GOERING: Kaltenbrunner. Yes, he is to get the Security Department, and then, mark this, immediately the press representatives . . . (overtalking, with Dombrowski saying “Yes” several times).
At 5:20 P.M.:
GOERING [to Franz Ullrich Hueber, his brother-in-law]: Look, Franz, you take over the Ministry of Justice, and, corresponding to the wish of the Führer, you also take over for the time being the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Later on someone else will replace you in this . . . The Cabinet has to be formed by seven-thirty, otherwise it’s all for nothing; otherwise, things will take their own course, and very different decisions will be made . . . And then another important factor which I forgot to mention before: The Reds, who were given arms yesterday, have to be disarmed in the quickest way, and just as well in a ruthless manner; that is rather a matter of course.
At 5:26 P.M.:
SEYSS-INQUART: The Federal President has accepted the resignation [of Schuschnigg], but his point of view is that no one but the Chancellor is to be blamed for Berchtesgaden and its consequences, and therefore he’d like to entrust a man like Ender with the chancellorship.
GOERING: Yes—now, look here. This will change the whole situation. The Federal President or someone else has got to be informed this is entirely different from what we were told. Dombrowski said at your request that you had been given the chancellorship . . . that the party had been restored, the S.A. and S.S. had already taken over police duties, and so on.
SEYSS-INQUART: No, that is not so. I suggested to the Federal President that he entrust the chancellorship to me; it takes usually three to four hours . . .
GOERING: Well, that won’t do! Under no circumstances! The matter is in progress now; therefore, please, the Federal President must be informed immediately that he has to turn the powers of the Federal Chancellor over to you and to accept the Cabinet as it was arranged.
The conversation was then interrupted by the arrival of a fresh message that the Federal President would respond only to diplomatic action from the Reich and had refused to see the three National Socialists charged with pressing acceptance of Goering’s requirements on him.
GOERING: Give me Seyss. [To Seyss-Inquart] Now, remember the following. You go immediately together with General Muff and tell the Federal President that if the conditions which are known to you are not accepted immediately, the troops that are already stationed at or advancing to the frontier will march in tonight along the whole line, and Austria will cease to exist . . . Please inform us immediately about Miklas’ position. Tell him there is no time now for any joke; just that, as a result of the false report we received before, action was delayed, but now the situation is that tonight the invasion will begin from all the corners of Austria. The invasion will be stopped and the troops will be held at the border only if we are informed by seven-thirty that Miklas has entrusted you with the Federal chancellorship . . . Then call out all the National Socialists all over the country. They should now be in the streets. So remember, a report must be given by seven-thirty. . . . If Miklas could not understand it in four hours, we shall make him understand it now in four minutes.
SEYSS-INQUART: All right.
At 6:34 P.M.:
GOERING: What does he have to say?
KEPPLER: Well, he would not agree to it.
GOERING: Well, then, Seyss-Inquart has to dismiss him. Just go upstairs again and tell him plainly that Seyss will call on the National Socialist guards, and in five minutes the troops will march in by my order.
The telephone connection broke down; during the interval Keppler went to see the President again. When the line was restored, Seyss-Inquart spoke to Goering to report on the position.
GOERING: Well, how do we stand?
SEYSS-INQUART: Please, Field Marshal, yes.
GOERING: Well, what is going on?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, ah, the Federal President won’t budge from his original position . . .
GOERING: But do you think it possible that we shall come to a decision in the next few minutes?
SEYSS-INQUART: Well, the conversation can’t take longer than five to ten minutes. I reckon it can’t take longer.
GOERING: Listen. So I shall wait a few more minutes . . . Then you inform me by priority call in the Reich Chancellery, as usual. But it’s got to be done fast . . . If it can’t be done, then you will have to take over the power all right.
SEYSS-INQUART: But if he threatens?
GOERING: Yes.
SEYSS-INQUART: Well, I see, then we shall be ready.
GOERING: Call me on priority.
At 8:03 P.M.:
SEYSS-INQUART: Dr. Schuschnigg will give the news over the radio that the Reich government has presented an ultimatum.
GOERING: I heard about it.
SEYSS-INQUART: And the government itself has abdicated . . . They are waiting for the troops to march in.
GOERING: Well, they were appointed by you?
SEYSS-INQUART: No.
GOERING: Did you dismiss them from their office?
SEYSS-INQUART: No. No one was dismissed from his office, but the government has itself pulled out and let matters take their course.
GOERING: And you were not commissioned? It was refused? SEYSS-INQUART: It was refused now, as before. They are taking a chance with the invasion and expect that, if it actually takes place, executive power will be transferred to other people.
GOERING: Right. I shall give the order to march in, and then you make sure that you get the power. Notify the leading people . . . that everyone who offers resistance or organizes resistance will immediately be subject to our court-martial, the court-martial of our invading troops. Is that clear?
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes.
GOERING: Including leading personalities. It doesn’t make any difference.
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes, they have given the order not to offer any resistance.
GOERING: Yes, that doesn’t matter. The Federal President did not authorize you, and that also can be considered as resistance.
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes.
GOERING: Well, now you are officially authorized.
SEYSS-INQUART: Yes.
GOERING: Well, good luck. Heil Hitler.
The obstinate courage of President Miklas, who resolutely refused to yield to any outside pressure concerning whom he should appoint as Chancellor, spoiled the legal game that Goering was trying to play. The streets were filled with Nazi demonstrators yelling for the blood of Schuschnigg, who, realizing that there was nothing more that he could do, broadcast a brief farewell to the Austrian people. “We have yielded to force,” he said, “since we are not prepared even in this terrible hour to shed blood. . . . God protect Austria!” Deserted now by everyone, President Miklas continued his stubborn resistance in the face of Seyss-Inquart’s direct challenge to his authority. He did not finally give in until midnight; then and then only did he yield to the appointment of Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor.
After Schuschnigg’s broadcast Goering returned to the telephone.
GOERING [to General Muff, military attaché at the embassy] : Tell Seyss-Inquart the following. As we understand it, the government has abdicated, but he himself remains, so he should continue to stay in office and carry out necessary measures in the name of the government. The invasion is going to happen now, and we shall state that everyone who puts up any resistance will have to face the consequences . . . I should try to avoid chaos.
MUFF: Seyss will do so. He is already making a speech.
GOERING: . . . Best if Miklas resigns.
MUFF: Yes, but he won’t. It was very dramatic. I spoke to him almost fifteen minutes. He declared that he will in no circumstances yield to force.
GOERING: So. He will not give in to force. . . . What does this mean? He just wants to be kicked out?
MUFF: Yes. He doesn’t want to move.
GOERING: Well, with fourteen children you can’t move as you like! Well, just tell Seyss to take over.
Urged on by Goering, Seyss
-Inquart himself broadcast at 8 P.M., demanding that the people should keep calm and offer no resistance to the German troops.
At 8:48 the telephone was busy again.
KEPPLER: The government has ordered the Army not to put up any resistance.
GOERING: I don’t give a damn.
KEPPLER: Might I ask you if a prominent personality in Berlin wants to add a few words for the Austrian people?
GOERING: Well, I don’t know yet. Listen, the main thing is that Seyss takes over all powers of the government, that he keeps the radio stations occupied—
KEPPLER: Well, we represent the government now.
GOERING: Yes, that’s it, you are the government. Listen carefully. The following telegram should be sent here by Seyss-Inquart. Write it down: “The provisional Austrian government, which after the dismissal of the Schuschnigg government considers it its task to establish peace and order in Austria, sends to the German government the urgent request to support it in its task and to help it prevent bloodshed. For this reason it asks the German government to send German troops as soon as possible.”
KEPPLER: Well, the S.A. and the S.S. are marching through the streets, but everything is quiet.
GOERING: . . . Seyss-Inquart has to take over . . . and appoint a few people—the people we recommend to him. He should now form a provisional government. It is absolutely unimportant what the Federal President may have to say . . . Then our troops will cross the border today.
KEPPLER: Yes.
GOERING: Look, and he should send the telegram as soon as possible. . . . Well, he does not even have to send the telegram—all he needs to do is to say, “Agreed!”
KEPPLER: Yes.
GOERING: Call me either at the Führer’s or at my place. Well, good luck. Heil Hitler!
Goering leaned back. The matter was in effect settled. He cared nothing about the misgivings of his agents in Vienna. After Miklas had resigned at midnight, Seyss-Inquart, Keppler and Muff all tried to prevent the march into Austria ordered for daybreak, but they telephoned Berlin in vain. Hitler was determined on direct action in the face of the President’s opposition, and he was further relieved and encouraged when, at 10:30 that night, Prince Philipp, his agent in Rome, telephoned at last with a message from Mussolini: “He sends you his regards. . . . Austria would be immaterial to him.” Hitler’s relief sprang hysterically to his lips: “Please tell Mussolini I will never forget him for this. . . . Never, never, never, no matter what happens! . . . As soon as the Austrian affair is settled I shall be ready to go with him through thick and thin—through anything! . . . I thank him from the bottom of my heart. Never, never shall I forget it. . . .” He could not stop repeating gratitude upon gratitude. As for France and Britain, Hitler guessed they would do nothing, and he was right. His Majesty’s Government had declined to offer any advice to Schuschnigg when he appealed to them by telegram on March 11; he was merely informed that Britain was “unable to guarantee protection.” Ribbentrop was back in London paying farewell visits before leaving his embassy to take up his duties as Hitler’s Foreign Minister; he was in fact lunching at Downing Street with Chamberlain and Halifax when official news arrived reporting the German ultimatum to Austria. Winston Churchill, who was present at this lunch, describes Chamberlain’s embarrassment at receiving the news and his endeavors to get rid of Ribbentrop and his wife, who lingered on in order, no doubt, to prevent Chamberlain from hastening into action.
Within the hour of closing his campaign by telephone, Goering was playing another part administering sedatives to the anxious neighbors of Germany. He went straight from a consultation with Hitler to a grand ball in the Haus der Flieger at which he was the host. Henderson was there with over a thousand other guests, including many of the diplomatic corps, all of whom were as anxious as the Germans themselves to know what was happening in Austria; all they knew was what they had read into the broadcasts of Schuschnigg and Seyss-Inquart. The curiosity of the whole assembly was raised when Ivone Kirkpatrick suddenly arrived and demanded an urgent consultation with his ambassador; all he had brought with him was the draft of the formal note of protest which the British government instructed the ambassador to send to the German Foreign Minister. Henderson approved the draft, and Kirkpatrick, feeling, as he put it, like Cinderella at Goering’s Ball, slipped away to transmit the message, while a thousand pairs of eyes followed him out, trying to gather from his expression what form of intervention Britain might be considering.
Goering arrived late from his meeting with Hitler, but before joining his guests he talked in private with Dr. Vojtech Mastny, the Czechoslovak minister in Berlin, who was at the ball and was desperate to receive some form of reassurance. Goering had responded warmly at the sight of him and said how glad he was to find him there, “for he wanted to declare to me on his word of honor that there was not the least reason for Czechoslovakia to feel any anxiety. . . Germany had no hostile intentions of any kind toward her, but, on the contrary, wished to continue advancing toward a rapprochement.” The entry of Reich troops into Austria was only, he said, “a family affair.” However, Goering added that he had heard rumors of Czech mobilization. Mastny hastened off to his legation to check this.
Goering then joined the assembly, shaking hands with a few of the principal guests, including Henderson, who tried to make his handshake seem specially cold. Goering appeared very nervous and taken aback by this form of greeting from his British friend. Soon everyone was invited to sit down to watch the performance of a ballet by the State Opera; the circumstances could not have been less appropriate for music and dancing. Goering anxiously scribbled Henderson a note: “Immediately the music is over I should like to talk to you, and will explain everything to you.” The last words were underlined five times. The moment the ballet finished, Goering withdrew with Henderson to a private room. Henderson claims that he argued resolutely on behalf of Schuschnigg and the anti-Nazis in Austria, urging moderation in their treatment. Privately, however, Henderson believed that Schuschnigg had behaved foolishly, and that it had been inevitable that Austria and Germany should eventually unite. When he returned to the embassy in the middle of the night to report his conversation with Goering, he included a sentence stating that he had “reluctantly” admitted “that Dr. Schuschnigg had acted with precipitate folly.” Halifax reprimanded him for making any such remark to Goering, and the following month he was warned again to be careful what he said in private and unofficially about the next point of action on Hitler’s agenda, the Sudeten question.
Meanwhile, Mastny had returned to the Haus der Flieger to tell Goering no mobilization had been ordered. Goering then repeated his reassurances to Mastny in the name of Hitler, and he took the trouble to telephone him again the following midday to remind him of what he had said and extract once more from Mastny official confirmation that the Czechs were not mobilizing. The next day, March 13, Henderson obtained Goering’s permission for Chamberlain to refer in the House of Commons to the reassurances he had made to Mastny; the same day Henderson confirmed in writing that he had reported to the British government Goering’s assurances on the night of March 11 that German troops would be withdrawn from Austria as soon as the situation was stable and that free elections would take place “without any intimidation whatever.” However, in a note to the German minister in Hungary written on March 21, Ribbentrop was more careful and specified that Goering’s assurances referred exclusively to “ad hoc measures connected with carrying out action in Austria.”3
Nazi celebrations in Austria followed hard upon the tanks that crossed her borders at daybreak on March 12. Neurath, still Acting Foreign Minister in Berlin while Ribbentrop was preparing to leave London, sent a curt reply to the British note of protest; this was a wholly German affair, he stated, and the German forces were entering Austria in response to an urgent telegram from the new Austrian government. In the afternoon Hitler followed his troops into Austria and made a triumphal entry into Linz, where he had been at school; he was rece
ived by Himmler and Seyss-Inquart. Hitler, overwhelmed by the tumult of the crowds, demanded that a law be drafted immediately making the Anschluss a total one; Austria was to become a province of the Reich with the Führer as its President. This law was promulgated on Sunday, March 13, by the new Austrian government under the signature of Seyss-Inquart; Goering was to be among the signatories for Germany. There was to be “a free and secret plebiscite” on April 10 on the reunion with Germany, held under Hitler’s and not Schuschnigg’s auspices.
That evening from Carinhall Goering made another of his exultant telephone calls, this time to Ribbentrop in London.4 The almost one-way conversation was to last forty minutes.
GOERING: There is overwhelming joy in Austria. That you can hear over the radio.
RIBBENTROP: Yes. It’s fantastic, isn’t it?
GOERING: Yes, the last march into the Rhineland is completely overshadowed. The Führer was deeply moved when he talked to me last night. . . . Well, this story that we had given an ultimatum is just foolish gossip. From the very beginning the National Socialist Ministers and the representatives of the people presented the ultimatum. . . . The Ministers asked us to back them up, so they would not be completely beaten up again and subjected to terror and civil war. . . . Then you have to remember that Schuschnigg made his speeches, telling them the Fatherland Front would fight to its last man. One could not know they would capitulate like that, and therefore Seyss-Inquart, who had already taken over the government, asked us to march in immediately. . . . These are the actual facts which can be proved by documents. . . . The following is interesting, the absolutely complete enthusiasm for National Socialism, which is surprising even to us. . . .
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