AUSTRIA: Resurrection

In Moscow the Great Powers had taken thought for Austria, decreed her rebirth. Prospects for Austrians were brighter than at any time since the little Republic was proclaimed 25 years ago this week—Nov. 12, 1918. Beside the Danube, there was a quickening. Along Vienna’s Ringstrasse and down the crowded Kärntnerstrasse impudent anti-Nazi slogans appeared. The Viennese smiled again and the burden of the bombed-out German guests from the north seemed lighter. There were new jokes and new decrees by Himmler, prescribing death for convicted jokesmiths.

In the war factories, sabotage spread. Among the Austrian divisions of the Wehrmacht apathy grew apace; SS troops had to be hustled in where Austrians had ceased to care. Grimly the Nazi courts handed out orders to behead. Soberly the people of Austria clustered before the orange-colored posters in the public squares, reading the lists of the executed. The people were silent, fearing spies.

Over the radio from-Moscow, in persuasive Austrian accents, came suggestions to saboteurs: wreck your railways and destroy your roads; Hitler needs them to maintain his fronts in Italy and Yugoslavia, to get his food from Hungary and his oil from Rumania. Almost at once there were reports of breaks in the line from Graz to Klagenfurt in the southeast.

A Reason for Sleep. A century ago Czech Frantisek Palacky observed: If the Austrian Empire did not exist, it would have to be invented. Advocates of federation hold that the Danube Valley is a unit, self-sufficient if properly organized, a link between Europe and the Balkans if properly conceived, a bulwark against German expansion if properly designed.

But in the melee at the end of World War I, the reason for Austria was ignored. The treaties forbade union with Germany, failed to provide a substitute anchor. With nearly nine-tenths of her territory gone and all of her old relations with the rest of the Danube Valley disrupted, easygoing Austria slipped forlornly into a coma, unable to live and forbidden to die. Decay set in where gaiety had been. Vienna with nearly 2,000,000 became an oversized head; the rest of Austria, with less than 5,000,000 where the old Empire had over 50,000,000, was the dwarfed and sickening body. Until the coming of Hitler, Austrians mostly believed that the forbidden Anschluss with Germany would be a lesser evil, made abortive attempts to form at least a customs union.

When Hitler talked Anschluss, it still made a certain economic sense. But to most Austrians, union with the Nazis was worse than no union. For five years Austrians scurried over Europe, seeking support. They found none. Wistfully Radio Vienna played waltzes and the Viennese reminded each other of the difference be tween Berlin and Vienna: in Berlin, things might become serious, but they were never hopeless; in Vienna, things were often hopeless—but seldom serious.

Hitler kept his eye on his homeland. In February 1938, he sent for Chancellor Schuschnigg, ranted and demanded. Then, on March 12 at 5:40 in the morning, German troops crossed the frontier, drove without opposition on Vienna. A bemused Britain and a sick France chose to see nothing fatal in the rape.

There followed days of shame for Austrians. Thousands joined the Germans in surging mobs, shouting, smashing windows, burning books, beating Jews. In the German Tourist Office stood a portrait of the Führer, lit by candles. Thousands of delirious worshippers filed by while other thousands stood back in silent horror. The

Allies may pity Austria, but—as their leaders sternly said last fortnight—Austria has a debt to repay.

A Reason for Awakening. The Moscow Declaration on Austria was as unexpected as an earthquake. At least some of its meaning was as easy to grasp, its causes as hard to define. The Great Powers certainly meant: since Germany was not to keep Austria, her first grab, she need not expect to keep any other loot.

The Great Powers may also have meant that after this war notions of racial geography would command little respect in the postwar settlements. Even more clearly they may have meant that a Danube Federation would remedy the oversight at Versailles. If so, they had discarded the larger concept of an all-European Federation, or at most had decided to postpone it until some sort of federation-of-federations might be attempted.

When Czech President Benes flies to Moscow to sign a 20-year alliance, he may provide real evidence that a Danube Federation is in the making. In such a body, a postwar, pro-Soviet Czecho-Slovakia would have the No. i position. Industrial Austria and Czecho-Slovakia might neatly complement agrarian Hungary, perhaps offer a haven for Rumania and for Croatia & Slovenia if prewar Yugoslavia should not revive. The rest of Southeastern Europe—Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Albania—might be encouraged to form a parallel Balkan Federation.

The two emerging federations would have in common: 1) a primarily economic binder, customs unions rather than political mergers; 2) a need to look to Moscow for guidance in their external affairs, to Russia for much of their trade; 3)3 role to play in securing Russia’s southwestern frontiers and thwarting German ambitions eastward.

No matter how much discussion may have gone into the formation of other portions of the Moscow Declarations, on Austria there was probably agreement from the start. Cordell Hull had long cherished the ambition to break up the Greater Reich; Stalin had long seen the need for a resurrected Austria if a Danube Federation was to do its part in stabilizing eastern Europe in a fashion satisfactory to the Soviet Union.

Austria-Hungary’s handsome, exiled Empress Zita turned up in Washington the day after the Moscow Declarations were announced. There her eldest son, Otto Habsburg, pretender to the 25-years-gone Austro-Hungarian thrones and sponsor last year of the abortive Austrian Battalion (29 voluntary recruits), announced importantly that he was ready for anything, might be back in Vienna within a matter of months. Said one Austrian exile: “In America, Otto may still be a question; in Europe, he certainly is not.”