REICHSTAG DISSOLVED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 67, 21 March 1938, Page 7

REICHSTAG DISSOLVED

POLLS ON APRIL 10 NAZI COUP IN AUSTRIA • DEFENCE BY FUHRER COUNTRY SPARED FATE OF SPAIN (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) Received March 20, 5.5 p.m. LONDON, March 18. Addressing the Reichstag, Herr Hitler announced that the whole of Germany will vote simultaneously with the Austrian plebiscite on April 10, when the new Reichstag will also be elected. The Fuhrer declared that Germany regarded the frontiers ot Italy as inviolable. “If 1 had not acted immediately,” he said, “Austria might have suffered the same fate as Spain. I prevented that terrible nightmare.”

Herr Hitler asked for four years in which to complete the union of Austria and the Reich.

It was regrettable, he said, that democracies failed to understand the development over Austria. Their reaction was unintelligible and insulting. Continuing, Herr Hitler said: “I have summoned you to this short session to report on the recent events and inform you of the decision affecting the Reichstag and the German people. From deep humiliation, our people have experienced an ascension which we ourselves originally believed improbable, and our opponents ' regarded as impossible.” Referring to Germany’s decline, he said: “In place of President Wilson’s principle of national self-determina-tion, on which pretext our people laid down their arms, there came the most brutal violation of many millions ol Germans’ rights which were accorded naturally to primitive colonial tribes. We were denied the old nation of culture for reasons as untenable as they were insulting. The creation of a new mutilated State, Austria, was m a measure brought about by the naked violation of the rights of determination by 6,500,000 people of German birth.” Herr Hitler then reviewed the conditions in Austria and emphasised the economic distress. Oppressed Germans Herr Hitler added: “There rose a determination to destroy such unnatural mal-treatment,” as the Reich experienced in its renaissance, and the German people became filled with a new racial faith. The eyes of our oppressed and ill-treated comrades outside our frontiers naturally turned with ever-increasing longing towarci their great Mother Country. “Disgust reigned in the Reich as the continual persecution of Germans Jiving along the frontier was realised. Germany now once more has become a World Power. There were moments when it was impossible for ouv proud nation to look on any longer.” “Dr. Schuschnigg began to fulfil the obligations agreed upon with hesitancy which marched side by side with an obviously hostile attitude to other States,” he said. After attacking Dr. Schuschnigg’s plebiscite plans, which he described as a swindle from beginning to end, Herr Hitler said Dr. Schuschnigg tried by “unexampled forgery” to obtain moral justification for the open violation of the agreement into which he had entered. “Dr. Schuschnigg desired a mandate for further and still more brutal oppression for an overwhelming majority of German-Austrian people. 1 therefore gave orders for those measures to be taken which appeared adequate to save Austria from the fate 'of Spain.” Herr Hitler then dissolved the I Reichstag. i GERMAN FOUR-YEAR PLAN i : APPLIED TO AUSTRIA USE OF RESOURCES I j BENEFIT OF WHOLE REICH BERLIN, March 18. .. A decree extending Germany’s fourS’ear plan of economic self-sufficiency to Austria is among a number issued in order to complete the union of the two countries. Marshal Goering telegraphed to Dr. Inquart, Prime Minister of Austria, requesting the full exploitation of Austrian resources to benefit the whole Reich. Other decrees announce that the Reichsmark is valid with the schilling throughout Austria, one reichsmark equalling 1.50 schilling. The Austrian National Bank has been taken over by the Reichsbank, the Austrian federal railways by the German railways, and the Austrian general staff by the German. Herr Hitler has instructed Austrians living abroad that they may participate in the plebiscite. Dr. Goebbels is presenting 20,000 radio sets, valued at £70,000, to enable Austrian people to listen in to the speeches of the Nazi leaders. The Italian Ambassador informed the Foreign Office that his Government has recognised the union of Austria with the Reich by closing its legation in Vienna, making the Italian Consulates throughout. Austria responsible to the Embassy in Berlin. Similar action has already been taken by Hungary. An official Gazette announces that all laws promulgated in the Reich after March 13 will also be valid in Austria. FEARFUL AUSTRIAN EFFORT TO STAY IN ENGLAND LONDON, March 18. Being refused permission to stay in the country on the arrival at Croydon of a Swiss airliner from Zurich last, night, an Austrian Jew, Paul Rendi, snatched a phial from his pocket and flrank the contents. He was taken to hospital, but later recovered, and it is

expected that he will be put aboard an outward-bound airliner to-day, probably to Amsterdam or Switzerland. Rendi pleaded with the immigration officials to be allowed to remain. "They will get me if I am forced to return to Austria,” he said. APPEAL TO HITLER BY DUKE OF WINDSOR. RELEASE OF ROTHSCHILDS. Received March 20, 5.5 p.m. PARIS, Ma Th 18. The Jewish Telegraph Agency learns that the Duke of Windsor personally has appealed to Herr Hitler for the release of his Jewish friends in Vienna, namely, the brothers Louis and Eugene Rothschild, and Dr. Hctnrich Neumann, the ear specialist. ARREST IN MUNICH AUSTRIAN CONSUL AND STAFF. MUNICH, March 18. Herr Ludwig Jordan, the Austrian Consul-General a. Munich, and the entire staff of the Consulate-General have been arrested by the secret police.