Images of Austria 1938.

[tigre]

Hello to all ; please avoid ideological / political discussions, just pictures........

Einmarsch 1938.

Source: Das Interessante Blatt. Do, 17. März 1938.

Cheers. Raúl M .

[tigre]

Hello to all ; please avoid ideological / political discussions, just pictures........

Einmarsch 1938.

Source: Das Interessante Blatt. Do, 17. März 1938.

Cheers. Raúl M .

[Helly Angel]

Some originals postcards in motiv of the Anschluss, 1938.

[Helly Angel]

More propaganda postcards with the glorification of the Anschluss.

[Hans1906]

Two part german docu about the "Anschluss 1938 etc.", broadcasted on the german TV channel Phoenix earlier:

Dokumentation - Hitlers Österreich - Der Anschluss - Teil 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP6LWfgguWw
Dokumentation - Hitlers Österreich - Der Krieg - Teil 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNXvo63cRPo


Hans

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

It is as well to remind ourselves in viewing all this that (1) these are all, without exception, Nazi propaganda images and (2) only a minority of the Austrian population actually turned out to greet the German invaders. Most stayed at home, especially in Vienna.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Hans1906]

Sid,

Most stayed at home, especially in Vienna

Grandfather Hans often talked about the "Einmarsch" of Austria in 1938 to his wife Berta.
My grandma remembered a sentence about this event from her husband: (At that time a "Oberstfeldmeister" (Hauptmann) in the former RAD:

From every toilet, from every window, hung a swastika flag, the Austrians cheered.
After 1945, all Austrians were anti-fascists, of course, no one cheered, all were anti-fascists....

The pictures and films speak for themselves, only anti-fascists on the streets, Nazis, there were not at all, only a small minority, if at all...
And our world was still a disc at that time!

Take care!

*I could post dozens of videos about the Austrian Nazis here, but that would only reopen old wounds.


Hans

[Helly Angel]

Hi Guys,

It is as well to remind ourselves in viewing all this that (1) these are all, without exception, Nazi propaganda images and (2) only a minority of the Austrian population actually turned out to greet the German invaders. Most stayed at home, especially in Vienna.

Cheers,

Sid.

Not sure about this. Robert Gellately wrote an interesting book called "Not only Hitler" about the support of the people to the NSDAP, especially in Austria. With a favorable electoral result of 99%, I do not think that many people have stayed at home hidden and there are many photos that show the opposite.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Helly Angel,

You have simply bought the Nazi propaganda.

There was no "99% election result". There was a heavily rigged plebiscite in which, just for a start, 400,000 people were not allowed to vote, which makes a complete mockery of any "99%" claim. If you want to know how flawed the voting process for the rest was, you have only to read the description of it by Goering's brother Albert.

In Linz, the home town of Hitler's youth, the estimates are that 40% of the population turned out to greet him and some of them appear to have been curious rather than enthusiastic. In Vienna the crowds are estimated at only 17% of the population.

If you take photographs of cheering crowds, you will get photographs of cheering crowds. What these photos don't tell you is that 83% of the population of Vienna stayed away.

The idea that 99% of any population agrees on any political subject is transparently ludicrous.

Hitler's problem was that about 91% of the population of the Saarland had voted in a League of Nations-organized plebiscite for reunification with Germany rather than go to France. If Austria voted in a lower percentage for Anschluss with Germany, which was likely, it would look as though Nazism's appeal was waning and its momentum slowing. The Nazis therefore had to rig the Austrian plebiscite for a higher result. This they did, but to such a ridiculous level that it put the legitimacy of the whole process in question. The irony of this is that a clear majority of Austrians were quite probably in favour of Anschluss at that heady moment and it was very probably unnecessary to rig the plebiscite in this extreme and implausible manner.

Cheers,

Sid

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Tigre,

To post Nazi propaganda photos is a political act, though I know that is not your intent and I have no particular problem with you doing so, as they are of historical interest. However, you can't expect people to just swallow the propaganda and "avoid ideological / political discussions".

It is necessary to put the other side of these photos in words because most of the Austrian population was at home or work at the time, not taking photos of itself waving swastikas.

These photos were designed to deceive in the first place and, if they are allowed to pass without comment, that deception will be furthered today and here.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

Hi Guys,

It is as well to remind ourselves in viewing all this that (1) these are all, without exception, Nazi propaganda images and (2) only a minority of the Austrian population actually turned out to greet the German invaders. Most stayed at home, especially in Vienna.

Cheers,

Sid.

Not sure about this. Robert Gellately wrote an interesting book called "Not only Hitler" about the support of the people to the NSDAP, especially in Austria. With a favorable electoral result of 99%, I do not think that many people have stayed at home hidden and there are many photos that show the opposite.

The number of people that stayed at home/ was going on street to welcome the Germans, is not proving the level of support for the Anschluss .A lot of Londoners applauded Churchill on 8 May 1945 and two months later voted against Churchill in the elections . And a lot of them were the same persons .
A minority of the Austrians supported the Nazis,but a majority of the Austrians (also on the very left side ) supported the Anschluss .Renner nor Innitzer were Nazis, but supported the Anschluss .Most of the Russians were not communists but still applauded Stalin on 9 May 1945 and mourned his death in 1953 .
A majority of the Americans applauded Truman on V Day ,but a year later the same persons voted against him at the mid term elections .

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

I agree with most of that.

That is why these images have to be caveated.

All they show is the minority (in Vienna quite a small minority) of people who turned out on the day to greet Hitler in an organized demonstration. We are looking at propaganda spin.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

But :
1 There is no proof how many of those who greeted Hitler were Nazis/partisans of Anschluss
2 There is no proof how many of those who remained at home were anti-Nazi/opponents of the Anschluss .
People who remained at home could be indifferent,anti-Nazi and partisans of the Anschluss .
The same for those who greeted Hitler : I would not be surprised if among them there were a lot of opportunists .
And, I would not be surprised if among those who greeted Hitler, there were people who were present at the funeral of Dolfuss .
About the number of those who were greeting Hitler : it is always a minority : people from Vorarlberg could not be present in Vienna, old people could not be present, etc.
A minority of people who were greeting Hitler does not mean a minority of people pro-Hitler and pro-Anschluss.
The same for a majority .
There were three groups about the Anschluss :
Partisans ( a big majority ),but I would not be surprised if the majority of them /relative majority were anti -Nazi .
Opponents ( a small minority )
Neutrals ( the rest )
There were also three groups about Nazism :
Partisans (maybe a relative majority )
Opponents ( less than the partisans )
Neutrals ( the rest )
One could vote for the Communists and not be an opponent of Hitler .
It is the same for the Anschluss .
But : both groups did not overlap each other .
The Anschluss idea was much older than Nazism and had more partisans .

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi ljadw,

I could quibble over details, but as your post emphasises my point that the situation in Austria was more fluid than the plebiscite results indicated, I won't.

Cheers,

Sid

[Hans1906]

Of course, the memories of German soldiers about the "invasion" of Austria are no longer coherent.

My grandfather always had a Leica camera in his luggage, a gift from his father.
Interesting, that the man did not take a single photo in 1938. There are no photos from Hans from the days of the invasion of Austria at that time.
(He joined the NSDAP in the year 1937)

For officers it was tacitly tolerated to take the one or another photo, at that time officially not allowed.
Interesting, that the man had his only son educated in the NPEA "Spanheim" in Kärnten.

Austrians were probably rather "foreign" to the grandfather's North German "character," but all this is pure speculation on my part.

Bad times, many questions will never be answered again....


Hans