they won't be bothering with replicas anymore. All this kind of, you know, the Nazis moving in, removing industrial capacity, removing the gold reserves from the bank, plundering the art. This is the prototype for what will happen in the Nazi occupation of Europe during the Second World War, isn't it? So to that extent, the way that Austria, after the war, presents itself as the first victim of the Nazi wars of conquest, I mean, it's not inaccurate. So that's a great, not inaccurate. So obviously the cheering grounds don't sit easily. Yes, that's an embarrassment. Yeah. And then massive enthusiasm. But it's like being kind of swept off your feet by a very seductive boyfriend. Yes. And then finding that he's nicking all your money and beating you up. Yeah. To some extent it is. And the beating up, Tom. So let's get into this. Overnight, when the Nazis moved him, they took control of the Austrian police records. And they detained in one evening, 21,000 people. This is a scale of repression that astounds and horrifies Europe. Some people have killed. Lots of people sort of Nazi critics flee. Shushnik didn't flee and actually ended up in prison to meet him. He ends up in a concentration camp, I think. Yeah. He ends up in a concentration camp. And he almost dies at the end of the war. But along with other kind of very distinguished prisoners he escapes. He ends up as a professor in St. Louis. He becomes a US citizen. Yeah, he does extraordinary. He does. I noticed that too. I thought what a strange. Yeah. So very karensky kind of behavior. I wonder if they had academic conferences in America. And then I just saw the people who had previously run countries that have been taken over by dictators. Yeah. Anyway, various other people are killed. And what about the Jews? The worst of the repression obviously falls on Austria's Jews. And this is really where we start to get into the kind of the real darkness. So there are about 200,000 Jews in Austria. And the vast vast majority of them lived in Vienna. Now we talked right at the very beginning of our first Nazi series about the intense anti-Semitism that Hitler had encountered as a young man in Vienna, before the First World War, that it had a virulence and a venom that was well beyond anything in Germany at the same time. And the reaction to the Anschluss in Vienna is absolutely horrifying. So almost all Jewish owned businesses in Vienna are taken over straight away. Jewish business leaders are killed, companies like Deutsche Bank or IG Farben, believely, you know, once they're dead, they take over their enterprises. And don't they get the Jewish heads of banks into cars and kind of chuck them out when they're going at 80 miles an hour? Yes, absolutely right. Exactly. The guy who runs the credit and stouts, which is probably the biggest bank in central Europe, he was thrown as a car. Exactly right. And the notorious scenes are that Jews are made to scrub anti-Nazi slogans from the streets while people watch and kind of throw cold water over them and flick acid at them and horrible scenes. Vienna was a very political city, so it was covered with political graffiti. A lot of it, you know, Shusnyg's partisan. He had controlled the biggest party in Austria, so there's loads of pro-Shusnyg graffiti. Groups of Jews, men and women, young and old, kids, elderly, whatever, they're dragged out by so-called cleaning squads and they're forced to scrub these slogans. And groups of people, you can see photos, you can read the newspaper reports, they're horrific. Groups of people would stand around them, jeering at them, kicking them, punching them, spitting at them, throwing cold water over them as you say. There was George Gedje, who was the correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and he wrote these really, really harrowing kind of dispatches from Vienna about the mobs of Nazis standing around these people. As you said, throwing acid at them and laughing at them. And these Nazis are Austrian. Austrian Nazis. Austrian Nazis and frankly Tom, ordinary Austrians. Well, because there's a story, isn't there, of a guy looking out of a window and seeing a policeman beating up a Jew? Yeah. And he realizes that this is a policeman, he's known all his life. Exactly, yeah. Didn't they? It had it in him. Guy could. He ended up being called George Kleck as he moved to England, and he was called Gail Clare. And he wrote a book called Last Walks in Vienna, which I really recommend to the distance, if you want to read more about this. You can completely understand why you wouldn't. And he describes, as you say, looking out of his window, seeing the face is contorted with hatred, and the people he knows, that neighbors and things. A lot of Jews try to flee to the Czech border. There's terrible thousands. They get onto the last trains and stuff, but people ambush them at the stations and they're taking their property, beating them up. When they get to the Czech border, the Czechs are turning them back. And so they're trying to get through the woods and stuff. They're in kind of no man's land. Loads of people kill themselves. Hundreds of people. Yeah. Suicide rate massively goes up, because it's obvious to a lot of people at this point, a lot of Jewish people. Well, I mean, most famously, Sigmund Freud had already left. Yes, we're plunged into this unbelievable nightmare. So Tom, just to wrap up, because I know we've been talking at Greyland. There's one terrible omen of the future, which is that in the face of all this, the Nazis think, let's kick all these Jews out because they've now got an extra 200,000 Jews, which is about the number that's already emigrated from Germany. Yes, roughly. So they're basically now back to square one as far as they see it. And they set up a central agency for Jewish immigration. It's going to work in collaboration with some handpicked Jewish leaders. And the guy they get to run that is a man from the SS. And he is a man called Adolf Eichmann, who had lived in Austria before the First World War. Eichmann is fanatical, but he's also incredibly methodical. And he works, you know, his aburacraft, and then his compiling of lists and all of this, you can see a pattern that will recur in an even more sinister form during the Second World War. Yeah, one other quick point before we pack up. This obviously has a colossal impact on Hitler himself. He returns more popular than ever in Germany, greeted with an enormous, overwhelming explosion of joy. He has fulfilled almost all of the ambitions now of German nationalists. As Enkurschler says, down to it, and including the Angela's Hitler had proved a consumer nationalist politician. So all of the stuff he's done so far is what any militaristic authoritarian, conservative, sort of irredentist German leader would have done. And he's done it without provoking war, without provoking war and astounding achievement. And yet, yeah, the whole thing about Hitler is that it is not enough. He's got more stuff lined up. And even as this is ending within days, he says to Gervels, right? Checkers Slovakia next, right? Okay. You talked about how Jews are strong armed into immigration or are trying to escape across the border and committing suicide there or being shot or whatever. Just to go back to another famous group of exiles from Germany, the Von Trappes, who we began with. Yeah. Anyone who has seen the film will remember that they go by foot over the Alps into Switzerland. That is not actually what happened. No, because Gervels on Trapp, you know, he was an army officer. He wasn't Jewish. There were no restrictions on his travel whatsoever. So even though the German high command were very keen that he go to Bremenhaven and join the Kriegmarine there, he doesn't. He takes his family. They get on a train and they go to Italy. And from there, they go to London and from there to the United States. So it's easy for some people to get out of Austria and less easy for others. Yeah. Because as you say, I had even been Jewish. It would have been a very different story. It would have been a totally different story. Yeah. So in the next episode, we're going to try and see the world through Nazi eyes. We're going to try and understand how the Nazis themselves viewed what they were doing as being the right thing to do. No, they weren't sitting around saying, "Are we the baddies?" No. And then we are going to look at what is happening to Jews in Germany, the escalation of laws that have brought in against them. And look at the process of emigration and of persecution, which Dominic, your account of what happened in Vienna, is a kind of horrific prefiguring of what we'll be talking about in the context of Germany. So a slightly grim ending to the episode. But a grim subject. Yeah. But very important subject. It's exactly important and fascinating. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.