AUSTRIA AS A NATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4047, 13 May 1938, Page 6

AUSTRIA AS A NATION

WAS NEVER INDEPENDENT. THE POSITION EXPLAINED. Writing in the Sydney Sunday SunGuardian, Mrs Ingrid Maringer, herself an Austrian now resident in Australia, deals interestingly with conditions in Austria. We quote:— It is difficult for anybody who has not participated in thei political disturbances which have been the lot of unfortunate Austria since the end of the world-war to understand the present state of affairs in this now tiny country, which has been a bone of contention since the Treaty of Versailles cut it down to an uneconomic unit. You must know something of its peoples and their relationship to the neighbouring Germany. Actually, they are of the same race and share the same language. I will try to show both sides of the events which led to the happenings of the last few days. There are so many people who travel on the Continent and, in recording their impressions, solve the whole of its political problems in a few words, without realising that one needs to live for years in a country to understand its people and politics. To talk of an “ independent ” Austria is to talk of a myth, for since Versailles, Austria has not been, and could not be, a politically and economically independent State. POST-WAR AUSTRIA. First of all we must realise that Austrians, and Germans for that matter, do not believe that they lost the war, but that they were betrayed by those who seized political power behind the lines. Try to imagine the feelings of soldiers returning from the front after a hard and brave fight only to find their country in the hands of those who had used the situation for their private profit. Many had their uniforms and medals torn from them by those for whom they had fought, thousands were killed in the disturbances, and to get a job, or keep what one had, it was necessary to pay lip-service to the Socialists. So Austria became Red, but on the outside only. The end of Capitalism and the dawn of a new era was promised, but, while the Government did achieve many social reforms, the power of Capitalism eventually encompassed its overthrow and the Catholic Party came to power. Since then the history of Austria has been the dark and troubled record of the struggles of the various political parties to obtain, and hold, control. It is a story of one abortive “putsch” after another, and with every one it was the people who suffered. Public buildings were burnt, pitched battles were fought in the streets and scarcely a political demonstration took place without bloodshed. There was never a time of real peace, and no one who has lived through it can realise what we have suffered. I well remember how often I was told to stay at home as there would be shooting in the streets or not to go to an election meeting as the Socialists and Communists had arms with them and all the time politicians came and went, mostly thinking of their private profit or political career instead of the people. It was during that time of profiteering and corruption that the first Nazi representative entered the German parliament (which had over thirty different parties), and one can imagine the impression on the workers when his first suggestion was for cutting down the governmental salaries instead of placing further burdens on the people. The Nazi worker in Austria, who started his fight there and then, was laughed at and mocked, but this new doctrine gained adherents so rapidly, that the Government became alarmed., and soon found an excuse to prohibit membership of the new party which promised to be of increasing danger to the powers that were. The effect of this decree, as is usual with repressive measures, was only to raise the enthusiasm of the Nazis whose activities had then to be carried on underground and the party steadily grew in numbers. However, they were not the only illegal party, for the Socialists and Communists were also the subjects of repression by what was virtually a Catholic dictatorship.” Although one hears much of the socalled terrorist methods used by the Nazis, the drastic treatment meted out to their opponents by Socialists, Communists and, not least, the Government itself, does not seem to have received its full measure of publicity. When the Red “putsch” failed, through poor organiastion and treachery in their own ranks, after days of artillery and machine-gun fire m the streets of Vienna, which cost hundreds of lives, Dollfuss was hailed as the saviour of the nation. When one reads in the papers today, after the union with Germany, that the police are obliged to wear the swastika, it must be realised that the majority of them would have displayed it long ago if that had been possible. Most of them, together with

the army, were ready to join in the Nazi “putsch” of 1934, but owing to lack of proper organisation they were never called upon to play their part.