Evening star., 1938-09-25
Bv Mary.Carter Roberts.

FriEchauer Translated from the
German by E. o. Lorimer. Boston
Houghton, Mifflin Co.
IN THE main, the reviewer does not
read publishers announcements
She has found them to be very little
concerned with announcing; they
advertise instead. Common sense
therefore, indicates that critic might
just as well save her time. She is 60
ing to have to read the book, anyway
and the sales talk, more often than not
simply prejudices her against it.
In the case of the present work, the
reviewer (having read no announce
ment, assumed, from the title and the
fact that the author was an Austrian
journalist, that here was another ac-
count Of how Hitler had prosecuted the
late anschluss She had already re-
viewed two works on the subject, and
her preoccupation, therefore, was to
find out whether Herr Frischauer's &C.
count was sufficiently original to de-
serve extended comment or whether it
might not as we'll be put into Brief
Reviews The work. however, turns out
to be something entirely different. It
is not the story of Austria's annexa-
ton to the Hitlerian empire at all. II
Is history of Austria from the end OF
the World War up to the present. And
it is history recounted by a method
sufficiently original TO make 1t worth
reading, even to those who are well
aware of the events contained in the
period.
It is a personalized sort of social rec
ord. 1t does not deal with the move
ment of parties, it does not even follow
the large events-the putsches, the
coup d'etats, the falls of cabinets and
so on 1t hardly mentions the names
of the leaders and it does not proceed
according to a chronological plan OF
dates. Instead, it tells us wnat the
ordinary citizen of Vienna had tc
struggle against during the years OF
depression, imitation, agitation ane
hopelessness which followed the down.
fall of the old monarchy. It tells OF
the effect which this time of chaos hao
on mems minds and souls.
THE record is chiefly concerned with
= the middle class. Its members suf-
fered most, says Herr Frischauer, and
In their fall brought down the rest OF
society. He tells what struggles wen,
on in the homes of professional and
small business people to maintain re-
spectacle standard of living in the de-
preston years. He tells then of how
the sons of such families, cut off from
their hopes of education, began to form
parties and to talk politics and fill in
their empty time by marching ano
drilling. And Of how, inevitably ad-
venturers and rogues came to the lead
ership of these parties and turned them
into armies, with the result that Aus
tria was spit into two camps, Right
and Left, arb.yrarily and completely
and nobody knew how either side was
to help matters in any respect, but all
came to believe blindly that, II the
other faction could be annihilated
something might be done. Wherefore
1t was senseless, ceaseless war to the
death in the distracted country, with
no objective before either side but the
destruction of the other.
All this is told, as said. in a per-
Isonalized manner; it is free from the
[jargon OF economics and ideologies;
the author has tried to present the
unspeakable conditions to the reader
Just as they presented themselves to
the ordinary head of an Austrian
family. a man whose normal wishes
would be simply to live peaceably and
to see his children we'll provided for.
Such a man, says Herr Frischauer in
effect, might just as well have cher
ished his good will in the midst Of a
pack of homicidal maniacs.
EOR the result of such conditions
was to destroy good will every
where; blackmailers became common
place. tricksters in every rank of life
were the rule: swindling was the word
used to describe business; women of
good families forsook their principals;
vice became almost respectable pro-
fession-we are shown, in short, a
colossal madhouse, shown it in great
detail and in manner which be-
speaks close familiarity. The work
indeed is immensely clever in its
presentation of general conditions in
specific, even intimate terms The
method has not heretofore been used
in recounting recent history, as far
as the reviewer remembers, and it
seems to her extremely effective.
There is, to be sure, certain evan
gelical quality in the work which
sometimes is tiring. Herr Frischauer
is terribly in earnest and cannot resist
making his effects with heavy hand
occasionally. He concludes that the
ceaseless, silly party warfare-which
grew out of nothing but poverty-so
weakened and bewildered the people
that, finally, dictatorship was not
only inevitable but necessary No
other form of government could have
been understood he implies. by the
demoraliz and forlorn Viennese.
But he maintains that the Dollfuss
and Schusnig's regimes were en-
lightened relationships, guided by true
patriots, who had for their ultimate
aim to return the country to democ-
racy as soon as the problems of poverty
an6 disorder had been effectually
handled. And this consummation, he
declares, was we'll on the way to being
accomplished when Hitler intervened
last March. The warning parties had
by then been subdued-both those of
the left and of the right-the cur
rency had been stabilized and eco
nofhic recovery was at hand. The
book closes with veritable dirge over
the Fatherland, deprived of its ma
tional existence after its long anguish
Of rebirth.
THERE u.s. of course, a sort of humor
in the idea of Austria bewailing
her lost freedom. A hundred years ago,
Hungarians were bewailing lost free
dom, too, and Serbians, Bohemians,
Croats and other Central European
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