What was the ultimatum that Hitler gave to Austria?

Nazis Take Austria

Xix months would expire from the twenty-four hours Hitler grabbed control of the German language Army until the actual commencement of World State of war Ii. During those months, Hitler engaged in a kind of gangster diplomacy in which he bluffed, bullied, threatened, and lied to various European leaders in guild to expand the borders of his Reich.

His very get-go victim was Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, Chancellor of Austria, a country being torn apart from inside past Nazi agitators and besides feeling threatened from the outside by Germany'due south newfound military strength. Hoping for some sort of peaceful settlement with Hitler, Schuschnigg agreed to a contiguous meeting at Berchtesgaden. The meeting was arraigned by Franz von Papen, the former ambassador to Austria.

On the chilly winter morning of February 12, 1938, Schuschnigg's car was met at the German-Austrian border past Papen, who joined him for the ride upwards to Hitler's spectacular mountaintop retreat. Papen informed Schuschnigg that Hitler was in a very practiced mood this morning. But, Papen added, Hitler hoped that Schuschnigg wouldn't mind if iii of Germany'due south top generals were too present during the 24-hour interval'south discussion.

The intimidating glare of the Führer Adolf Hitler - at home in his study room within his mountaintop retreat at Berchtesgaden - scene of his first diplomatic conquest.

Schuschnigg was somewhat taken aback by this, simply it was likewise belatedly to change anything now. He arrived at the steps of Hitler's villa and was greeted by the Führer himself. Standing backside Hitler were the three generals; Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the High Command, Walter von Reichenau, Commander of Ground forces troops along the High german-Austrian edge, and Air Force General Hugo Sperrle.

Hitler led Schuschnigg into his villa and up to the great hall on the second floor, a big room featuring a huge plate glass window with sweeping views of the Alps, and in the far distance, Austria itself. Schuschnigg, taking information technology all in, broke the ice with a fiddling small talk most the view. Merely Hitler cut him right off. "We did non get together here to speak of the fine view or the weather!"

Thus began 2 hours of hell in which the quiet-spoken Austrian Chancellor was lambasted without mercy by the Führer. "You have done everything to avoid a friendly policy!" Hitler yelled. "The whole history of Austria is simply one uninterrupted human action of high treason...And I tin can tell you correct now, Herr Schuschnigg, that I am absolutely determined to brand an cease of this. The German language Reich is one of the great powers, and nobody will enhance his voice if it settles its border issues."

After regaining his composure, Schuschnigg tried to settle downwardly Hitler, telling him: "Nosotros will do everything to remove obstacles to a amend agreement, as far as information technology is possible."

But Hitler didn't permit up. "That is what you say!...Merely I am telling you that I am going to solve the so-called Austrian problem 1 fashion or the other...I have a historic mission, and this mission I will fulfill considering Providence has destined me to practise and so...I have only to requite an order and all your ridiculous defense mechanisms will be blown to bits. You don't seriously believe you tin stop me or even delay me for one-half an hour, do y'all?"

Hitler pointed out that Republic of austria was isolated diplomatically and could not halt a Nazi invasion. "Don't think for one moment that anybody on globe is going to thwart my decisions. Italy? I see heart to center with Mussolini...England? England volition not move one finger for Austria...And French republic?"

Hitler said France had the power to stop him during the Rhineland occupation only did nothing and that "at present it is also late for France."

An exasperated Schuschnigg finally asked Hitler what his terms were. But Hitler cut him off again, rudely dismissing him now. "Nosotros can discuss that this afternoon."

By the afternoon, the 41-year-former Schuschnigg had aged nigh ten years. He was then introduced to Germany's new Foreign Government minister, an amoral character named Joachim Ribbentrop who presented him with a two-page document containing Hitler'due south demands. All Nazis before long jailed in Austria were to be freed. The ban against the Austrian Nazi Political party was to be lifted. Austrian lawyer, Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a staunch Nazi supporter, was to become the new Minister of the Interior with full control of the police. In improver, Nazis were to be appointed as Minister of War and Minister of Finance with preparations made for the assimilation of Republic of austria's entire economy into the High german Reich. This was, Schuschnigg was told, the Führer'southward final demands and in that location could be no discussion. He was to sign immediately, or else.

Under such force per unit area, the Austrian Chancellor wobbled and said he would consider signing, but first sought assurances that there would be no further interference in Austria's internal affairs by Hitler. Ribbentrop, joined by Papen, gave friendly assurances that Hitler would indeed respect Austria's sovereignty if all his demands were met.

At this indicate, Schuschnigg was ushered back in to see Hitler. "Yous volition either sign it as it is and fulfill my demands within iii days, or I will society the march into Republic of austria," Hitler told him.

Schuschnigg gave in and agreed to sign, simply informed Hitler that under Austrian police force only the country'south president could ratify such a document and carry out the terms. And, he added, there was no guarantee the agreement would exist accepted by Austria'due south president, the stubborn-minded Wilhelm Miklas.

"You have to guarantee it!!" Hitler exploded. But Schuschnigg said he just could non. Hitler so rushed to the doorway and hollered out for General Keitel. And so he turned to Schuschnigg and abruptly dismissed him. Schuschnigg was taken to a waiting room, left to ponder what Hitler was saying to Keitel.

Schuschnigg didn't know he had only been the victim of an outright bluff. When Keitel arrived to ask for orders, a grin Hitler told him: "In that location are no orders. I only wanted to take you hither."

A half-hour after, Schuschnigg was ushered back in to run across Hitler. He was given three days to take the agreement back to Austria and get it signed by the president, or else.

Schuschnigg departed Berchtesgaden, accompanied during the ride dorsum to the border by a somewhat embarrassed Papen. "Yous have seen what the Führer can be similar at times," Papen consoled him. "But the next time I am certain it volition exist different. You know, the Führer can be absolutely charming."

Thus ended the start of what would be several diplomatic coups at Berchtesgaden. Like Schuschnigg, all of the heads of state and various diplomats arriving at that place would be at a terrible disadvantage. They were dealing with a homo always willing to go the limit, willing to send in the troops and shed blood in order to get what he wanted.

Hitler knew that civilized men such as Schuschnigg, and those who followed, would readily compromise to prevent the loss of life. They would all larn too belatedly that Hitler did not value life and that state of war was his ultimate goal.

Years before, Hitler had once confided to his friend Hermann Rauschning: "We must exist prepared for the hardest struggle that a nation has ever had to face. Only through this test of endurance can we become ripe for the dominion to which we are called. Information technology will be my duty to carry out this war regardless of losses. The sacrifice of lives will be immense. Nosotros all of us know what a world war means. Every bit a people we shall be forged to the hardness of steel. All that is weakly will autumn away from the states. But the forged central block will last forever. I have no fear of anything. Nosotros shall take to carelessness much that is dear to us and today seems irreplaceable. Cities will become heaps of ruins. Noble monuments of compages will disappear forever. This time our sacred soil volition non be spared. But I am not agape of this."

Hitler's Frg was already well on the road to war. New weapons were being manufactured day and night. The whole economy had been placed on a state of war footing nether Göring's Four Twelvemonth Program. Germany'due south youth, meanwhile, was being hardened like steel via the Hitler Youth paramilitary organization which elevated Hitler to god-similar status and placed supreme value on duty and sacrifice. Young people were taught that the life of the individual, their life, was non important. Duty to the Führer and Fatherland was all that mattered.

Now, in mid-February 1938, Hitler had sent the Austrian Chancellor back habitation to convince President Miklas to ratify the ultimatum. But the stubborn Miklas refused to accept all of the demands. He was willing to immunity the jailed Nazis but not to manus over the police to Nazi sympathizer Seyss-Inquart.

Meanwhile, Hitler ordered General Keitel to conduct military maneuvers near the Austrian border to make it appear an invasion was imminent. The bluff worked its magic and President Miklas soon caved in. He granted a general amnesty for all Nazis in Austria and appointed Seyss-Inquart as Minister of the Interior with full control of the law. Seyss immediately rushed off to Federal republic of germany to run across Hitler and receive his instructions.

On the dark of February 20th, Hitler gave a speech in Berlin that was also circulate throughout Republic of austria. He depicted Austrian Nazis as a persecuted minority, saying it was "intolerable for a cocky-conscious world power to know that at its side are co-racials who are subjected to continuous suffering because of their sympathy and unity with the whole German race and ideology." After the speech, Nazis throughout Republic of austria took to the streets among wild shouts of 'Sieg Heil!' and 'Heil Hitler!'

Chancellor Schuschnigg, having regained his nerve to some degree, responded to Hitler four days later on via a speech of his own in Vienna. He said Austria had conceded enough to the Nazis and would never give up its independence. "Thus far and no further," he alleged. The line had been drawn.

But Austria was being eaten live from within by the emboldened Nazi agitators. Mobs brazenly tore down the ruby-red-white-cerise Austrian flag and raised the swastika imprint while police, under Seyss' command, stood by and watched.

The escalating political unrest soon caused economical panic. People rushed to banks and withdrew all of their coin. Overseas orders for appurtenances and services were abruptly canceled. Tourists stayed home. A few outer provinces were even taken over by Austrian Nazis. In Vienna, Schuschnigg'southward government was beginning to fold nether the force per unit area – just what Hitler and the Austrian Nazis had hoped for.

In a desperate risk to halt the demise and to stave off Hitler, Schuschnigg announced there would be a national plebiscite on Sunday, March 13, allowing Austrians to vote on whether or not their state should remain contained from Germany.

Hitler, on hearing of this surprise announcement, flew into a rage. He decided on the spot to send in the German Army to forestall the vote. Plans for the invasion of Republic of austria were hastily drawn upwardly by General Keitel and General von Manstein and involved three Army corps and the Air Forcefulness.

But there was notwithstanding a large problem for Hitler. He wasn't sure how Italy'due south powerful Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, would react to a German invasion of neighboring Austria. And so Hitler rushed off an emissary to Rome bearing a personal letter justifying the coming military action and pleading for Mussolini'southward blessing. The letter included outrageously false claims that Austria and Czechoslovakia were both plotting to restore the one-time Hapsburg monarchy and attack Germany.

Past Friday morning, March 11th, Chancellor Schuschnigg had become aware of the pending invasion. At 2 p.m. that afternoon, he informed Seyss-Inquart in Vienna that the plebiscite would indeed exist canceled to avoid any bloodshed. A call was then placed by Seyss to Göring in Berlin informing him of Schuschnigg's decision. The Chancellor'due south position was hopelessly weakened and Göring immediately pounced on him like a tiger.

A series of telephone calls, amounting to diplomatic extortion, now ensued. Get-go, Göring successfully badgered Schuschnigg into resigning, and so he demanded that President Miklas engage Seyss equally the new Chancellor of Austria. But Miklas refused. Göring so issued an ultimatum that Seyss must be appointed equally Chancellor or High german troops would invade that very dark. But Miklas stubbornly held out.

Hitler by at present had enough of Republic of austria's defiance. At 8:45 p.m., he ordered his generals to commence the invasion beginning at dawn the side by side day. And then came the news Hitler had been waiting to hear from Mussolini. Hitler was informed by telephone that Austria was considered "immaterial" to the Italian dictator. There would be no interference with the Nazi invasion.

Hitler'south motorized troops head into a small town in Upper Republic of austria as a crowd of townsfolk awaits their arrival. Below: The tumultuous scene in Vienna as Hitler's entourage enters.

Below: Hitler in Vienna with Reich Governor Arthur Seyss-Inquart (left), while behind Hitler stands Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and others.

Below: Jews in Vienna face a stark and uncertain future with nowhere to turn for assist.

"Tell Mussolini I will never forget him for this!" Hitler told his envoy on the telephone. "Never, never, never, no affair what happens...I shall stick to him any may happen, even if the whole world gangs up on him!"

Around midnight, President Miklas, realizing his own position was hopeless, appointed Seyss as the new Chancellor of Austria. At dawn on Saturday, March 12, 1938, German language soldiers in tanks and armored vehicles roared across the German-Austrian border on schedule. They met no resistance and in most places were welcomed like heroes. Many of Republic of austria's vii 1000000 ethnic Germans had longed to attach themselves to the ascent star of Germany and its dynamic Führer, a son of Austrian soil.

When news of the invasion reached Great britain and France, they reacted just as they had when Hitler occupied the Rhineland a few years earlier. They did zilch. In France, internal political bug once again prevented whatever military response. Britain, at present led by Prime Government minister Neville Chamberlain, had already indicated it would pursue a policy of appeasement to preserve the peace. Making matters worse, Austria, proud and defiant in its hour of need, never formally requested any outside assistance.

In Deutschland, the Sabbatum editions of all Nazi newspapers printed a phony telegram supposedly sent by Chancellor Seyss to Berlin asking "the High german government to send German troops equally soon equally possible" to restore order. There were likewise faked reports past Goebbels regarding rioting in Vienna and street fights involving Communists. This was the version of events Hitler presented to the world, that the Austrians themselves, drastic to restore guild, had requested armed services assistance from Deutschland.

Aware that his troops were getting fantastic welcomes, Hitler decided to accompany his soldiers into his birthplace at Braunau am Inn and then on to Linz, where he had been a schoolboy. He likewise visited his parents' grave site at Leonding and laid a wreath.

At Linz he gave an emotional voice communication declaring: "If Providence once called me forth from this town to exist the leader of the Reich, it must in doing so have charged me with a mission, and that mission could merely be to restore my dearest homeland to the German Reich."

Hitler thus ordered a law drafted providing for immediate Anschluss (marriage) of Austria with Germany. The next day, Sunday, March xiii, the police was canonical past the Austrian government led by Seyss. The formal announcement was then made to the globe. Republic of austria had ceased to exist. It was now a province of the High german Reich. Hitler himself shed tears of joy when he was presented with the actual Anschluss document.

On Monday afternoon, he made his thousand entry into Vienna, the city he had known so many years before as a down-and-out tramp. He stayed at the Hotel Imperial, the aforementioned hotel where he in one case worked equally a one-half-starved day laborer, shoveling snow off the sidewalk exterior the entrance and respectfully removing his cap equally wealthy guests came and went. As a poor youth he could never go within. Today he was the guest of accolade.

Upon returning to Germany, Hitler scheduled another plebiscite, just as he had washed after occupying the Rhineland. The people of Germany and Austria were now asked to approve the Anschluss. On April tenth, ninety-9 percent voted 'Ja,' with near afraid to always vote no, knowing their vote might hands be discovered.

The Nazi occupation of Austria was marked by an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence, the likes of which had not even been seen in Germany. Vienna was home to near 180,000 Jews. Throughout the urban center, Jewish men and women were grabbed at random by Nazis and forced to scrub walls and sidewalks clean of any pro-independence slogans. Other humiliations including cleaning public toilets and the latrines in SS barracks with sacred Hebrew prayer cloths. Thousands were also jailed for no reason while police allowed open annexation of Jewish homes and businesses.

SS Leader Heinrich Himmler, forth with Reinhard Heydrich, had accompanied Hitler into Vienna. They apace realized Jews there would pay just about annihilation to leave the country. Heydrich then set up an Office for Jewish Emigration run past an Austrian SS man named Adolf Eichmann which extorted coin and valuables from Jews in render for their liberty. This office was so successful that it became the model for one fix in Frg.

Himmler also established the first concentration army camp outside Germany at Mauthausen, located well-nigh Linz. About 120,000 persons would be worked to death there in the military camp's granite quarry or 'shot while attempting escape.'

As for Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg, the man who had defied Hitler, he was arrested by the Gestapo and spent several years in a variety of Nazi concentration camps including Dachau and Sachsenhausen.

Hitler had taken Republic of austria without firing a single shot. Czechoslovakia adjacent door now trembled at the thought that it was surrounded on three sides past the German Army. Hitler wasted no time in pressing his reward. He began to consider plans for the occupation of the Sudetenland, the western portion of Czechoslovakia domicile to nigh three million ethnic Germans.

A month earlier, Hermann Göring had bodacious the nervous Czech government, "I give yous my give-and-take of accolade that Czechoslovakia has null to fearfulness from the Reich."

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