We might say that the great huntsman enveloped Halifax in a scarf of fog and dust. And yet, Halifax, like the twenty-four high priests of German industry, must have been wise to Göring; he must have been familiar with his background, his career as a putschist, his penchant for fanciful uniforms, his morphine addiction, his internment in Sweden, the crippling diagnoses of mental disorder, depression, and violent and suicidal tendencies. He must have seen right through the hero of early aviation, the First World War flying ace, the parachute merchant, the old veteran. Halifax was neither naive nor an amateur. He must have been too well informed not to find their stroll together a bit peculiar, and at the end of that stroll we see the two men, in a brief film clip, admiring the bison preserve while a furiously relaxed Göring dispenses lessons on living well. He can’t not have spotted the odd little feather in Göring’s hatband, the fur collar, the eccentric tie. Maybe Halifax liked hunting, too, as his aged father did, and maybe he enjoyed his time in Schorfheide. But he can’t have failed to notice Göring’s strange leather jacket or the dagger in his belt, nor to pick up the sinister allusions couched in heavy-handed pleasantries. He might have seen him shooting arrows in some outlandish outfit; no doubt he saw the domesticated wild beasts, the lion cub that came to lick its master’s face. And even if he saw none of that, even if he spent no more than a quarter of an hour with Göring, he surely heard about the vast circuit of model trains in his basement, and without a doubt he heard him spew a load of bizarre claptrap. And Halifax, the old fox, cannot have missed Göring’s raving egomania. He might even have witnessed him suddenly letting go of the wheel of his convertible and shouting into the wind! Yes, he must have divined the horrifying core beneath the pasty, bloated mask.
And then he met the Führer, and again Halifax didn’t notice a thing. Ignoring Anthony Eden’s reservations, he went so far as to intimate to Hitler that Germany’s designs on Austria and part of Czechoslovakia did not seem unwarranted to His Majesty’s government, as long as it all happened in a context of peaceful dialogue. He’s not exactly a wild one, old Halifax. One final anecdote will give the measure of the man. In front of Berchtesgaden, where they let him off, Lord Halifax noticed a figure standing near the car, whom he took for a servant. He assumed the man had come to help him up the porch steps. And so, as they opened the door for him, he handed the fellow his overcoat. Immediately, von Neurath, or someone else, perhaps an actual footman, whispered hoarsely in his ear: ‘The Führer!’ Lord Halifax raised his eyes. And it was indeed Hitler, whom he’d mistaken for a lackey! As he later recounted in his memoir, Fullness of Days, he simply hadn’t bothered looking up: all he’d seen was a pair of trousers and two shoes. The tone is ironic: Lord Halifax is trying to make us laugh. But I don’t think it’s funny. The English aristocrat, the diplomat standing proudly behind his little line of forebears, deaf as trombones, dumb as buzzards, and blind as donkeys, leaves me cold. Wasn’t it the Right Honourable first Viscount Halifax who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, firmly opposed any special aid to Ireland throughout his term of office? The potato famine left a million dead. And the Right Honourable second viscount, Halifax’s father, Groom of the Chamber, collector of ghost stories that one of his ghostly sons published after his death – is he someone to be proud of? And besides, that sort of tone-deafness is hardly unusual. These were not the foibles of a doddering old man, but the result of social blindness and arrogance. On the other hand, when it came to ideas, Halifax didn’t mince words. About his conversation with Hitler, for instance, he would write to Baldwin: ‘Nationalism and Racialism is a powerful force but I can’t feel that it’s either unnatural or immoral!’ And a short time later: ‘I cannot myself doubt that these fellows are genuine haters of Communism, etc.! And I daresay if we were in their position we might feel the same.’ Such were the foundations of what, still today, we call the Policy of Appeasement.
INTIMIDATIONS
So we were talking about courtesy calls. And yet, on 5 November, less than two weeks before Halifax came to talk peace with the Germans, Hitler had confided to his senior officers how he planned to occupy part of Europe by force. First they would invade Austria and Czechoslovakia. They were too cramped for space in Germany – and since no one is ever completely satisfied, and people are always turning towards hazy distant horizons, and a touch of megalomania overlaid with paranoid tendencies makes the slope even slipperier; and since, on top of that, they had already had the deliria of Herder and the addresses of Fichte, Hegel’s ‘spirit of the people’ and Schelling’s dream of a communion of hearts, we can say that the notion of Lebensraum was really nothing new. Naturally, this meeting had remained secret, but we can guess what the atmosphere in Berlin must have been like just before Halifax’s arrival. And that’s not all. On 8 November, nine days before his visit, Goebbels had inaugurated a huge art exhibition in Munich on the theme of ‘the eternal Jew’. So much for maintaining the pretence. No one could have been unaware of the Nazis’ plans, their brutal designs. The Reichstag Fire on 27 February 1933, the opening of Dachau that same year, the sterilization of the mentally ill that same year, the Night of the Long Knives the following year, the laws about blood purity and German honour, the inventory of racial characteristics in 1935: it was hard to miss.
In Austria, to which the Reich’s ambitions immediately turned, Chancellor Dollfuss, who had arrogated full powers to himself – all four feet eleven inches of him – had been assassinated by Austrian Nazis in 1934. His successor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, had carried on his authoritarian policies. For several years, Germany had thus maintained a hypocritical diplomacy, a mishmash of assassinations, blackmail, and blandishments. Finally, barely three months after Halifax’s visit, Hitler ratcheted things up. Schuschnigg, the little Austrian despot, was summoned to Bavaria. The day of clandestine manoeuvres was over; the time for diktats had come.
On 12 February 1938, Schuschnigg went to Berchtesgaden to meet Adolf Hitler. He arrived at the station dressed up as a skier, the pretext for his trip being winter sports. And while they loaded his skiing equipment onto the train, the festival in Vienna was in full swing. For it was carnival time – and so the most joyous dates sometimes coincide with history’s most sinister events. Fanfare, quadrille, the grand finale. They were playing one of Strauss’s hundred and fifty waltzes, full of elegance and charm, beneath an avalanche of sweets. The carnival of Vienna is certainly less renowned than the ones in Venice and Rio. People don’t wear such handsome masks or indulge in such frenetic dances. It’s really nothing more than a string of galas. But even so, it’s a big celebration. The constitutional bodies of the small, corporate Catholic state organize the merry-making. And so, as Austria was in its death throes, its chancellor, disguised as a skier, slipped away under cover of darkness on his improbable journey. And the Austrians kept on partying.
In the morning, at Salzburg Station, there was just a cordon of gendarmes. The weather was chilly and damp. The car carrying Schuschnigg skirted the airfield, then took to the motorway; the wide grey skies left him pensive. His reverie gave over to the rumbling of the car, the flecks of frost. Every life is miserable and solitary; every road is sad. The border lay just ahead, and Schuschnigg was suddenly seized by apprehension. He felt as if the truth was just beyond his grasp.
At the border, Franz von Papen had come to greet him. His long, elegant face reassured the chancellor. As they got into the car, von Papen mentioned casually that three of Germany’s top generals would also be present at the meeting – ‘You don’t mind, I hope?’ Such obvious attempts at intimidation, such blunt manoeuvres, often leave us speechless. We don’t dare utter a word. Something deep within us, someone way too polite and timid, answers in our stead, says the opposite of what should be said. And so Schuschnigg did not protest and they started on their way, as if nothing had happened. As he stared dully at the road passing by, a troop carrier overtook his car, followed by two armoured cars of the SS. The Austrian chancellor felt a muted anxiety. What was he doing in
this hornets’ nest? Slowly they climbed towards Berchtesgaden. Schuschnigg gazed at the tops of the pines, labouring to overcome his malaise. He kept silent. Von Papen also said nothing. Then the car arrived at the Berghof; the gate opened and shut. Schuschnigg had the awful feeling he’d fallen into a trap.
INTERVIEW AT THE BERGHOF
At around eleven in the morning, after several rounds of pleasantries, the doors to Adolf Hitler’s study closed behind the Austrian chancellor. And then began one of the most fantastic and grotesque scenes of all time. We have only one person’s testimony: that of Kurt von Schuschnigg himself.
It occurs in the most painful chapter of his memoir, Austrian Requiem. After a somewhat pedantic epigraph by Tasso, the narrative begins at one of the windows in the Berghof. The Austrian chancellor has just taken a seat at the Führer’s invitation. He crosses and uncrosses his legs uncomfortably. He feels numb, sapped of strength. His earlier anxiety has returned, suspended from the coffered ceiling, lurking under the armchairs. Not quite knowing what to say, Schuschnigg looks away to admire the view; he enthusiastically mentions all the pivotal decisions that must have been made in this room. Immediately Hitler cuts him off: ‘We did not get together to speak of the fine view or of the weather!’ Schuschnigg is staggered. Then he tries, with a stiff, awkward peroration, to regain his footing, bringing up the sorry Austro-German Agreement of 1936, as if he’d come here simply to address a few minor hiccups. Finally, in a last, desperate attempt, clinging to his good faith as if to a paltry life buoy, the Austrian chancellor states that these past years he has maintained German-friendly policies, strictly German-friendly policies! That’s the opening Hitler has been waiting for.
‘Ah! So you call this a friendly policy, Herr Schuschnigg? On the contrary, you have done everything to avoid a friendly policy!’ he screams. And after another awkward attempt by Schuschnigg to justify himself, Hitler, in a rage, cranks it up a notch: ‘Besides, Austria has never done anything that would be of any help to Germany. The whole history of Austria is just one uninterrupted act of high treason.’
Schuschnigg’s palms are moist, and how large the room appears! And yet, on the surface, all is calm. The chairs are upholstered in cheap fabric, the cushions are too soft, the woodwork plain, the lampshades fringed with little pompoms. Suddenly, Schuschnigg finds himself alone in the cold grass, under the vast winter sky, facing the mountains. The window grows beyond all proportion. Hitler glares at him with his pale eyes. Schuschnigg crosses his legs again and straightens his glasses.
For now, Hitler calls him ‘Mr Schuschnigg’, while Schuschnigg continues to call him ‘Chancellor’. Hitler has shut him down, and Schuschnigg, trying to make his case, has stressed his German-friendly policies. And now here the German chancellor is insulting Austria, even screaming that its entire contribution to German history is a big fat zero. And the tolerant, magnanimous Schuschnigg, instead of turning on his heels and ending the conversation then and there, furiously racks his brains, like a good pupil, for an example of Austria’s famous contributions to history. At top speed, in no order whatsoever, he rummages through the pockets of the centuries. But his head is empty, the world is empty, Austria is empty. And the Führer’s eyes stubbornly bore into him. So what does he finally come up with, in his desperate haste? Beethoven. He comes up with good old Ludwig, the irascible deaf composer, the republican, the hopeless hermit. It’s Beethoven he drags out of the woodwork, swarthy Beethoven, the drunkard’s son; he’s the one that Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor, the fearful little racist aristocrat, pulls from the pocket of History and dangles in Hitler’s face like a white flag. Poor Schuschnigg. He tries to brandish a composer against raving delirium; he tries to brandish the Ninth Symphony against the threat of military aggression; he tries to brandish the three little notes of the Appassionata to prove that Austria did, too, play a role in history.
‘Beethoven,’ Hitler retorts with an unexpected jab, ‘is not Austrian, he’s German.’ And it’s true. Schuschnigg hadn’t even considered this. Beethoven is German, no two ways about it. Born in Bonn. And no matter how you slice it, even if you quietly try to stretch the truth a bit, even if you were to rifle through all the annals, Bonn has never been an Austrian city, never ever. Bonn is as far from Austria as Paris! You might as well claim that Beethoven was Romanian, or Ukrainian, since they’re just as close. And why not Croatian while we’re at it, or from Marseilles, since that’s not much farther from Vienna?
‘That’s true,’ Schuschnigg stammers, ‘but he’s Austrian by adoption.’ No doubt about it, this is not your typical summit meeting.
The weather was foul. The interview came to a close. They still had to lunch together. Side by side they walked downstairs. Before entering the dining room at the Berghof, Schuschnigg was struck by the portrait of Bismarck: the great chancellor’s left eyelid drooped inexorably, his gaze was cold and disillusioned, his skin looked flaccid. They entered the room and sat down, Hitler at the middle of the table and the Austrian chancellor opposite. The meal progressed normally. Hitler was relaxed, even chatty. In a childish outburst, he said that in Hamburg he was going to build the largest bridge in the world. And then, clearly unable to restrain himself, he added that soon he would put up the tallest buildings, and then the Americans would see that Germany built bigger and better houses than the United States. After that, they retired to the sitting room. Coffee was served by young members of the SS. Finally, Hitler took his leave, and the Austrian chancellor immediately began smoking like a chimney.
The photos we have of Schuschnigg show two different faces: one pinched and austere, the other shy, withdrawn, almost dreamy. In one famous picture, his lips are pressed together and he looks lost, his body in a posture of abandonment, as if falling. This was taken in his Geneva apartments in 1934. Schuschnigg is standing, perhaps worried. Something about his face looks spineless and indecisive. He appears to be holding a piece of paper in his hand, but the image is fuzzy and a dark stain obscures the bottom of the photo. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the flap of one of his jacket pockets has been folded back by his arm, and then you spot a strange object, maybe a plant, intruding onto the scene from the right. But few people know this version of the photo. In order to see it, you have to go to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Prints and Photographs Department. The more familiar version has been cropped and reframed. Therefore, apart from a few assistant archivists in charge of cataloguing and conserving documents, virtually no one has ever seen Schuschnigg’s rumpled pocket flap, or the strange plant (or whatever it is) on the right-hand side, or the sheet of paper. Once reframed, the photo gives a wholly different impression. It takes on a kind of official significance, a certain decency. They only had to suppress a few meaningless millimetres, a tiny shard of truth, for the Austrian chancellor to seem more serious, less dim-witted than in the original shot – as if the simple fact of having tightened the crop a bit, erased a few disorderly elements, and refocused attention on himself conferred some density onto Schuschnigg. Such is the art of narrative: nothing is innocent.
But at that moment, at the Berghof, there was no question of density or decency. Here, there was only one framing that counted, only one art of persuasion, only one means of getting what you wanted: fear. In this house, fear was what prevailed. No more allusive niceties, subtle forms of authority, or maintaining a friendly face. Here, the little Junker was quaking. First of all, he, Schuschnigg, couldn’t get over that someone would dare speak to him that way. As he confided to one of his aides soon afterwards, he felt insulted. And still, he didn’t leave, didn’t show any displeasure; he just smoked. Butt after butt after butt.
Two long hours dragged by. Then, at around 4 p.m., Schuschnigg and his adviser were invited to join Ribbentrop and von Papen in the next room. They were presented with some clauses from a new accord between their two countries, it being specified that these were the Führer’s final concessions. And what did this accord require? For starters, i
n an empty, fairly meaningless phrase, it required Austria and the Reich to consult each other on international matters that concerned both parties. It also required – and here the plot thickened – that National Socialist doctrine be permitted in Austria, and that Seyss-Inquart, a Nazi, be named Minister of the Interior, with full powers over the police: a serious bit of interference. It further required that Dr Fischböck, a notorious Nazi, be appointed to a cabinet post. Then it required amnesty for any Nazis in Austrian jails, including those convicted of felonies. It required that all National-Socialist civil servants and officers who had been relieved of their positions be fully reinstated. It demanded the immediate exchange of a hundred officers between the German and Austrian armies and the appointment of the Nazi Glaise-Horstenau as the Austrian Minister of War. Finally, it demanded – yet another affront – the dismissal of the Austrian propaganda directors. These measures to go into effect in one week, in return for which – a superb concession – ‘the German Reich Government reaffirms the agreements of 11 July 1936’, which had just been hollowed out, and ‘renews its full recognition of Austria’s sovereignty and independence’. And after all the above, one final, astounding flourish: Germany ‘specifically abstains from any intervention in Austria’s interior political affairs’. Unreal.
The Order of the Day Page 2
