THE REAL AUSTRIA
. By PHYLLIS BOTTOME
• of Latin and Slav, twisted firmly into the Stam (tribe) of an old Germanic culture which has built itself up from Western Chris- tianity and Southern Humanism ; whereas the Reich-German his- tory took its stamp from Prussian pressure and followed the Warrior aim of Force, with the one intention of sooner or later aggressively . dragging all the lands round it into itself.
Compare the two capitals of the different countries—Austria and Germany—and you are at once brought up against a complete con- trast of temperament. Berlin is all bustle, energy, organisation, ugli- ness and efficiency ; Vienna stateliness, ease, elegance, individual charm and beauty—the friendly parsuit of life itself. The Opera is the centre of Vienna, an open road passes through the old Palace and its gardens. The vines stream down hillsides into the city ; the people take their holidays in the woods called by its name and within easy distance by tram or on foot.. " What kept Vienna alive? " I asked the greatest of her doctors in the starved years after the last war. " The Wiener Wald and her music," he answered without hesitation.
There are two khousand huts on the Austrian mountains, where in summer and. winter alike students, sportsmen, professors, states- men climb and drink deep of the tonic air. The peasants who farm on the plains and on the heights are a race apart. All Tyrol has throughout long ages been free. It is freedom, and the gracious dignity of freedom, that you meet in a Tyroler's eyes. They are a -good people, who have had no master but God. • Their lives are enriched by their churches. Their Christianity, is old that it is unconscious. They treat their village church as bui'an Everlasting enlargement of their homes. In those shadowed years from 1933 to 1938, when Hitler's Warriors tried every trick, menace and penalty that could occur to the mind of disciplined criminals in order to drag Austria into their net, Nazis often crossed the border by night and damaged the small lonely churches in Tyrol. The peasants had listened to Hitler's voice on the radio promising them lives of enrichment and ease, but now the radio was shut off automatically as he began to speak. " We know what to think of him now," the peasants explained. " Only bad men do bad deeds."
Long before the German Reich was an entity, Austria was the heart and Vienna the head of the " Holy Roman Empire." What is now called the Reich was never " Holy," never an " Empire," never "Roman." Even the dismembered Austria of 1919, long saturated with the blood and thoughts of Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Italians, Poles, Rumanians, Serbs and Croats, could not be called a " Ger- man " nation, although the decisive power in the Austro-Hungarian State was Wien ; and it remained Wien, even when Austria became a small Republic. • Neither Napoleon nor Bismarck succeeded in getting Austria to take any part whatever in the German Reich. She shed the title of " Holy Roman Empire " in 18o6 ; she maintained her neutrality in the war of 1870 ; and in spite of all German blandishments, and economic penalties after her dismemberment in 1919, she preferred to stand alone. Her reactionary Government was responsible for " the punitive expedition to Servia " which led to the World War ; but Austria never desired a World War and was the first to try to put an end to it. She could not escape, however, and her act of injustice was punished by her dismemberment as an Empire. But all through the gruelling years of chaos and inflation, though
there were some despondent voices in Austria which murmured Anschluss, the great majority of the Austrian people repudiated the suggestion of even a Customs Union with a democratic pre- Hitler Germany. Between two great disastrous wars the poorest Government in Europe maintained its subsidy to the Opera ; hired aeroplanes to carry frozen swallows to the South ; and built a quarter for its workers that shamed a rich and selfish world.
But people in this country and the U.S.A. still sometimes demand: " Did not the Austrians in 1938 accept Hitler's Anschluss? " They did indeed—as much as an expiring kid accepts the onslaught of a Tiger. The Nazis marched in, 250,000 strong, with an army of tanks and aeroplanes. Austria possessed 17,000 so:diers. She had six wooden tanks ; and next to no air force. Mussolini had not played the part of the Wolf in " Little Red Riding Hood " in vain ; but before the rape of Austria took place, Austria united in order to vote in Schuschnigg's plebiscite ; and this vote would have been over- whelmingly (90 per cent. was the figure anticipated) in favour of Austrian integrity. This Hitler well knew—or there would have been no need for a military occupation. The " enthusiasm " alleged to have attended it was caused by 50,000 Reich German S.A. and Hitler Youth, sent ahead to each city, visited in turn by Hitler. Austrians, forced to line up along the streets, with ice-cold death in their hearts, were silent. They had listened for a long time, hoping to catch a single word from their friends—the Western Democracies— but po word came. Now they listened in stunned, heart-broken horror to the triumphant songs of their enemies.
From 1938 onwards there has been no possibility for Austria to say what was in her heart. Those who speak for her, in this country and the U.S.A., have the confused views of exiles from their mother- land. The most vocal fled Austria in 1934, and, having caught the ear of their fellow-Socialists, have been in a position to mis- inform them very thoroughly ever since. For well they know that Austrian working people have now new leaders, and will never take them back ; whereas if they can persuade their hosts to accept the myth of the " Greater Germany " they may one day find themselves once more important persons in a Pan-German universe. They have undervalued the assets and attainments of their mother country —for the sake of feathering their future nests in the German Reich. The British Socialists have been generously blinded by those they believed to be their brothers, and certain more sinister influences in the City and in reactionary circles have gladly backed them, for the sake of future markets. The Moscow Conference has done much to clear up this invidious state of things. But in this country our Austrian friends are sometimes still treated as enemies, and until yesterday—with burning hearts—were forced to accept the stigma of being called " German " on their identity cards ; or else be lost and nameless in an inhuman, paper-governed world.
Austria has a key position in Europe ; she stands between the Balkans and the Western Powers. She understands—as no other country in Europe understands—the faults and merits of other nations. The wit, the tolerance, and the genius of this once great Empire were not blotted out by her dismemberment. The years of disaster from 1914 to 1922 even sharpened her wits ; strengthened her culture ; and enlarged her easy tolerance. Austria shared the beauty of her land with all the world. She proved herself as capable of economic independence as Switzerland.' She was more capable of interpreting spiritual independence to those countries that lacked it. In her cafés, in her universities, above all in her psychologically trained schools, in mountain huts and on the jewelled floors of her lakes, the arts, and the relationships which spring from Art, blossomed and produced human happiness.
We cannot give back to Austria the lives Germany has trapped, exiled, murdered, and driven to countless suicides ; but when the intolerable waste and rubbish of war is over, we can free—and in our turn 'profit by the freedom of—one of the most civilised and friendly countries in the world. Even if worn out and weakened by her dreadful ordeal she had no 'voice left to cry for freedom with, we should, for the sake of Europe, insist upon maintaining her integrity. Geographically as well as culturally Austria is a defence against what has proved itself to be again and again a danger to our family of nations. A weak Germany and a strong and democratic Austria promise peace to Europe. A weak or reactionary Austria and a strong Germany would eventually lead to war. If, when we have an incentive to do right and a penalty if we do wrong, we still let ourselves be hoodwinked into the old Pan- German trap, then indeed we shall deserve to lose—and very probably shall lose—the third World War.
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