What if Austro-German Anschluss in the “Golden Twenties” of Weimar, summer 1929?
Jul 14, 2024 15:51:12 GMT
nomommsen likes this
Post by raharris1973 on Jul 14, 2024 15:51:12 GMT
With a divergence in 1928, incumbent Austrian President Michael Hainisch accepts the initiative of the major parties in Austria to amend the Constitution to permit him to run for a third term.
The esteemed, non-partisan figure is renominated, runs for reelection and wins another term to the Austrian Presidency. Notably, he is a Pan-Germanist.
In the first part of 1929 in Austria, from January to May, political tension and impasse between the Christian Socials on the right and the Social Democrats on the left, who feel the state bureaucracy and non-Socialist parties and justice system are deliberately tolerating Heimwehr rightist violence and denying workers and socialists the protection of the state through selective acquittals and non-prosecution, leads to the appointment of Ernst Streeruwitz, a member of the industrialist wing of the Christian Social Party, lacking the rhetorical fire and political notoriety and divisiveness of other Christian Socials like “The Prelate without Mercy” Ignaz Siepel or rising figure Engelbert Dolfuss, on May 4th, 1929.
Streeruwitz, unusually for a Christian Social, was pan-Germanist in sympathy rather than committed to Austrian independence – he was in fact Bohemian born. This puts him in line with President Hainisch’s pan-Germanist views. Both men were technocrats as well. Both shared a certain despair over partisan divisiveness in Austrian politics, rural versus Viennese polarization, and violent paramilitarism, most of all, by the Heimwehr.
From the vantage point of spring and summer 1929, to these two men, despite the presence of rightist and leftist paramilitaries in Germany and outbursts there, including the Nazis led by the Austrian-born Hitler that Austrian governments had gladly denationalized post his imprisonment, the situation of the German Republic looks in every way better than the situation of the Austrian Republic.
The German Republic at this time is enjoying a stable currency, economic growth, and enjoying investment from American loans.
While dealing with day-to-day administrative challenges and law and order, both men decide in concert to reach out to Germany for the closest possible economic and political association or federation with Austria.
They both work channels of communication with Weimar German Foreign Minister Stresemann, Weimar Chancellor Muller, and eventually Weimar President Hindenburg, about rapidly tightening Austro-German links.
For a variety of domestic and international reasons, the chief Austrian and German leaders come quickly to the conclusion that Austro-German federation is a good short-term goal in 1929. The Austrians seeing it as a lifeboat, the Germans as a feather in their cap, and a patriotic “feel good” maneuver.
With discussions and agreement on basic principles, Stresemann, Muller, Steeruwitz, Hainisch, and Hindenburg and their staffs over June and July rapidly sort through specific operational proposals for customs and postal unions, currency union, parliamentary union, etc., and soon come to the conclusion that that most rewarding approach with the fewest drawbacks is to secure legislative votes in the Austrian legislature and Reichstag moving to full currency, economic, and political union and incorporation of Austria into the federal structures of the German Republic as constituted.
Again, Stresemann, and the others are convinced that international objections over Germany growing too large, even if by peaceful means, and violating the word of the Versailles Treaty, are not that high risk. Among the reasons are the precedent of treaties moving beyond Versailles, with the Locarno Pact, which guaranteed Germany’s western borders and vice versa, but did not clarify Germany’s eastern borders. Britain and Italy’s earlier non-support of the Franco-Belgian Ruhr occupation and the latter powers’ withdrawal. And finally, and most recently, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war as a means of settling international disputes of 1928, going officially into effect in July 1929. With Briand now French Premier, it would be extremely embarrassing for Briand to have France be the first power to disrupt his own handiwork by going to war against Germany, or threatening it, over a democratically decided Austro-German union. The risk of Italian military intervention is considered negligible because of decent relations with Italy. The remaining blowback that Stresemann and German and Austrian leaders do weigh in serious consideration is not military responses, but economic retaliation. However, in the summer of 1929, with no inkling of the October US stock market crash ahead, and strong growth in Germany, Germany feels in a strong position and not vulnerable to French economic blackmail, at worst, more friction in negotiations on reparations terms could occur. The Germans do not anticipate Britain or America would deliberately join France in applying economic retaliation in response to German-Austrian unity measures either, since they have not been aligned to France on reparations policy for most of the decade, and President Hoover is regarded as a friend by Stresemann.
Enabling legislation is put forward and opened up for debate in special sessions of German and Austrian respective legislatures starting 1 August, 1929.
Implementing arrangements are made that culminate with the absorption of the Austrian Republic as a state with full federal rights within the Weimar German Republic by 20 September, 1929, with full proportional representation in the Reichstag, its armed forces and internal security forces and bureaucracy integrated at current rank, except for at the apex of services and agencies into the German federal services and bureaucracies, with a substantial state level government, bureaucracy, and police force maintained.
Despite any alarm or anger felt in Paris, or Rome, or Prague, or possibly Belgrade or Budapest, no one is in a great position to sabotage or effectively reverse the decision by the executive and legislative branches on Austro-German “Anschluss” that is, to all appearances, quite popular. For the moment, Germany (mostly), and Austria can self-fund the transition and current repayment obligations, and Anglo-American financial markets, still highly optimistic in this long summer, are not spooked for any more than a few days by political controversy away from German government paper.
Austro-German integration becomes formal with the September 20th absorption and the resignation of Hainisch and Steeruwitz from their positions and the raising of the Weimar Republican flag across the state of Austria.
De facto administrative and bureaucratic integration takes longer, extending into 1930. Austrians make cross-state alignments with national parties although state particularist interests also persist. Social Democrats and Communists feel palpably relieved and line up behind the national German parties. Austrian Nazis defer to Hitler’s German party easily. Classical liberals align with similarly minded people in the rest of Germany. The centrist to rightist majority politicized Catholic vote in Austria is a bit more fragmented. The moderate, mushy middle is open to the appeals, especially initially, of the German wide Catholic Centre Party, and Zentrum sees Austria as a fantastic potential vote bank for its usual demographic supporters. But some remain harder line Austrian particularist, extreme clericalist, anti-semitic, Fascistic, or other stripes, and refuse to participate in Zentrum.
Those latter groups are in the near term most sore about union with Germany, resentful of being under an SDP Chancellor in particular, and seek Italian aid, and continue some paramilitary agitation. Of course Nazi Brownshirts continue anti-Republican paramilitary agitation as well, and Hitler visits, but they have no time for separatism, and are all in on national unity.
The Italians won’t really invest much in the separatist paramilitaries, except for a source of information and leverage.
The Czechs and Yugoslavs are somewhat disturbed by the Anschluss, but from their perspective, Anschluss is actually only the *second-worst* fear of theirs coming true, or in 1929, their third-worst. With their eyes fixed on the rear view mirror, both Prague and Belgrade feared Habsburg restoration in either Vienna or Budapest most of all, above any German expansion. After that, they may have feared Bolshevik/Communist agitation, or in the case of the Yugoslavs, Italian -aggression, linked with national separatist agitation. German eastward expansion would have been more a tertiary concern for both.
That concern would start to rise for the Czechoslovakians in time however.
Globally, despite subtle butterfly effects gradually spreading, I do not see the Austro-German Anschluss stopping the Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929, nor the initially slow but steady deflation and tightening of American credit availability, followed by the rise in bank and business failures in 1930, accelerating into 1931 and 1932, plunging the USA into the Great Depression.
Germany, because of its greater dependence on American credit, will be exposed to contagion from the American downturn sooner than its European neighbors in Britain, France, and Italy, and, like OTL, President Hindenburg will likely appoint the technocratic Catholic Centre politician, Heinrich Bruning to manage the economic austerity and adjustment program.
Ironically, in Austria, the appointment of the conservative Catholic Bruning as German Chancellor will considerably cool the ardor of many in the rural, ultra-Catholic, right-wing minority who had misgivings about union with the Weimar Republic.
But, like in other areas of Germany, as economic conditions deteriorate, far-left and far-right groups like Communists and Nazis will get increased support (in Vienna & factory towns, and small towns and countryside respectively).
Still, it might be that when there are 1930 and 1932 Reichstag and Presidential elections, that Austria overall has voting patterns that are disproportionately non-Nazi leaning, like most Catholic majority areas of Germany, including Rhineland and Bavaria.
Whether this makes a decisive difference in whether Hitler comes to power or not, I am not prepared to judge all by myself.
Either possibility, an altered German electorate and subtly altered political elite and situation, due to the early inclusion of Austria, averting Hitler’s rise to power, or, Hitler rising to power on schedule, but with Austria part of his Third Reich from the very beginning, would be very interesting to explore.
If the second scenario were to unfold, I imagine the effects on the Danubian and Czech situation would be ambiguous. On the one hand, Sudeten German ambition and radicalism would be activated earlier, and Czechoslovakia would be “surrounded” on three sides earlier and feeling quite vulnerable. With Hitler in power, and such trends, the old fears of Habsburg restoration would soon be replaced by fear of German aggression. On the other hand. Germany would have a lot of rearming yet to do before it could bluff any neighbors convincingly, and Czechoslovakia would have more warning time that it needs to develop and build its defenses on a nearly 360 degree axis.
Your thoughts?
The esteemed, non-partisan figure is renominated, runs for reelection and wins another term to the Austrian Presidency. Notably, he is a Pan-Germanist.
In the first part of 1929 in Austria, from January to May, political tension and impasse between the Christian Socials on the right and the Social Democrats on the left, who feel the state bureaucracy and non-Socialist parties and justice system are deliberately tolerating Heimwehr rightist violence and denying workers and socialists the protection of the state through selective acquittals and non-prosecution, leads to the appointment of Ernst Streeruwitz, a member of the industrialist wing of the Christian Social Party, lacking the rhetorical fire and political notoriety and divisiveness of other Christian Socials like “The Prelate without Mercy” Ignaz Siepel or rising figure Engelbert Dolfuss, on May 4th, 1929.
Streeruwitz, unusually for a Christian Social, was pan-Germanist in sympathy rather than committed to Austrian independence – he was in fact Bohemian born. This puts him in line with President Hainisch’s pan-Germanist views. Both men were technocrats as well. Both shared a certain despair over partisan divisiveness in Austrian politics, rural versus Viennese polarization, and violent paramilitarism, most of all, by the Heimwehr.
From the vantage point of spring and summer 1929, to these two men, despite the presence of rightist and leftist paramilitaries in Germany and outbursts there, including the Nazis led by the Austrian-born Hitler that Austrian governments had gladly denationalized post his imprisonment, the situation of the German Republic looks in every way better than the situation of the Austrian Republic.
The German Republic at this time is enjoying a stable currency, economic growth, and enjoying investment from American loans.
While dealing with day-to-day administrative challenges and law and order, both men decide in concert to reach out to Germany for the closest possible economic and political association or federation with Austria.
They both work channels of communication with Weimar German Foreign Minister Stresemann, Weimar Chancellor Muller, and eventually Weimar President Hindenburg, about rapidly tightening Austro-German links.
For a variety of domestic and international reasons, the chief Austrian and German leaders come quickly to the conclusion that Austro-German federation is a good short-term goal in 1929. The Austrians seeing it as a lifeboat, the Germans as a feather in their cap, and a patriotic “feel good” maneuver.
With discussions and agreement on basic principles, Stresemann, Muller, Steeruwitz, Hainisch, and Hindenburg and their staffs over June and July rapidly sort through specific operational proposals for customs and postal unions, currency union, parliamentary union, etc., and soon come to the conclusion that that most rewarding approach with the fewest drawbacks is to secure legislative votes in the Austrian legislature and Reichstag moving to full currency, economic, and political union and incorporation of Austria into the federal structures of the German Republic as constituted.
Again, Stresemann, and the others are convinced that international objections over Germany growing too large, even if by peaceful means, and violating the word of the Versailles Treaty, are not that high risk. Among the reasons are the precedent of treaties moving beyond Versailles, with the Locarno Pact, which guaranteed Germany’s western borders and vice versa, but did not clarify Germany’s eastern borders. Britain and Italy’s earlier non-support of the Franco-Belgian Ruhr occupation and the latter powers’ withdrawal. And finally, and most recently, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war as a means of settling international disputes of 1928, going officially into effect in July 1929. With Briand now French Premier, it would be extremely embarrassing for Briand to have France be the first power to disrupt his own handiwork by going to war against Germany, or threatening it, over a democratically decided Austro-German union. The risk of Italian military intervention is considered negligible because of decent relations with Italy. The remaining blowback that Stresemann and German and Austrian leaders do weigh in serious consideration is not military responses, but economic retaliation. However, in the summer of 1929, with no inkling of the October US stock market crash ahead, and strong growth in Germany, Germany feels in a strong position and not vulnerable to French economic blackmail, at worst, more friction in negotiations on reparations terms could occur. The Germans do not anticipate Britain or America would deliberately join France in applying economic retaliation in response to German-Austrian unity measures either, since they have not been aligned to France on reparations policy for most of the decade, and President Hoover is regarded as a friend by Stresemann.
Enabling legislation is put forward and opened up for debate in special sessions of German and Austrian respective legislatures starting 1 August, 1929.
Implementing arrangements are made that culminate with the absorption of the Austrian Republic as a state with full federal rights within the Weimar German Republic by 20 September, 1929, with full proportional representation in the Reichstag, its armed forces and internal security forces and bureaucracy integrated at current rank, except for at the apex of services and agencies into the German federal services and bureaucracies, with a substantial state level government, bureaucracy, and police force maintained.
Despite any alarm or anger felt in Paris, or Rome, or Prague, or possibly Belgrade or Budapest, no one is in a great position to sabotage or effectively reverse the decision by the executive and legislative branches on Austro-German “Anschluss” that is, to all appearances, quite popular. For the moment, Germany (mostly), and Austria can self-fund the transition and current repayment obligations, and Anglo-American financial markets, still highly optimistic in this long summer, are not spooked for any more than a few days by political controversy away from German government paper.
Austro-German integration becomes formal with the September 20th absorption and the resignation of Hainisch and Steeruwitz from their positions and the raising of the Weimar Republican flag across the state of Austria.
De facto administrative and bureaucratic integration takes longer, extending into 1930. Austrians make cross-state alignments with national parties although state particularist interests also persist. Social Democrats and Communists feel palpably relieved and line up behind the national German parties. Austrian Nazis defer to Hitler’s German party easily. Classical liberals align with similarly minded people in the rest of Germany. The centrist to rightist majority politicized Catholic vote in Austria is a bit more fragmented. The moderate, mushy middle is open to the appeals, especially initially, of the German wide Catholic Centre Party, and Zentrum sees Austria as a fantastic potential vote bank for its usual demographic supporters. But some remain harder line Austrian particularist, extreme clericalist, anti-semitic, Fascistic, or other stripes, and refuse to participate in Zentrum.
Those latter groups are in the near term most sore about union with Germany, resentful of being under an SDP Chancellor in particular, and seek Italian aid, and continue some paramilitary agitation. Of course Nazi Brownshirts continue anti-Republican paramilitary agitation as well, and Hitler visits, but they have no time for separatism, and are all in on national unity.
The Italians won’t really invest much in the separatist paramilitaries, except for a source of information and leverage.
The Czechs and Yugoslavs are somewhat disturbed by the Anschluss, but from their perspective, Anschluss is actually only the *second-worst* fear of theirs coming true, or in 1929, their third-worst. With their eyes fixed on the rear view mirror, both Prague and Belgrade feared Habsburg restoration in either Vienna or Budapest most of all, above any German expansion. After that, they may have feared Bolshevik/Communist agitation, or in the case of the Yugoslavs, Italian -aggression, linked with national separatist agitation. German eastward expansion would have been more a tertiary concern for both.
That concern would start to rise for the Czechoslovakians in time however.
Globally, despite subtle butterfly effects gradually spreading, I do not see the Austro-German Anschluss stopping the Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929, nor the initially slow but steady deflation and tightening of American credit availability, followed by the rise in bank and business failures in 1930, accelerating into 1931 and 1932, plunging the USA into the Great Depression.
Germany, because of its greater dependence on American credit, will be exposed to contagion from the American downturn sooner than its European neighbors in Britain, France, and Italy, and, like OTL, President Hindenburg will likely appoint the technocratic Catholic Centre politician, Heinrich Bruning to manage the economic austerity and adjustment program.
Ironically, in Austria, the appointment of the conservative Catholic Bruning as German Chancellor will considerably cool the ardor of many in the rural, ultra-Catholic, right-wing minority who had misgivings about union with the Weimar Republic.
But, like in other areas of Germany, as economic conditions deteriorate, far-left and far-right groups like Communists and Nazis will get increased support (in Vienna & factory towns, and small towns and countryside respectively).
Still, it might be that when there are 1930 and 1932 Reichstag and Presidential elections, that Austria overall has voting patterns that are disproportionately non-Nazi leaning, like most Catholic majority areas of Germany, including Rhineland and Bavaria.
Whether this makes a decisive difference in whether Hitler comes to power or not, I am not prepared to judge all by myself.
Either possibility, an altered German electorate and subtly altered political elite and situation, due to the early inclusion of Austria, averting Hitler’s rise to power, or, Hitler rising to power on schedule, but with Austria part of his Third Reich from the very beginning, would be very interesting to explore.
If the second scenario were to unfold, I imagine the effects on the Danubian and Czech situation would be ambiguous. On the one hand, Sudeten German ambition and radicalism would be activated earlier, and Czechoslovakia would be “surrounded” on three sides earlier and feeling quite vulnerable. With Hitler in power, and such trends, the old fears of Habsburg restoration would soon be replaced by fear of German aggression. On the other hand. Germany would have a lot of rearming yet to do before it could bluff any neighbors convincingly, and Czechoslovakia would have more warning time that it needs to develop and build its defenses on a nearly 360 degree axis.
Your thoughts?
