Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

CONQUEST BY PEACE 609of the border that the Germans and the Austrians were 'one people intwo countries.' In September, 1932, when Dollfuss invited his Germanco-religionaries to hold the next 'German Catholic Congress' in Vienna,he referred to the Austrian capital as the 'second German city' — thefirst being Berlin. At this Catholic Congress, Kurt Schuschnigg, thenMinister of Justice, declared: ' . . . German culture and German lawmust continue to set their clear imprint upon our country.' As AustrianMinister of Justice, Schuschnigg endeavored to unify German andAustrian penal law — one of the innumerable inconspicuouspreparations for a future union of the two countries. In March, 1933, hewent to Germany in order to reach an understanding with Hitler. Beforean assemblage of German and Austrian jurists in Weimar, heproclaimed, 'The middle of Europe was and is German space, and in itstands Austria.'Now Hitler's Austrian followers demanded a share in the Austriangovernment. This, they declared, would represent a way of carrying outthe Anschluss almost noiselessly; the Austrian government wouldsimply be 'co-ordinated,' though the borders would not be formallyabolished. They showed that they were made of different stuff from theHeimwehr Fascists, by the demand that the parliament, mutilated byDollfuss, must be re-elected, for after the contagious example of theGerman electoral success the National Socialists justifiably expectedAustrian successes. Thus they invoked the right of national selfdetermination,the fundamental idea of the Versailles Treaty. In theforeign struggle even more forcefully than in internal German politics,the dictatorship wielded the weapon of democracy.This was exactly the point where the split between Germany and Italythreatened. But greater issues, stronger common interests, finally keptthem together.In March, 1933, James Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister ofEngland, called on Mussolini in Rome with Sir John Simon, head of theForeign Office. The purpose of the visit was to plan for peace anddisarmament, without which the economic crisis could never beovercome. MacDonald brought with him for Mussolini's approval a planfor world disarmament, which he had submitted two days before to theDisarmament Conference in Geneva. In