running high: A boy who shouted, “ Heil Hitler! ” was all but lynched. Schuschnigg returned to Vienna that day, and Hitler ordered his military chiefs to prepare for an invasion on the 12th.
The humiliated Ribbentrop was stuck in London with instructions from Hitler not to move. He was to represent the German government in the course of the crisis. Like many of his contemporaries, Chamberlain had a low opinion of Ribbentrop’s intelligence. It was not just with Britain that Ribbentrop was prone to gaffes. In his passion for signing a German-Japanese alliance, he had already destroyed a profitable Sino-German trading relationship. The RAM learned of the Anschluss from Chamberlain, Halifax, and Cadogan in the course of lunch at Downing Street, and followed its progress on the BBC. To add insult to injury, his predecessor Neurath was temporarily brought back to the Wilhelmstrasse to deal with the flak from abroad. Many other important members of the gang were missing too: Brauchitsch was on leave and Reichenau in Cairo. Keitel was asked to produce the Operation Otto file and Beck to move two army corps to the frontier. Hitler still wanted a pretext for invading; Göring, delighted to control foreign policy during Ribbentrop’s absence, thought they should go in anyway.
Schuschnigg revealed his decision to hold a plebiscite to his government and ministers as late as he could. The headquarters of the government party, the Fatherland Front, also had a visit from Dr. Desider Friedmann of the Jewish congregation or IKG (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde); he brought a check for 500,000 schillings to help fund the plebiscite. The following day he brought the Front another for 300,000. It was a reflection of the degree of anxiety that was going through the community. As the writer Gina Kaus put it, they hoped to win, “but we were worried for all that.” The Jews were conscious that if Austria fell, they would suffer a terrible fate.
ON MARCH 11, two days before the plebiscite was to be held, Hitler performed the first invasion by telephone in history. The lines opened at 5:30 AM, when the Austrian chief of police, Michael Skubl, rang Schuschnigg to tell him that the border had been closed at Salzburg. The pious Austrian chancellor’s first reaction was to take himself off to Mass at the cathedral. When he returned to the Chancellery he discovered that German forces had been mobilized in Bavaria and that Seyss-Inquart had disappeared. As it transpired, the German mobilization had been chaotic: The General Staff possessed no proper plans. Later, many German units actually broke down on the road between Linz and Vienna. It was a godsend that the Austrians offered no resistance.
No one had had much sleep in Berlin. Goebbels had been scribbling propaganda for most of the night, preparing to drop 13 million leaflets on Austria. Papen arrived from Vienna to find Neurath, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Himmler, Brauchitsch, Keitel, and their retinue plotting. He was kept in the dark in an antechamber of the Chancellery while the others made decisions. Around midday Hitler sent word of the invasion to Mussolini through Prince Philip of Hesse, but Operation Otto would go ahead regardless of what the Duce said. He took the trouble to sugar the pill: His letter contained “a precise declaration about the recognition of the Brenner as the frontier of Italy.”
Hitler was a furious bundle of nerves, unable to issue coherent orders, so it was Göring who actually stage-managed the Anschluss from the Chancellery switchboard. At 9:30 AM, he directed Seyss-Inquart and his fellow Nazi minister Glaise-Horstenau to the Austrian Chancellery in the Ballhausplatz. Göring issued an ultimatum at around 10 AM: He wanted the plebiscite postponed within the hour and another one announced, to be carried out under the system established by the Germans in the Saar.
When Schuschnigg made inquiries in Graz, he learned that local Nazis had issued a
The humiliated Ribbentrop was stuck in London with instructions from Hitler not to move. He was to represent the German government in the course of the crisis. Like many of his contemporaries, Chamberlain had a low opinion of Ribbentrop’s intelligence. It was not just with Britain that Ribbentrop was prone to gaffes. In his passion for signing a German-Japanese alliance, he had already destroyed a profitable Sino-German trading relationship. The RAM learned of the Anschluss from Chamberlain, Halifax, and Cadogan in the course of lunch at Downing Street, and followed its progress on the BBC. To add insult to injury, his predecessor Neurath was temporarily brought back to the Wilhelmstrasse to deal with the flak from abroad. Many other important members of the gang were missing too: Brauchitsch was on leave and Reichenau in Cairo. Keitel was asked to produce the Operation Otto file and Beck to move two army corps to the frontier. Hitler still wanted a pretext for invading; Göring, delighted to control foreign policy during Ribbentrop’s absence, thought they should go in anyway.
Schuschnigg revealed his decision to hold a plebiscite to his government and ministers as late as he could. The headquarters of the government party, the Fatherland Front, also had a visit from Dr. Desider Friedmann of the Jewish congregation or IKG (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde); he brought a check for 500,000 schillings to help fund the plebiscite. The following day he brought the Front another for 300,000. It was a reflection of the degree of anxiety that was going through the community. As the writer Gina Kaus put it, they hoped to win, “but we were worried for all that.” The Jews were conscious that if Austria fell, they would suffer a terrible fate.
ON MARCH 11, two days before the plebiscite was to be held, Hitler performed the first invasion by telephone in history. The lines opened at 5:30 AM, when the Austrian chief of police, Michael Skubl, rang Schuschnigg to tell him that the border had been closed at Salzburg. The pious Austrian chancellor’s first reaction was to take himself off to Mass at the cathedral. When he returned to the Chancellery he discovered that German forces had been mobilized in Bavaria and that Seyss-Inquart had disappeared. As it transpired, the German mobilization had been chaotic: The General Staff possessed no proper plans. Later, many German units actually broke down on the road between Linz and Vienna. It was a godsend that the Austrians offered no resistance.
No one had had much sleep in Berlin. Goebbels had been scribbling propaganda for most of the night, preparing to drop 13 million leaflets on Austria. Papen arrived from Vienna to find Neurath, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Himmler, Brauchitsch, Keitel, and their retinue plotting. He was kept in the dark in an antechamber of the Chancellery while the others made decisions. Around midday Hitler sent word of the invasion to Mussolini through Prince Philip of Hesse, but Operation Otto would go ahead regardless of what the Duce said. He took the trouble to sugar the pill: His letter contained “a precise declaration about the recognition of the Brenner as the frontier of Italy.”
Hitler was a furious bundle of nerves, unable to issue coherent orders, so it was Göring who actually stage-managed the Anschluss from the Chancellery switchboard. At 9:30 AM, he directed Seyss-Inquart and his fellow Nazi minister Glaise-Horstenau to the Austrian Chancellery in the Ballhausplatz. Göring issued an ultimatum at around 10 AM: He wanted the plebiscite postponed within the hour and another one announced, to be carried out under the system established by the Germans in the Saar.
When Schuschnigg made inquiries in Graz, he learned that local Nazis had issued a
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