dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart): Its evolution, its rise, and its decline form a considerable part of German history. Austria was and is a piece of the German soul, of the German glory, and German suffering. Austria has received inestimable strength from the old Reich, but she herself has made a great and valuable contribution to the whole of German culture. Her historical beginnings go back to the Frank, Charlemagne, who created the first "Ostmark," for the protection of the Reich against the East; she became a victim of the advance of the Magyars. The victory of the German King Otto I at Lechfeld in 955 is the hour of the rebirth of an Austria which now remains, under the rule of the Frankish house of the Babenbergs, the rampart against the East for almost three centuries. When the last of the Babenbergs fell in the fight, Austria came to the Alemanian house of the Hapsburgs which was to bear throughout centuries the imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and was to be by its, predominant position the strongest shield of the Reich. The mystic strength of the Reich idea gives to Emperor Frederick III the unshakable belief in the universal future of the House of Austria: Austria erit in orbe ultima. Under Maximilian Vienna becomes the main seat of humanism. Charles V goes on beyond the nation and is filled with the worldpower idea of the medieval empire. The defense and liberation of Vienna in the year 1683 is a deed of the greatest significance. Under the ruling colors of the German king, Catholics and Protestants, sons of an German peoples, fight for the fate of the capital of Christianity. In the eighteenth century, in the clash of the territorial states against the Reich, princely dominions against the Reich concept, German dualism arises, which from now on was to be the tragic fate of the Reich and Austria-Austria and Prussia, Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great, the great empress and the great king. Through the conflict between the two powers the old Roman Empire of the German nation was destroyed in 1806.
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart): The Reich died, but the concept of the Reich lived on. At Leipzig, in 1813, Prussians and Austrians fought shoulder to shoulder under Schwarzenberg, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Bluecher to free themselves from the yoke of the Corsican tyrant. On 11 January 1849 the deputies of all German states assembled at Frankfurt-am-Main for the constitutional assembly. The Austrian delegate, Bergassessor Karl Wagner from Styria in Austria, spoke at that time the memorable words: "Leave an opening for us so that we can enter; we shall come, unfortunately, perhaps not all of us. We, Austria's Germans, will come-how and when, who can tell? Who can read in the book of the future? But we shall come!" The year before, in St. Paul's Church, where the delegates of all German lands and states had met, the poet Ludwig Uhland, as a deputy, spoke the memorable words: "It may well be that Austria's mission is to be a light for the East; but she has a higher, a nearer mission-to be the artery in the heart of Germany." But on the battlefields of Koeniggraetz in 1866, the thousand years' mutual bond between Austria and Germany was broken and Austria was forced to leave the German federation. How unsatisfactory the solution of the German question by Bismarck's forced exclusion of Austria from the union of German states was, was also recognized in the Reich, where Paul de Lagarde wrote in 1875: "But despite this, 1866 and the German Reich is an episode. Nikolsburg cannot separate what has been decided by geography and history to be together, if this being together will not be a union for a long time to come." But before the double eagle of the Hapsburgs went down forever, Germans and Austrians once again fought shoulder to shoulder in 1914-18, with true Nibelung loyalty, for the freedom of the fatherland. The common history of almost a thousand years, but above all the common language and origins, the same customs and mode of life-all combine to form the bond of unity between the two countries in the whole field of culture, of creative poetry and scientific research.
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart): If here, the Austrian shows a special structure, then this is above all the fact that especially in the field of the art of poetry and music he has achieved performances which surpassed the creation of other German peoples by far, or at least were equal to them. As it can also be emphasized, that the living together for centuries with other nations makes the Austrian stand out, to equalize contradictions and to bridge inequalities. His joy in the sensuous, in the colorful, and his sense for the superficialities of life may have made him especially suitable for this. The narrow frame of the Trial imposes justified limitations here on an extensive description of the mutual cultural life. I limit myself to the quotation of names: The singers of the Nibelungenlied; the Minnesaenger, Walther von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, and Oswald von Wolkenstein; the humanists Aeneas Sylvius and Konrad Celtis; the orientalist Hammer-Purgstall; the poet of the "Wehrmannslieder" Von Collin, the classical dramatic Franz Grillparzer; the homeland poets Stelzhammer and Rosegger; and finally Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Werfel, Anton Wildgans, and Hermann Bahr. When I turn to the magic world of music, then there is an abundance of the most illustrious names: Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, the waltz kings Lanner and Strauss, the symphonic composer Anton Bruckner, an were Austrians. But is it not a symbol of spiritual unity that not only the North German poet Hubbell, but also Beethoven and Brahms made art-loving Vienna the permanent city of their work? There is no German music without Austria. But Austria not only made her contribution to the cultural life of the German people in the field of art, but also in the fields of science and technology. But let us return to the Obersalzberg. If Hitler, the demonic psychopath, loved his homeland with the love of a rejected suitor then the love of Hermann Goering was of an entirely different kind. He also liked to look over into nearby Austria. He spent his youth there; it was not joyless and empty.
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart): In the land of Salzburg with its old bishop city, its lakes and mountains, Hermann Goering learned to know Austrian characteristics, learned to love the people and country. What a joy it was for the courageous huntsman and later aviator when he got the first chamois on the crags in the cross-hairs of his telescopic sight. When he was severely injured by a burst of machine-gun fire on 9 November 1923 in the Odeonsplatz in Munich, faithful friends accompanied by his wife Karin, herself mortally ill, then took him from the pursuing bailiffs over lonely wood trails into the free Tyrol mountains of Austria. A large relief, on which already long before the Anschluss Austria was marked on the map of Germany without borderlines, shone in the large hall of Karinhall. But Hermann Goering was also Delegate of the Four Year Plan and knew that Austria was not only beautiful and rich with honors, but that she also owned the Erzberg where there was iron ore for the forging of guns; he knew the rich forests of Austria where there was wood for cellulose, for the construction of ships, and for rearmament; it was not unknown to him that there was in Austria the largest bauxite and magnesium sources of the world, and that Austria had the rich petroleum weds at Zisterndorf. Only power makes right! If Germany wants to have her say again in the world, then she must have a strong army and a strong navy. And for this reason he loved Austria! Hermann Goering also never denied this, his conviction, and he expressed this repeatedly to the diplomats of the great powers. For instance, he stated openly to Lord Halifax, that it was an integrated part of German policy, regardless what government was in power, that the moment had to be created so that the unification of the two brother nations of purely German origin and blood could take place.
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart): He has also testified with human candor as witness before the Tribunal that when the question of the Anschluss came into its acute stage, he had grasped this ardently longed-for possibility for the total solution and that he takes upon himself the responsibility for everything which happened then, one hundred percent. He is therefore also to be believed when he stated further that he would do everything therewith so that the Anschluss would not lead to an endangering of the peace.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is possible for the Tribunal to become acquainted with the history of Austria without having it read to them as a part of your argument. Up to now there has been nothing in your 20 pages but history of Austria.
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, I beg your pardon; I consider it essential to portray the background in Austria which motivated my client. I have now finished, and I shall pass on to the facts. The massed common will of the big two of the Third Reich to take over Austria at the opportune moment is the key to the solution of the Anschluss question. For that, there is no need for a l9 July 46 conspiracy; those who participated were pawns on the chessboard of the two men, supers on the great stage of the world. But let us return to Austria. Only if we know the history of this country in the time from 1918 to 1938, are we in a position to judge the role of the defendant in this question justly. I have already pointed out in the presentation of evidence that in my opinion there were three reasons for the Anschluss, and I have also attempted to reinforce these by the documents submitted, to which I now refer: 1. The economic distress; 2. The disunity resulting from this; 3. The conduct of the great powers toward Austria, especially during the critical days of March 1938. Dr. Karl Renner, the Federal President of the Austrian Republic, who enjoys the confidence of the four occupying powers, and on whom the entire Austrian people look with respect because he took the helm of the ship of state for the second time in a period of dire distress, described the history of the Anschluss very aptly in his memorandum in 1945: "The political reason why the Anschluss idea took hold of almost all of Austria at the conclusion of the first World War lay in the repeated proclamations of the victorious powers that the war was waged for the right of self-determination of nations- "That every nation had a claim to her own complete national state, and that the peace would fulfill this requirement. "But it was not this political reason that was decisive for the masses. Austria is a mountainous country with much too little arable land, a country with an entirely one-sided economic structure.
DR. STEINBAUER: Its capital alone sheltered a third of the population; its industry was able to feed a large part of the people only by working for Austria's neighbors, receiving from them raw materials and bread. The sudden separation of the highly agrarian parts of the previously uniform tariff territory of the Danube monarchy and the measures of the succession states in 1918 introducing high protective tariffs deprived the country simultaneously of its food sources and its export markets. The fear of not being able to feed themselves and of not being able to find work at home, the sudden construction of the labor market, were the factors which in 1918 made the Anschluss appear to almost everybody as the only possible solution. One cannot talk about the national chauvinism of the Austrian working class, because a large percentage of this class derived from parents of non-German blood who had hardly lost their ties with the homeland. The overwhelming competition of the Reich German and Czechoslovakian industry loomed menacingly before the workers of all professions in this small country, cut off from the sea, and poor in raw materials, and afraid that it would not be able to stand up against this competition. Not until we understand the economic situation can we understand the Anschluss movement, and why it was that Hitler's boastful announcement that he had done away with unemployment made such a deep impression on the Austrian working class, and why the will to resist the Anschluss was so weak within this working class at the beginning." I have in front of me an economic statistical comparison from the year 1938. There are a few figures only, which speak volumes: Germany 			Austria Population 	68,150,000 	6,710,000 Area (in square km.) 	470,714 	83,868 Change in population (1936) per 1,000 inhabitants 	plus 7.2 	minus 0.1 Unemployed 1934 	2,353,000 	363,000 Unemployed 1937 	573,000 	319,000 Austria's Foreign Trade 1937; Export: To Germany, 179.8 millions to Italy 172.6 millions; to Hungary 111.2 millions; to Czechoslovakia 87.5 millions.
DR. STEINBAUER: By the decision of 5 September 1931 the Permanent International Court at The Hague declared the contemplated customs union between Germany and Austria incompatible with the Geneva Protocol of 4 October 1922 by 8 votes to 7. This was the last attempt of the governments to achieve a closer mutual constitutional relationship with the express agreement of the victorious powers. It failed. Was not the conviction bound to arise in the minds of fanatical Anschluss partisans that this supreme national aim could only be achieved through their own initiative? A year later Austrian foreign brace showed a deficit of 613 million schillings. On 15 July 1932 Dr. Dollfuss concluded a loan agreement in Lausanne on the condition that the Anschluss question would be put off for another 10 years. The ratification took place during the session of the National Council on 30 August 1932 by 82 votes to 80. In the federal council, the Social Democrat Koerner, at present mayor of Vienna, had protested against this law, in view of a rapprochement with Germany. Hitler came to power the year after. The Social Democrats saw their party dissolved in the Reich and the trade unions smashed; they saw the Reichstag fire and the beginning of the persecution of the Jews, and their leaders turned away from the Anschluss idea. The Catholic circles who wanted to fortify the Catholic element in the Reich by means of the Anschluss also turned away because the persecution of the Church in the Reich had begun; and only the National Socialists, whose membership had increased tenfold within a short time, were in favor of the Anschluss. As Dr. Dollfuss had eliminated Parliament and thereby the way to power by means of the ballot, the National Socialists under the leadership of Landesinspekteur Theo Habicht strove with all means to gain power in the state. We come to the bloody events of the year 1934. Dr. Dollfuss is killed by the hands of assassins and his successor Dr. Schuschnigg attempts to restore order in the seriously shaken state system.
DR. STEINBAUER: The Socialists, however, remain sulkily aloof because of the events in February 1934. There are changes in the political situation abroad too. Whereas Italy in 1934 still stood at Austria's side, and Mussolini had deployed his divisions on the Brenner menacingly against the North, the Ethiopian adventure had forced Italy to Hitler's side. Austria is forced to follow the changed course and in order to improve the economic situation concluded the Agreement of 11 July 1936. In this agreement Germany recognizes the independence of Austria and ceases the economic war. The price for that, however, is a series of measures which give the National Socialists in Austria a new boost. In order to extend the small platform of his Government and bring about a real appeasement, Chancellor Dr. Schuschnigg declares himself willing to invite also the so-called Nationals to co-operate. Among these men is also the defendant, who then became Austrian State Councillor in May 1937. As already mentioned, the Anschluss idea constituted his political program. He never tried to hide this fact. He also comes from the ranks of the National Opposition, a factor which must not be overlooked. The Anschluss also brought him nearer to National Socialism, and it seems idle to engage in long investigations to find out at what time he officially became a member of the Party. Among the documents confiscated at his arrest was his membership card with the number above 7,000,000. The witnesses Gauleiter Rainer and Uiberreither confirm the statements concerning his Party membership. When, after taking office, the new State Councillor paid his first visit to the Fuehrer's deputy, Hess, the latter was very polite but cool and expressed his regret that Seyss-Inquart was not an old fighter. The task of Dr. Seyss-Inquart was to supervise the execution of the July Agreement and to act as a mediator between the Austrian Government, the National circles, and the Reich. It was a thorny and thankless task.
DR. STEINBAUER: The Austrian patriotic circles (Vaterlandische Kreise) could not forget the terror methods of the National Socialists during the Dollfuss period. The National Socialists, headed by Captain Leopold, were not satisfied with the methods of the national representative Seyss-Inquart in his dealings with the Government. Between these two men there were constant differences of opinion, which went so far that Seyss-Inquart wanted to give up the task entrusted to him-namely, bring about an agreement. To save time I refer in this connection to Documents Seyss-Inquart-44 (letter from State Secretary Keppler to General Bodenschatz), Seyss-Inquart-45 (Goering's telegram to Keppler) and Seyss-Inquart-46 (USA-704) of my document book. There were continuous violations of the July Agreement, and the Austrian Police found the plan for a revolution known as Tavs Plan, which was an attempt to overthrow the Government by violence. Minister Guido Zernatto has declared that the defendant kept himself aloof from all these endeavors. Then came the conference of 12 February 1938 at Obersalzberg. What happened at this conference is well known. That the defendant discussed things on the evening before this conference not only with Zernatto, the representative and confidant of the Chancellor in the Government, but also with the National leaders is understandable, for one must never lose sight of the fact that the defendant had always openly declared his role as mediator. He also had to know the claims of the opposition, so that when the two statesmen met at Berchtesgaden the differences could be cleared up. The defendant cannot be charged with playing a double game within the framework of a conspiracy, because the National Socialist Party tried to exploit the knowledge of the situation to their profit, and by dispatching Muehlmann were quicker than the unsuspecting Chancellor Schuschnigg.
DR. STEINBAUER: Here, too, we must have recourse to Zernatto, who died in exile, and who declared that he was under the definite impression that Seyss-Inquart did not know at the time about the agreements concluded at the Obersalzberg. On the basis of this agreement Seyss-Inquart was appointed Minister of the Interior and Security. He went in that capacity to Berlin to pay an official visit to the Chief of State of the German Reich and to present to him his political program for the relations between the two states, as set down in the memoranda for file (Exhibit Number 61) submitted to the Tribunal The account of this conference as given by the defendant in his testimony appears to be quite authentic. For various reasons Hitler had at that time obviously not yet decided to carry out the Anschluss. Let us here refer to what the Defendant Goering says, when he testified as a witness on 14 March: "I was not present at Berchtesgaden; moreover I was not in favor of this agreement, because I was always against any half measures which would prolong this state of suspension." In a sense the Berchtesgaden agreement gave the Nazis in Austria a free hand to carry on their activities and propaganda. The 2,000 Party members released from prison on the basis of the amnesty and at least some of the members who had returned from the Reich became increasingly active in the federal states and sought to bring about a rapid growth of the Party. Hitler's Reichstag speech of 20 February was used by them as a signal for hostile demonstrations against the Government and thus to bring them quickly to power. Not only Schuschnigg but also the great mass of the working class realized how dangerous the situation had now become. The threatening danger caused them to forget their differences, and the negotiations between Schuschnigg and the Socialist labor leaders and the Christian trade unions seemed to provide a guarantee for the defeat of the imminent attack of Nazism by uniting all democratic forces in a common defensive front.
DR. STEINBAUER: Prompt action was necessary, and Schuschnigg proclaimed his plebiscite. The whole country awoke from its lethargy. Workers and peasants were called upon to defend their country, and under the leadership of Zernatto swift electoral preparations were made in the factories and in the remote mountain valleys. It was clear that this attempt of Chancellor Schuschnigg to veer round and alter his course at the last moment could not fail to call forth the resistance of the National Socialists in Austria as well as in Germany. Hitler raved, and Mussolini's words before the election warning Schuschnigg that the bomb would explode in his own hand, unfortunately proved only too true. And now let us come back to the defendant. He was not only a Government member, he was the confidant of the National Opposition and guarantor answerable to the Reich for Berchtesgaden. When the Prosecution charge him with having given Schuschnigg his word of honor about the election and having failed to keep it, that is not correct. Let us refer to the speech made by Gauleiter Rainer on 11 March 1942 to the Berlin Party members. On Page 12 of this Document, 4005-PS, it is disclosed that Zernatto's secretary was a secret member of the NSDAP and betrayed the plebiscite plans to her combers as soon as she came to know of them. Rainer says he already knew the whole plan at 11:30 p.m. that same evening.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess now. [A recess was taken.]