Restive Austria by Jenö Kostmann, published by Austrian Centre & Young Austria. A report that documents in detail the Austrian people’s resistance and struggle against the Nazi occupation, as well as the persecution of the Jews, based on the most up-to-date reports received from occupied Austria. Issued in the midst of the war by the Free Austrian Movement in Britain. London, 1942 – First edition.
When Hitler annexed Austria to Germany in March 1938 (the Anschluss), the Nazi propagandists did everything in their power to present a false impression to the world, as if the Austrian people desired the “union” with Germany and gladly welcomed the Führer as their new ruler. SS soldiers paraded through the streets as crowds of Austrians appeared to salute with the Nazi salute and joyfully accept the Nazi regime. In official publications of the German Reich, photographs were presented depicting the enthusiasm and excitement of the Austrian people at the arrival of the German occupier.
The booklet before us was issued with the aim of disproving this impression and conveying to the world the truth about the enslavement of the Austrian people with their conquest by Nazi Germany, and the Austrian population’s resistance to the occupation.
The booklet documents in detail how the Nazis concealed the enormous number of Austrian war casualties—approximately 300,000 killed, wounded, or captured, according to reports by the American and Russian authorities in 1941. Vienna became a vast hospital for war casualties. In contrast to the illusion promoted by the Nazis, as if they had come to rescue Austria from the scourge of unemployment, in the months following the occupation unemployment rose to unprecedented levels. Austrian soldiers who joined the German army in the hope of survival were regularly humiliated; there were even cases of execution by shooting for offenses such as “disrespectful remarks about the German army.” Approximately 600,000 Austrian men unfit for front-line service were transferred to forced labor in Germany and Poland as agricultural workers, already in the early stages of the annexation. Austrian factories were placed under full German military control, and schoolchildren and Austrian women were forced to work in them.
The report also describes how Jewish homes were completely emptied due to their deportation to camps, and the looting of Jewish property. Party and state officials who had been recruited for service in Austria, along with the families of military personnel serving in Austria, were moved into the vacated Jewish homes. More than 300,000 rooms were freed up as a result of the deportation of 160,000 Jews from Vienna alone. People who left Vienna in the autumn of 1941 testified that many anti-Nazi slogans were visible on the walls of buildings, welcoming the arrival of the occupiers. In response, the Nazis sent Hitler Youth gangs to take revenge on the “criminals.”
In a direct appeal by Austrian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, presented here in full, it was written: “Four years have passed since Hitler’s soldiers invaded and enslaved Austria, in violation of his agreement. The past four years have shown us the terrible disaster Hitler brought upon our country… He tore us from our families. He sent Austrians to die on the Eastern Front, and condemned our families to hunger and poverty. He threw thousands of our finest people into prisons and concentration camps… Austrians at the front and at home! Never forget that the worst enemy of the Austrian people is Hitler. He brings us defeat and death. He took our homeland from us and gave us death instead. Unite in the struggle against Hitler and his gang of robbers. Rise up against the criminal war. Long live Austria.”
In the introduction it is written: “We Austrians, who were forced to leave our country when Hitler conquered it, and are now continuing the same struggle as our people at home—albeit on a different front—seek, through this booklet, to show the British people and the other Allied nations that the Austrian nation is contributing its share in earning a place of honor among the ranks of the free nations, as Mr. Churchill stated. We, the Austrians in Great Britain… want to do everything possible to help bring about Hitler’s defeat and, with it, the liberation of our homeland. With this aim, all Austrian organizations and private Austrians in this country who support the alliance against Hitler and wish to support our people’s national struggle for liberation have united in one large movement: the Free Austrian Movement in Great Britain. The Austrian Centre, which is the largest organization in the F.A.M., sees the publication of this booklet as a contribution to the common struggle.”
19 pp. Very good condition.
