HOW CAN GERMANY DEFUSE ITS NEIGHBORS' FEARS?
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and regions remained silent volcanoes, erupting recently in the former
Yugoslavia and still holding enough explosive issues to blow up the en–
tire Balkans. Morever, the last emperor of Austria, Kaiser Karl, abdicated
on November 11, 1918. And the very next day the republic called
"Deutsch-Osterreich" was proclaimed.
The word "German" in the name of the new republic was essential.
It actually confirmed that Austria had lost huge territories - to Italy,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland - and was eager to keep at least the
German-language enclaves. But the peace treaty of Saint-Germain be–
came a source of great disappointment. Austria lost even South Tyrol
and the German-speaking Bohemian areas.
The tragic nickname for this amputated empire became "Der Staat,
den keiner wollte" ("the state that nobody wanted") . In 1919 the victo–
rious allies of World War I denied "Deutsch-Osterreich" the
Anschluss–
annexation - to the
Deutsche Republik.
Still, very few Austrian politicians
of that period believed then that Austria would be a viable state within
its own reduced boundaries.
Even the Social Democrats, led by Viktor Adler and Otto Bauer,
erased the
Anschluss
paragraph from the party's program only after Hitler
came to power. The Christian Socialists - then in power - undoubtedly
believed after 1934 that Austria was at least the "second-best" German
state. Many of these insecurities and uncertainties made it easy for politi–
cians, and for the population as well, to drift into Hitler's arms. Many
people helped prepare for the Austrian disaster.
Despite the fact that historical photos show only the triumphant
welcome of Hitler on the Heldenplatz in March 1938, the
Anschluss -
according to then valid international law - was coerced. True enough,
not with bullets, but through extreme political pressure and blackmail.
"The Austrians are masters of making the world believe that Hitler
was a German and Beethoven an Austrian" is a reproach one still hears
frequently from Germans. This undercurrent of resentment stems from the
fact that many Germans still believe that Austrians had the chance to hide
from their responsiblities in World War II and to deny their share of the
atrocities committed by the Hitler regime. This version of history, of
course, also was furthered by Austrian behavior and policy, in the coun–
try's acting, without hesitation, as the "first victim" of the Hitler regime,
a posture supported by the Moscow Declaration of November 1, 1943.
In this document the three allies, Great Britain, the U.S. and the Soviet
Union, reiterated their interest in a "free and sovereign Austria" - as one
of the aims in the postwar order.
The coerced
Anschluss
was declared null and void. But at the same
