Images of Austria 1938.

[George L Gregory]

It is even possible that some of those who were arrested would have voted for the Anschluss in the referendum .
Hostility to the Nazis and hostility to the Anschluss were two different things .The worker districts of Red Berlin voted massively for the Anschluss,but they did not become suddenly supporters of the Nazis .
A lot of the partisans of Schusschnigg ( maybe even the majority ) supported the Anschluss .Schusschnigg asked to vote for a German Austria .

Yes. Evan Bukey wrote:

This does not mean that the masses had suddenly embraced all the doctrines of National Socialism, As already mentioned, no more than a third of the populace could be considered dyed-in-the-wool believers. Most Austrians were therefore hailing the collapse of the Old Regime; they viewed the Anschluss as both a powerful "agent of change" and thee fulfillment of an ancient dream.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GLG,

I am deeply flattered that you thought my previous contributions were so important as to merit six consecutive return postings and that you have read so many of my posts going back years. Furthermore, I am deeply gratified that you not only found me to have been consistent throughout that time, but felt impelled to publicize this fact by devoting a whole post (#45 above) to quotes from me proving just this point.

You post, "The 83 % who did not appear in the photographs are not more representative than the 17 % who did appear in the photographs." Hmmm, so the fact that five times as many people did not attend the welcome demonstrations in Vienna is less representative than the relatively small minority who did? I think you will find that your logic is very severely flawed here!

You post, "You can't say that the 83 % were hostile/indifferent to the Anschluss because they remained at home ." I didn't, so I don't have to defend that. However, as you have raised the matter, it is least as implausible that their absence indicated support for the German invasion. As Bukey says at the top of p.33: “How many tears were shed behind closed doors is impossible to say.”

You post, "The majority of the 83% approved the Anschluss." Perhaps, but as ljadw would say, there is no proof of that. Why? Because Hitler rigged the conduct of his referendum, quite possibly unnecessarily. There is no other measure of public opinion because Hitler prevented Schussnoigg's referendum taking place by invading and there are no publuc opinion polls from the period. So what are you basing your claim on? I would suggest you are making an assumption which may or may not hold true.

You post, "See the results of the plebiscite in Vienna: these were not falsified." Again, you clearly have not researched the conduct of the plebiscite. Take a look at the ballot paper. Read the account of Albert Goering (Herman's brother) of conditions under which it was conducted. The whole plebiscite was rotten and doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

You post, "There were less than 17 % of the Londoners who were present on May 8 at the gates of Buckingham .They were not more representative than those who were absent." Yup. Unsurprisingly. virtually everyone was in favour of a victorious peace. Two months later they voted Churchill out. What is your point?

You post, "Those who were absent ( in Vienna and London ) were not absent because they disagreed with the festivities ." In London that is certainly true. However, in "Red Vienna" that is much less clear.

You post, "In 1966 the British Football team won the World Cup and was applauded by a minority of the British people, but that will not say that the others preferred that Germany would have won ." True. Your point is what?

You post, "Did a minority or majority of the British population in 1945 appear on the streets of the UK to celebrate VE Day?" I doubt there are statistics available, but I would imagine that virtually everyone came onto the streets somewhere to celebrate a victorious peace and the end to the deaths of relatives and friends. Again, your point is what?

You ask, "Do you have any evidence that the images were “to some degree staged”? That’s your claim, prove it. Provide some sources." It is my claim. The photographs provide their own evidence of stage management. If there was no stage management, you have to explain the motorcades, the parades, the uniformed troops, police and party members stewarding crowds, the speaking tours, the identical long banners hanging from public buildings, the large numbers of identical swastika flags carried by the crowds, etc. etc.. There is some good footage of all this on Youtube. You have yourself already conceded Reich German cameramen and broadcasters certainly provided extensive coverage of the Anschluss. How do you explain the rest?

You post, "The Germans were welcomed as liberators, not invaders." Yes, demonstrably by 40% of the population of Linz and 17% of the population of Vienna, who appear in the photographs. They weren't welcomed at all by 60% of the population of Linz (as near to a home town as Hitler had in his youth) or by 83% of the population of Viennan (the national capital). We simply have no way of knowing what they actually thought. All we know is that they didn't turn out.

You post, "The Austrians didn’t think of themselves as being “under occupation”." Again, we don't know exactly what the Austrians thought. Most appear to have been accepting of the situation and the others had no means of safely displaying any objection.

You post, "Thousands of political opponents were arrested and imprisoned AFTER the Anschluss happened." Tens of thousands, actually. Is this meant to be a point demonstrating Austrian enthusiasm for the initial German occupation? I must be missing something!

You post, "Those people weren’t arrested and imprisoned because they opposed the Anschluss." Who know what they were all arrested for? Opposition to Anschluss with Nazi Germany seems a likely contributary factor. In addition, 6% of the population were banned from voting.

You post. "If there had been any form of resistance then it would have formed when the idea of a plebiscite to keep Austria independent was being talked about by many people." What does this mean? That opposition should have occurred when Schussnigg first proposed his referendum? That Austrian Nazis should have been more active against it so that the embarrassment of a German Army invasion could have been avoided?

You post. "There wasn’t even any underground resistance to it. Even opponents of the Nazis didn’t oppose it." How could they? Some 40,000 of their leaders were arrested, German troops were in residence and Nazi thugs were on the streets beating up Jews.

You post, "There are many examples of public protests during the Third Reich." Really? When and where? I can think of one in early 1943 and quite a few in the last weeks of the war. What are you thinking of?

You post, " In the occupied territories plenty of the occupied peoples openly resisted" Not in the first month of German occupation they didn't, any more than the Austrians did!

You ask, "Why the hell do you think so many became partisans?" "So many" didn't in most of Western Europe until quite late in the war. These then included Austrians, of whom a company operated with the Yugoslav Partisans.

You ask, "Why do you think so many occupied peoples helped Jews by giving them ‘Aryan Papers’?" "So many"? How many? Remember, the great majority of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe died at Nazi hands.

You ask, "did you ever provide a source for your claim that the crowds of Austrians welcoming the Nazis were self-selected"? I don't have to. If they weren't "self selecting", (i.e. there voluntarily because they supported what was happening, or at least curious), who are you suggesting was selecting them? The Nazi Party? If I was you, I would settle for them being "self selecting"!!!!

You post, "No one denies that the plebiscite was rigged to convey that literally EVERY Austrian agreed with the Anschluss - which was obviously not the case - but, historians accept that the overall Austrian population did welcome it and there was no resistance or protest from a sizeable amount of Austrians." True, but as your quote from Bukey says, "In what specific ways the April plebiscite reflected the desires and wishes of the Austrian population must remain a matter of speculation."

You post, "The film shows images of a provincial town in which the locals have turned out en masse to demonstrate their support for the invading Nazis." Without knowing which town, its population and the total turn out, this tells us no more than the photographs under discussion and we can't say with confidence that "the footage shows genuine support from a small town", just from an indeterminate proportion of its population. There were some very strongly pro-Nazi areas in the south where this is possible but, as was found out in the 1934 coup attempt, they were not necessarily represenative of the country at large. More details please.

You post, "The streets are hung with hundreds of red, black and white swastika banners and the town square has been hastily renamed "Adolf Hitler Platz"." And this is not stage management?

You post. "The idea that the images and film footage are just simply Nazi propaganda is a way to make out that the Anschluss was an invasion and that most Austrians didn’t want it… which of course is not supported by any evidence." I didn't say most of that, so I don't have to defend it.

I did point out that the German Army's arrival was an invasion. It was conducted as a military operation with orders to suppress any resistance with severity. The main reason there was no resistance was that Schussnigg ordered his Army and the Frontmiliz not to do so. He did this because he had no hope of resisting Germany for long, no outside allies and was concerned about Austrian loss of life, which Hitler clearly wasn't. The reason why the German Army was used was that Hitler was not at all sure of the state of Austrian opinion about Schussnigg's questionable plebiscite and felt compelled to prevent it taking place. It was undoubtedly an invasion. It arguably remained to some degree an occupation until 2nd Panzer Division, an initially all German formation that was barracked in Vienna, became largely filled with Austrians a couple of years later.

Enough for now.

Cheers,

Sid

[George L Gregory]

You ask, "Do you have any evidence that the images were “to some degree staged”? That’s your claim, prove it. Provide some sources." It is my claim. The photographs provide their own evidence of stage management. If there was no stage management, you have to explain the motorcades, the parades, the uniformed troops, police and party members stewarding crowds, the speaking tours, the identical long banners hanging from public buildings, the large numbers of identical swastika flags carried by the crowds, etc. etc.. There is some good footage of all this on Youtube. You have yourself already conceded Reich German cameramen and broadcasters certainly provided extensive coverage of the Anschluss. How do you explain the rest?

I don’t have to explain any thing.

It’s your claim so provide some sources to prove your claim or it can be quite simply dismissed.

Don’t try and reverse the burden of proof.

lYou post, "Those people weren’t arrested and imprisoned because they opposed the Anschluss." Who know what they were all arrested for? Opposition to Anschluss with Nazi Germany seems a likely contributary factor. In addition, 6% of the population were banned from voting.

I suppose you’ll have a source for that claim, yes?

[George L Gregory]

Guttridge is a funny old character.

For someone quoting Bukey, whilst believing that the cheering crowds were to “some degree staged” without proving any sources for that claim and at the same time tries to reverse the burden of proof by asking someone who is questioning his claim to explain this and that, he sure as hell does like to conveniently ignore what Bukey wrote:

Reich German cameramen and broadcasters certainly provided extensive coverage of the Anschluss, but neither they nor Propaganda Minister Goebbels had sufficient time to stage-manage events.

Maybe since it’s in red, he will be able to comprehend it for the 1000th time it has been posted.

[uhu]

As to the "Rape of Austria" one can only quote the Third Reich's American writer and prolific hater of all things Nazi, William Lawrence Shirer, "If that was rape there was never a most willing victim."

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GLG,

You seem to be running out of arguments if they come down to just denying a measure of stage management!

Your problem is to explain the motorcades, the parades, the uniformed troops, police and party members stewarding crowds, the speaking tours, the identical long banners hanging from public buildings, the large numbers of identical swastika flags carried by the crowds, etc. etc..

How did this all happen without a degree of "stage management"?

Did thousands of German troops just happen to be on leave in uniform in Vienna, walking in step in the same direction at the same time?

Did thousands of Nazi Party supporters just happen to be lining the edge of roads entirely by coincidence at a miraculously convenient moment?

Did entire squadrons of the Luftwaffe accidentally stray over Vienna due to some extraordinary simultaneous navigation error?

Is it mere happenstance that Hitler found himself driving in a column of other official vehicles at exactly the same time, at exactly the same speed, in exactly the same direction along hundreds of kilometers of Austrian roads?

Did much of the Nazi leadership just happen to have chosen Vienna as a holiday destination at the same time by some amazing piece of synchronicity?

Did Hitler accidentally just happen to walk into a theatre containing a dais fitted with microphones and festooned with Nazi banners, where the great and the good of Austrian Nazism just happened to be already seated for some other performance and where cameras and official photographers were waiting?

Was it sheer chance that hundreds of identically sized swastika banners were suddenly draped from public buildings and lamp posts? Did they just happen to be lying around peoples' houses?

Likewise, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of identical small swastika flags found themselves in the hands of the crowds? What are the odds of so many people turning up with identical flags, if it wasn't organized?

Who had all the giant banners containing huge slogans just lying about their relatively small houses and flats?

Nobody is denying that the crowds in the photos were there voluntarily. Certainly not me (see above). However, in the national capital these crowds only amounted to about 17% of the population and in what was effectively Hitler's home town, Linz, they only amounted to about 40%. Furthermore, they were not a random cross section of Austrian society. They were a self-selecting minority of Nazi supporters and the curious.

The photos therefore do not of themselves represent a ringing endorsement of the Nazis.

Furthermore, the same official photos show multiple indications of a degree of stage management (see above). To deny the evidence of stage management is to deny the very evidence of one's own eyes!

Cheers,

Sid.

[George L Gregory]

Guttridge, I asked you to provide sources, you know, actual secondary sources. Why are you finding that so difficult to do? Why do you keep avoiding that question? The burden of proof is on you since it is your claim that the crowds were “to some degree staged”.

I’ll remind you from elsewhere on the forum about opinions and proof:

If a poster raises a question about the events, other posters may answer the question with evidence. If a poster stops asking questions and begins to express a point of view, he then becomes an advocate for that viewpoint. When a person becomes an advocate, he has the burden of providing evidence for his point of view. If he has no evidence, or doesn't provide it when asked, it is reasonable for the reader to conclude that his opinion or viewpoint is uninformed and may fairly be discounted or rejected.

I’m not interested in your opinions or viewpoints about the crowds during the Anschluss. I want you to provide sources proving that the crowds were “to some degree staged”.

I await to read the sources you post - if you ever do.

[George L Gregory]

Perhaps Guttridge is confusing the crowds during the initial annexation and what happened from that time until the actual plebiscite.

Bukey wrote:

For nearly a month they staged rallies, canvased voters, and subjected the Austrian populace to spectacular pageantry, dramatic radio broadcasts (for which 20,000 receivers were made available), and a campaign tour by Hitler himself.

But that wasn’t during the Anschluss, it was between the Anschluss and the plebiscite asking the Austrians if they approved of it or not.

Is that what you meant Guttridge? If so, you have been wasting everyone’s time for years now because that is common knowledge. You should try and be a bit more clearer in your posts.

[George L Gregory]

You post, "No one denies that the plebiscite was rigged to convey that literally EVERY Austrian agreed with the Anschluss - which was obviously not the case - but, historians accept that the overall Austrian population did welcome it and there was no resistance or protest from a sizeable amount of Austrians." True, but as your quote from Bukey says, "In what specific ways the April plebiscite reflected the desires and wishes of the Austrian population must remain a matter of speculation."

And Bukey continues:

What is perhaps most striking is that the loss of independence was attended by so little protest or resistance. or resistance. With all this in mind, Botz is surely correct in arguing that popular reaction to the Anschluss cannot be characterized simply as credulity, opportunism, or hope of economic betterment. The enthusiasm of 1938 corresponded at a more basic level to the excitement of the moment; it represented a genuine outpouring of German nationalist feeling that was shared by virtually everyone in the interwar period. Although Hitler's foreign policy goals remained open, scarcely anyone objected to his authoritarian system or to his intention of ridding Austria of undesirable minorities and social outcasts. If nothing else, the prevailing anti-Semitic consensus ensured that a "majority" of Austrians stood ready "to fulfill their 'duty' in the Greater German Reich."

[George L Gregory]

You post, "There are many examples of public protests during the Third Reich." Really? When and where? I can think of one in early 1943 and quite a few in the last weeks of the war. What are you thinking of?

The 1941 February strike (generally regarded as the first protest against the Nazis).

The 1943 Fabrikaktion (Factory Action) protest.

The 1943 Rosenstrasse protest.

The 1943 Witten Women's Protest.

The actions carried out by White Rose.

There were also plenty of other forms of protests (letters, disagreements amongst people, etc) because of various Nazi policies such as Aktion T4 and the discrimination of Catholics.

Etc, etc.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GLG,

It is important that we operate honestly here. At no point did I post that "the crowds were “to some degree staged”." Indeed, I have said the exact opposite in just my last post and earlier. "Nobody is denying that the crowds in the photos were there voluntarily. Certainly not me.".

I don't have to defend your inventions.

What I did say is that they were to some degree stage managed and that propaganda photos were part of this.

You posted, "I asked you to provide sources, you know, actual secondary sources." I did. Unless, of course, you don't consider the photographs as evidential primary sources?

I asked you a number of questions that you haven't answered. Here are some from my last post:

How did this all happen without a degree of "stage management"?

Did thousands of German troops just happen to be on leave in uniform in Vienna, walking in step in the same direction at the same time?

Did thousands of Nazi Party supporters just happen to be lining the edge of roads entirely by coincidence at a miraculously convenient moment?

Did entire squadrons of the Luftwaffe accidentally stray over Vienna due to some extraordinary simultaneous navigation error?

Is it mere happenstance that Hitler found himself driving in a column of other official vehicles at exactly the same time, at exactly the same speed, in exactly the same direction along hundreds of kilometers of Austrian roads?

Did much of the Nazi leadership just happen to have chosen Vienna as a holiday destination at the same time by some amazing piece of synchronicity?

Did Hitler accidentally just happen to walk into a theatre containing a dais fitted with microphones and festooned with Nazi banners, where the great and the good of Austrian Nazism just happened to be already seated for some other performance and where cameras and official photographers were waiting?

Was it sheer chance that hundreds of identically sized swastika banners were suddenly draped from public buildings and lamp posts? Did they just happen to be lying around peoples' houses?

Likewise, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of identical small swastika flags found themselves in the hands of the crowds? What are the odds of so many people turning up with identical flags, if it wasn't organized?

Who had all the giant banners containing huge slogans just lying about their relatively small houses and flats?

Please explain how all this happened without a degree of stage management?

You ask if I was, "confusing the crowds during the initial annexation and what happened from that time until the actual plebiscite." Nope. Look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7Nlqz34qNo It contains almost all the stage-managed details I mention above and which you have yet to explain.

So, in the first ten years of Nazi rule in Germany you can’t find a single public protest inside the Reich, a state with 80 million people? And this you consider “many”?

The first public protest you can find in occupied Europe occurred 9 months after occupation in the Netherlands. Is your argument here the same as in Austria – that the absence of such action earlier is indicative of support of German occupation?

As regards protests within Germany, the 1943 Fabrikaktion (Factory Action) protest and the 1943 Rosenstrasse protest, I think you will find, are the same thing. What is more, it is the same early 1943 public protest I was referring to earlier.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

About the plebiscite being rigged ( which does not mean that the results were satisfied ) :what people living in democracies calling a fair referendum,was impossible in Austria in April 1938,even if the Nazis had wanted it .
Why ?
For the simple reason (reason a lot of people are unwilling to accept ) that Austria was a dictatorship on the day that the Germans arrived:there had been no elections (even no rigged elections ) since Dollfuss took power,there were no lists of electors,etc...
About the results : even a big part of those who were excluded would have said yes ,but the Jews were excluded because after the March pogrom,it would have been impossible for a Jew to participate in the referendum.Besides,a lot of therm ( the lucky ones ) had already left Austria .
In a fair referendum,less than 99,3 % would have said yes,but as for the average Austrian,the referendum was about two things : not only the Anschluss,but also the occasion to give one's opinion about Austrofascism,it is obvious that the overwhelming majority would said yes .Red Vienna had not forgotten its dead, the concentration camps, unemployment : saying no in the referendum was saying yes to Schuschnigg.And this was excluded .

[George L Gregory]

As regards protests within Germany, the 1943 Fabrikaktion (Factory Action) protest and the 1943 Rosenstrasse protest, I think you will find, are the same thing. What is more, it is the same early 1943 public protest I was referring to earlier.

Cheers,

Sid.

Wrong. The latter followed on from the former. They were two separate protests.

[George L Gregory]

Hi GLG,

It is important that we operate honestly here. At no point did I post that "the crowds were “to some degree staged”." Indeed, I have said the exact opposite in just my last post and earlier. "Nobody is denying that the crowds in the photos were there voluntarily. Certainly not me.".

I don't have to defend your inventions.

What I did say is that they were to some degree stage managed and that propaganda photos were part of this.

You posted, "I asked you to provide sources, you know, actual secondary sources." I did. Unless, of course, you don't consider the photographs as evidential primary sources?

I asked you a number of questions that you haven't answered. Here are some from my last post:

How did this all happen without a degree of "stage management"?

Did thousands of German troops just happen to be on leave in uniform in Vienna, walking in step in the same direction at the same time?

Did thousands of Nazi Party supporters just happen to be lining the edge of roads entirely by coincidence at a miraculously convenient moment?

Did entire squadrons of the Luftwaffe accidentally stray over Vienna due to some extraordinary simultaneous navigation error?

Is it mere happenstance that Hitler found himself driving in a column of other official vehicles at exactly the same time, at exactly the same speed, in exactly the same direction along hundreds of kilometers of Austrian roads?

Did much of the Nazi leadership just happen to have chosen Vienna as a holiday destination at the same time by some amazing piece of synchronicity?

Did Hitler accidentally just happen to walk into a theatre containing a dais fitted with microphones and festooned with Nazi banners, where the great and the good of Austrian Nazism just happened to be already seated for some other performance and where cameras and official photographers were waiting?

Was it sheer chance that hundreds of identically sized swastika banners were suddenly draped from public buildings and lamp posts? Did they just happen to be lying around peoples' houses?

Likewise, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of identical small swastika flags found themselves in the hands of the crowds? What are the odds of so many people turning up with identical flags, if it wasn't organized?

Who had all the giant banners containing huge slogans just lying about their relatively small houses and flats?

Please explain how all this happened without a degree of stage management?

You ask if I was, "confusing the crowds during the initial annexation and what happened from that time until the actual plebiscite." Nope. Look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7Nlqz34qNo It contains almost all the stage-managed details I mention above and which you have yet to explain.

Your viewpoints of the primary sources (images and footage) of the Anschluss are not sources.

Provide secondary sources that back up your claim that the initial crowds were to some degree staged.

How many times do you need to be asked to provide some sources? You just keep repeating the same arguments post after post from your own POV. I’m not interested in your POV, I am interested in what secondary sources you can present for your arguments.

Bukey wrote that the initial crowds were not staged by the Nazis and that for the month between the initial overtaking of Austria and the plebiscite there were staged events.

[George L Gregory]

So, in the first ten years of Nazi rule in Germany you can’t find a single public protest inside the Reich, a state with 80 million people? And this you consider “many”?

The first public protest you can find in occupied Europe occurred 9 months after occupation in the Netherlands. Is your argument here the same as in Austria – that the absence of such action earlier is indicative of support of German occupation?

As regards protests within Germany, the 1943 Fabrikaktion (Factory Action) protest and the 1943 Rosenstrasse protest, I think you will find, are the same thing. What is more, it is the same early 1943 public protest I was referring to earlier.

Cheers,

Sid.

When one lives in a dictatorship then it’s not easy to protest publicly, but right from the start of the Third Reich there was resistance against the Nazis.

The Malicious Practices Act 1933 was passed on 20 March 1933 which made it illegal to speak wrongly or criticise the newly established Nazi regime and its leaders. The whole point in the act was to get rid of the enemies of the new regime. A year later the Treachery Act of 1934 was passed on 20 December 1934 which made it illegal to critcisebthe Nazi Party badges and uniforms, restricted the right to freedom of speech, and criminalized all remarks causing putative severe damage to the welfare of the Third Reich, the prestige of the Nazi government or the Nazi Party.

No wonder people didn’t publicly protest against the Nazis.

Even the concentration camps of the early 1930s were brutal and often included people being murdered.

A lot of people turned a blind eye to the horrors of the Nazi regime because they were doing better generally so they didn’t want to risk their lives when they knew that they wouldn’t have been able to change much because when it comes to protesting and wanting a change then it simply boils down to numbers.