Austrian Nazis in the spring of 1933 had every reason to believe that it was just a matter of time—and a short time at that—until they too would be at the gates of power. To be sure, caution had to be taken not to provoke an intervention by the anti-Anschluss powers (Italy, France, and Britain) at a time when the Third Reich was still militarily weak. But the “inspiring example set by the course of events in the Reich,”1 along with the almost scientifically organized propaganda, would inevitably produce the same results in Austria as they had in Germany. Hitler himself must have shared this optimism in early 1933. Two prominent historians of Nazi Germany, the American Gerhard Weinberg and the German Jens Petersen, both believe that Hitler, as chancellor, at first viewed Austria not as a foreign, but as a domestic problem to be solved in the same way he had achieved power in Germany: through agitation, elections, and coalition governments.2 The Nazis’ dream was soon to be shattered by the Austrian chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, and his successor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, as well as by the constitutionally weak, but nevertheless determined, anti-Nazi president, Wilhelm Miklas.
What do You think about Hitler And The Forgotten Nazis?
