LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitable length is that of one of our " News of the Week " paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseuzlonym.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.]
THE COLD TERROR IN AUSTRIA
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In your leading article of May 17th you mention that the Austrian Government has been driven to adopt " methods of administration less rigorous than the German, but not clis- . similar in themselves." May I corroborate your statement, after a recent visit to Austria, and suggest that a little more attention should be paid over here to the arbitrary rule of the Schuschnigg-Starhemberg dictatorship ? - That minority of Clericals, Fascists tnodo italiano, and Jews (oh irony !) is admittedly forced into its present uncom- fortable position of dependence upon Italy by the criminal negligence of the two principal Great Powers, France and Great Britain, which are equally responsible for the settlement of 1919 and for the continued exasperating (to Austrians) veto on any form of union with Germany. But that does not excuse the acts of brutality and personal spite which are being com- mitted by Government agents and in the name of the Austrian " totalitarian " dispensation.
The most glaring case, of course, is that of Dr. Anton Rintelen, condemned by the special military court in March to lifelong imprisonment, and now undergoing the rigours of convict life—although the evidence in the trial, even with the " providential " testimony of Ripoldi, the Italian valet, showed Dr. Rintelen, whatever his political opinions, to have had no connexion with the band of Nazi desperates who staged the putsch of July, 1934.
For the past two years there has indeed been going on, alongside the suppression of socialist activity which we have heard about, a cold terror for all who fail to conceal, or are suspected of, German sympathies. They are conveniently labelled Nazis, and as such treated as " enemies of the State "- although some of them are no more devotees of the strange customs and habits associated with National Socialism than Chancellor Schuschnigg himself.
I know a case of a lawyer in one of the principal towns who recently gave the sum of thirty schillings to a schoolmaster deprived of his livelihood because of National Socialist activi- ties, and for this act of generosity he was arrested and put in prison for six weeks, the result of which was that he lost his professional position, and five other persons in his employ were on the street. When he was released he sought to appeal against this treatment, but was told that there was no appeal against governmental measures of this kind. Another case is that of a woman, known to be liberal in her assistance with money and in other ways to Nazi victims, with the result that on several occasions recently she has been called upon peremp- torily by the Government to supply funds for the board and lodging of Nazis and others in the Austrian equivalent of the concentration camps !
One of the worst elements of this situation is, of course, the informing—the rate of pay for informers being a minimum of twenty schillings in some districts—so that no one trusts his neighbour.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
