Austrian history

The Rise of Austria’s First Dictatorship: Key Insights

Eve Neuhaus 2 Comments

In the process of writing the second volume of Two Suitcases I continually return to historical sources to check that I’m getting the story right. As I reviewed and revised a chapter in which the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Austria is introduced, I came across an article I hadn’t read before, “Thinking
 Cosmopolitan
 or 
How
 Joseph
 became
 Joe 
Buttinger” by Philipp Luis Strobl. What a find!

Joseph Buttinger will be making at least a cameo appearance in my new novel, but I think his story should be shared now because of its relevance to the current political situation in the US. I’ve cut and pasted the opening below. The entire article, even in its slightly flawed English translation, is worth reading. Read it here: http://www.science.usd.cas.cz/Presentations/Strobl.pdf

On
 May
 27,
 1932,
 the
 Austrian
 parliament
 approved
 a
 new
 government
 that
 would change
 the 
democratic 
course 
the 
country 
had
 pursued 
since the 
end 
of 
the 
First 
World War.
 The
 new
 chancellor
 Engelbert
 Dollfuß
 now
 was
 in
 charge
 of
 the
 country’s leadership.
 On
 October
 1,
 he
 used
 a
 so‐called
 “emergency
 degree”,
 a
 wartime
 relict,
 to rule
 the 
country 
without 
the 
approbation 
of 
the 
Austrian
 parliament. 
That
 was 
the
 hour of
 birth
 of
 Austria’s
 first
 dictatorship.
 The
 consequences
 for
 the
 people
 were
 fatal. Unliebsame
 Personen
 as
 “unpleasing”
 persons
 were
 called
 at
 that
 time
 had
 more
 and more
 problems
 living
 a
 normal
 life.
 Particularly
 intellectuals
 who
 were
 engaged
 in
 the ideas
 of
 psychoanalysis,
 neopositivism,
 or
 austromarxism
 (socialism)
 had
 to
 fear reprisals 
from
 the
 government. Life 
became
 very 
hard
 for 
the
 government’s
 opponents, but
 for
 most
 of
 these
 persons,
 the
 situation
 turned
 from
 bad
 to
 worse
 with
 the incorporation
 of
 Austria
 into
 Hitler’s
 German
 Reich
 in
 1938.
 So‐called
 “enemies
 of
 the government”
 were
 forced
 to
 emigrate
 ‐
 and
 many
 of
 them
 did
 so.
 According
 to
 a
 1941 Office
 of
 Strategic
 Service
 memorandum,
 more
 than
 40,000
 Austrians 
had immigrated
 to the
 United 
States 
during
 the
 three
 years
 since
 the
 “Anschluss”
 in
 1938. This
 paper
 is
 about 
one 
of 
those 
who
 emigrated
 as
 a 
result 
of 
ideological
 reasons.

January 1938, Vienna

Eve Neuhaus 7 Comments

To the credit of all the people who say “Can’t wait for the next volume!” on their reviews of Red Vienna, I’ve been working hard at it. Underground ends at the Anschluss, when most of Austria joyfully welcomes Hitler as their leader. which takes place from March 11th to 13th, 1938.

Here’s a taste of what I wrote today. As it seems so often, the news I read in the morning seems eerily parallel to what’s happening in my story.

Here’s a photo of the man on whom I based the character, Hugo.

And here is my father, on whom Max is based.

January 27, 1938

Max’s workshop

Vienna

Max has the radio on whenever he can, day and night. He follows the news from as many sources as possible, hearing stories few others hear, and hearing the ones that everybody knows reported from widely varying perspectives. His shop is more popular as a source of news than it is of lamps, chairs, or radios.

“Listen to this,” he says to Hugo, who’s perched on stool at the workbench next to Max. “A German diplomat told a commentator I follow that Hitler is spending most of his time at his retreat in Berchtesgaden near the Austrian border.”

“I had heard that, yes,” says Hugo. “He’s so close he can see Austria.”

“Well, apparently he almost never goes out anymore, and here’s how he spends his time there: he has a huge collection of postcards of Vienna and other Austrian cities that he spreads out on his desk to look at while planning where to put his Brown Houses, the Nazi party headquarters. They say he spends hours at it. And he has a street map of Vienna tacked up on the wall where he’s marked the buildings he wants to replace with ones he’s designing himself. He’s obsessed—it takes up all his time.”

“Not good,” Hugo says. “Not good at all.”

“What concerns me almost as much is that I overheard someone else telling the same story to a group at the cafe yesterday and everyone thought it was funny. What do they think, that Hitler is a joke?”

“There’s no point in pretending that Hitler won’t be welcome here, Max. The Nazi tactic of causing chaos and confusion in Austria over the last few years has led most of the population to want peace at any cost, and they think becoming part of Germany will bring it.”

“It’s so ironic, isn’t it? That the man who tells the French Ambassador that he ‘will soon have Schuschnigg’s head’ should be associated with peace.” Max shakes his head. “No one believes that what I read in Feuchtwanger’s book is true either. It’s fiction, I’m told over and over, often in the most condescending way.”

“Classic it-could-never-happen-here thinking,” agrees Hugo. “Austria would never let the Jews be treated so badly. Well, we shall see soon enough.” He lights a cigarette. “I’ve finished almost all the new exit papers, by the way. Leo will be printing them in a few days.”

“That’s a relief. Are you including an Ausweis for Gisi’s mother and Gert’s parents? They would need them to get out, even if they aren’t Jewish.”

“I am, but I’m doing those last, in case I don’t have the time to finish them. Gert’s parents will never leave, and I seriously doubt Gert will. I think her family has always been more important to her than our crazy off-and-on relationship. What about Gisi?”

“She claims she’ll leave, but she started the new term at medical school this week and she told me she has some of the best professors in the program. And her mother steadfastly refuses to even consider following her. To be honest, I’m not sure if she’ll give all that up for me.”

“It’s a lot to ask. Gert would be leaving a promising career in fashion, a job she loves, and, as you saw at New Year’s, a very comfortable home that will come to her someday. What does she gain by leaving?”

Max looks pensive. “Gisi is in a similar position, minus the bourgeois apartment. What do I have to offer her? We would be leaving with not much more than the clothes on our backs.”

Hugo smiles wryly. “It sounds like you and I are talking ourselves out of leaving.”

“No, of course not. We have no choice. All Jews should be ready to go at a moment’s notice. It’s a shame so few are.”

“People don’t like to face an uncertain future. It’s so much easier to imagine that life will go on the way it is than to face the reality of a darker times ahead. I have first hand experience, though, because of Hilda and Karl’s disappearance. And I understand the pain of losing a child. I’ve already faced some of what the future could hold for many people.”

“Maybe words aren’t enough to convince people. Maybe firsthand experience is necessary. Although I have to say that for me, reading those chapters in The Oppermanns about the months that followed Hitler becoming Chancellor was enough.”

Hugo thinks for a moment. “We were fortunate to have Youth Leaders like Papanek and the others who set an example for us when they left in ’34.”

“That’s true. It’s also easier for us to imagine living somewhere else because we were raised in an Internationalist milieu. Remember? We were, what, eighteen, when we took part in the International Socialist Youth Congress? It’s very different than coming up in a Nationalist milieu that values Blood and Soil over Friendship and Peace.”

Hugo sighs deeply. “God, these are hard times.”

Two suitcases full of books: Book and audiobook launch events in Cordes and on Zoom

Eve Neuhaus 2 Comments

Very heavy. You can imagine. They travelled home from California with me last week, and here they are on their way into our house:

And now, having some copies of Red Vienna to pass on, I’ve set up two events.

It was at the back of my mind to do a launch of some sort locally, maybe in my living room or in someone else’s living room, but when I saw the back room at La Théiere Folle, the new salon de thé in Cordes, I couldn’t resist asking the proprietors, Ricky and Axel, if they’d be willing to host it there.

So, here’s the plan:

And then, for those farther away, the narrator of the audiobook version of Red Vienna and I are doing an audiobook launch on Zoom. I’ll add the details about it in my next post, but here are the basics. Join us if you can!

Learn more about Red Vienna, read excerpts, and reviews at twosuitcasesbook.com

Exploring Red Vienna’s Utopian Philosophy: The Legacy of Otto Bauer

Eve Neuhaus 2 Comments

Questions have been coming up at my book talks and interviews about the origins of the philosophy behind the utopian vision that is now called Red Vienna, which is also the title of the first volume of Two Suitcases. This article from Jacobin Magazine is the best one on the subject that I’ve come across:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/otto-bauers-theory-of-nationalism-is-one-of-marxisms-lost-treasures/ar-AA1kyFyr?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1

Another relevant excerpt: Hitler’s speech

Eve Neuhaus 6 Comments

This one is from the second volume of Two Suitcases, which is called Underground. If you haven’t read the first volume Red Vienna yet, order it at your local bookstore or through Amazon.

February 2, 1937

a cafe not far from Max’s workshop

Gisi turns the pages of the new issue of the Kronen Zeitung she spread on the cafe table. She’d seen several copies on her way to the cafe. The paper’s populist touch allowed it to survive the Fascist takeover of Austria and keeps it on the newsstands in working class neighborhoods.

On the second to the last page, she finds what she’s looking for: From Innsbruck to Italy—Three Winter Hikes, by Wilhelm der Wandersmann. It’s Max’s and her first effort at hiding coded information about safe escape routes in the paper. She’s pleased to see it, of course, and she feels confident that no one who doesn’t know the code could possibly suspect anything, but it bothers her to think about the lies she had to tell to get it published .

The son of the publisher, a sweet but naive young man, now waits for her after lecture every week, or worse, he arrives early and saves her a good seat. Gisi puts on her spectacles to discourage him, but it hasn’t worked. She can’t tell him about Max so she told him that she’s helping a cousin in Tyrol to get a start in journalism instead.

“My cousin is more of an outdoorsman than a writer,” she’d said to him, “but he wants to write a series of articles like this about hikes all over the country. He’d like to make his love of hiking pay for itself. That’s why he’s using a catchy byline instead of his own name.”

What she feels worst about is that the day she gave the publisher’s son the article, she let him take her out for coffee and a pastry. Encouraging him even that much is so wrong. 

Max rushes into the smoky cafe. “Sorry I’m late,” he says breathlessly.  “I sold another radio and had to pack it up. I only have two left now.” They kiss lightly. “So, let’s have a look at our man Wilhelm der Wandersmann’s article!”

The code isn’t complicated. It involves starting certain sentences with letters that indicate the political bent of the proprietors of inns and restaurants along the way. Each time Gisi and Max succeed in publishing another article, a new code will be shared, again in code, in the Arbeiter Zeitung.

“It’s fantastic!” he says, smiling broadly. “I can’t wait to take the next hike with you.” The next hike will be considerably longer with at least two overnight stays, quite possibly three. 

Their conversation turns to how much fun they had hiking the trails for the article over the last six months, two of them more than once. In the end, they decided that only one of the three routes would be safe, and they’d written the article together, he injecting the humor into her fastidious accounts. 

“We should go on the next hike as soon as the snow melts,” he tells her.  “When’s your spring break?” 

“It’s at Easter, but Easter is early this year, at the end of March. It could still be very cold.”

“Then we’ll have to keep each other warm,” he smiles. And the date is set. 

“So,” he says, “that settled, let’s have a look at what else the paper has to tell us today.” He turns back to the front page and glances at the headlines. “Well, we knew the trade negotiations with Germany would fail, so that’s not news.” He fails to notice a piece of paper sliding from between the pages and falling to the floor.

Gisi picks it up. “Look at this, Max,” she says. “It’s a speech by Hitler. Someone seems to have printed out the whole thing and tucked it between the pages of the paper.”

“Hm. Somebody is getting ideas from us.”

“Shh. This speech was given a couple days ago, on the fourth anniversary of Hitler’s coming to power. Listen what he says here.” 

Max leans in and she reads aloud.

“And I can prophesy here that, just as the knowledge that the earth moves around the sun led to a revolutionary alternation in the general world-picture, so the blood-and-race doctrine of the National Socialist Movement will bring about a revolutionary change in our knowledge and therewith a radical reconstruction of the picture which human history gives us of the past and will also change the course of that history in the future.”

“The blood-and-race doctrine of the National Socialist Movement,” repeats Max. “Horrifying words. On top of the blood-and-race problem, he uses the full name of his wretched party, which dares to co-opt our name, Socialist.”

Gisi wrinkles her nose. “Well, I don’t feel so proprietary about that, to be honest. If they want to call themselves Socialists, let them be socialistic. Populists like to make promises like income equality, so let the state take care of all its people, not just those with the right blood. It’s not the Socialist part of the National Socialist Movement that bothers me. It’s the Nationalist part. Now, listen to what he says next:

‘And this will not lead to an estrangement between nations; but on the contrary, it will bring about for the first time a real understanding of one another. At the same time, however, it will prevent the Jewish people from intruding themselves among all the other nations as elements of internal disruption, under the mask of honest world-citizens, and thus gaining power over these nations.’”

“Well, there it is” says Max. “He doesn’t mince words, our countryman.”

Gisi is still reading. “His defense of the Nazi takeover as a bloodless revolution is pure propaganda, too,” she points out. “He says there wasn’t even one window broken, but his compatriots here in Austria don’t seem to feel such reticence.”

Max says, “What bothers me is how he returns again and again to the way conditions have improved in Germany over the last four years. Here he says:

‘Within a few weeks the political debris and the social prejudices which had been accumulating through a thousand years of German history were removed and cleared away. 

May we not speak of a revolution when the chaotic conditions brought about by parliamentary-democracy disappear in less than three months and a regime of order and discipline takes their place, and a new energy springs forth from a firmly welded unity and a comprehensive authoritative power such as Germany never before had?’”

Gisi agrees. “Yes, those are the parts of the speech that will resonate with readers of the Kronen Zeitung in particular. Most of this speech is too high-flown for the ‘folk community’ he refers to but the message is clear.”

“Yes. Get rid of the vermin Jews, destroy democracy, and everyone will live happily ever after.”

“I’m so glad we got Wilhelm der Wandersmann’s article printed. Herr Wandersmann has plenty of work to do.”

‘And we should have our suitcases packed,” Max says.