If posterity has made Nazism a strictly German affair, this documentary has the merit of restoring the facts by replacing Austria in its place in the National Socialist system. A prominent place. In fact, in addition to Hitler, many Austrian citizens held positions of high responsibility in this criminal regime: from Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) to Arthur Seyss-Inquart (1892-1946) via Alois Brunner (1912-2001) , Odilo Globocnik (1904-1945), Amon Göth (1908-1946) and the all-powerful Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903-1946), a trained lawyer, to name only the most infamous.
Director of numerous quality historical documentaries, one of the most recent of which was devoted to German resistance fighters, Barbara Necek, with Olivier Wieviorka, has produced a remarkable work on Austria and Nazism. By recalling the historical context, including the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the long history of Austrian anti-Semitism, we can better understand how the Nazis, few in number but already present in the streets of Vienna and Linz from the 1920, made the country a motor of National Socialism.
Among the numerous filmed archives of the period, we discover in particular an extract from the speech given before Parliament, at the beginning of 1938, by Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg (1897-1977): “Our Austria must remain Austrian. Until death, red-white-red! A few days later, his dreams of autonomy were over: the Nazi Seyss-Inquart took the place of chancellor.
Zeal of the Austrian Nazis
On March 12, 1938, German troops entered Austria without having to fire a shot. The delirious welcome given by the Viennese population to Hitler on March 15 leaves no doubt about the state of mind of the population. Austria joins the Reich and is now called Ostmark.
Secretary of State for Public Security, Ernst Kaltenbrunner was unleashed: the first transport of Austrian prisoners to Dachau took place on April 1, 1938. Over time, the zeal of the Austrian Nazis would never be found wanting: the first rooms at gas to liquidate the mentally handicapped at Hartheim Castle, opening of the Mauthausen camp in August 1938, first convoy of Jewish deportees to Poland on October 20, 1939, two years before Germany.
Austria becomes the laboratory of the Berlin regime’s policies of extermination. So much so that the American press headlined: “Jews are in a much more dangerous situation in Austria than in Germany. Paradoxically, as early as 1943, the Allies, concerned about the post-war period, designated Austria as “the first victim of Hitler’s policy”. A boon for the population, who will hasten to wipe the slate clean. The collective amnesia will last a long time.
