AUSTRIA AND THE ANSCHLUSS [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Having been in Austria for over eight years and only just left it, I feel that certain statements in Count Czernin's article need correcting.
As an official of the present government there he states that the Vaterliindische , Front has, a membership of two millions, and uses that as an argument against the necessity of a plebiscite. But he does not say that all State employees have been compelled to be members or lose their jobs, that a good number of people who hold two offices have to be double members of the V.F., that widows are forced to be Members on pain of losing their pensions, and that all school- Children have had to join the V.F. and wear the badge and are even trained to report against their teachers if one of them does not Punish a fellow-pupil for not wearing his badge. The number of people who really agree with the present system in Austria is very small indeed, but nobody is going to risk being dismissed just because he or she doesn't Wear a badge and pay a subscription.
The great majority of the people are " fed to the teeth With being treated as the puppets of Italy by a government Which was forced upon them. They know that the old argument, raised once again, that the present Germany is only a . PrusSian province, is quite untrue. Count Czernin forgets that there is a socialism as well as a nationalism in the Germany of today, which in all probability he has not seen for himself. There is much more of the " Prussian Spirit " in. the remains of the military class and the aristocrats in Austria today than there is in Germany.
Also, it is completely. misleading to translate the word
Anschluss " by " annex." The verb " anschliessen means " to join " and there is no hint of appropriation or annexation in the .word " Ansehluss." quite apart from all of which, ninny people in Austria realize that an," AnMiluss" cannot tike place at the present moment for international reasons ; but they do, demand a plebiscite so tlmt they can be freed frorn,the tyranny of the present goyernment, which is simply the tool of," the powers that be " in Italy,-Yours faithfully,
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