Chapter 69 - Klingenbach History, Pt. 8 ... Disaster of World War II

The Spanish philosopher, George Santayana, said that "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it." That sentiment is certainly true of Austria after World War I. They lost 88% of their territory and 89% of their population but had to endure another catastrophe before they could learn that lesson.

The causes of World War II are myriad and complicated, and I'm not going to go into them except as how they affected Austria, and then only to hit the high points, or as I always told my kids, "give me the outline version."

After World War I the Austrian government asked to be unified with Germany, but the treaties that ended the war expressly forbade that unification - forever. Here is Europe after World War I with Austria at only 12% of her prewar size. Note Klingenbach's location, once again on the border.


During the 1920s Austria suffered from galloping inflation, followed by the Depression that gripped the rest of Europe and North America. But life still went on in Austria and in Burgenland where the citizens of tiny Klingenbach went about their daily work. The population in Burgenland in 1921 when the state was created on the eastern border of Austria was 285,600. Unemployment was so high and the economy so unstable that up to a quarter of Burgenlanders emigrated to North America during the 1920s.

A typical Austrian family during this period


The Austrian National Soccer Team sometime in the 1930s


A depiction of the harvest in rural Austria in the 1930s


People still went on holidays. This is a travel poster for the Styrian area of Austria in the 1930s.


And gentlemen still bought jewelry for their ladies. This black and clear crystal bead necklace is from the 1930s.


The First Republic of Austria struggled politically in the '20s and '30s, swinging violently between left and right. Vienna was largely controlled by communists, and right-wing parties close to the Roman Catholic Church held the rest of the country. Paramilitary forces clashed, and massive protests led to killings. Political conflict escalated until a brief civil war in 1934 resulted in a fascist government along the style of the Italians, accompanied by abolition of basic freedoms.

To make an extremely long and complicated story short, Austrian fascists arranged a plebiscite to vote on unification (Anschluss) with Germany. Distrustful of the results, German troops marched into Austria the day before the planned vote and installed a puppet government that held a rigged plebiscite a month later. That vote approved the annexation with a 99.73% majority. Austria disappeared as an independent nation and was renamed "Ostmark" (Eastern Mark). Britain, France and other European countries did nothing although I suspect they "deplored" the situation (don't you just love 'diplospeak').

This is a map of the new Third Reich after the Anschluss on March 12, 1938.


In case you were wondering if Austrians disapproved of the Anschluss, think again. They overwhelmingly approved.

Austrians welcoming German troops as they cross the border


Austrians welcoming German troops into Vienna


This is a celebration of the Anschluss in Heldenplatz (Square of Heroes) on March 15.


Hitler gave a speech in the Heldenplatz on that day.


Austrian women celebrating the Anschluss


Austrian children celebrating the Anschluss


This is a painting by Austrian artist Rudolf Hermann Eisenmemger, entitled "Austria Comes Home."


New official stamp. It means "Greater German Reich."


Members of the civil service and police forces in Burgenland had expressed the desire to join Germany since the mid 1920s, and Nazi Party strength was very strong in the state. Burgenland was the first Austrian state to go over to Nazi rule, even before the Anschluss and the first to expel Jews. Systematic looting, persecution and forced emigration began first in Burgenland which had a population of 3,632 Jews. There were seven Jewish communities in the north half of Burgenland including Eisenstadt and five in the south. Forced emigration of all Burgenland Jews - primarily to Vienna - was completed by the end of summer, 1938.

The Jewish population of Vienna was 176,000 in 1938 with another 17,000 living elsewhere in Austria. Many emigrated or were transported to the east by the Nazis. Only 700 survived the Holocaust. (Today's Jewish population of Vienna is about 8,000 due primarily to the immigration of Hungarian Jews in 1956 and Jews from Russia and other former Soviet republics in the '70s and '80s.) There is more on Jewish history in Austria on blog # 46 (Wiener Neustadt).

Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) was a pogrom ordered by Hitler. It took place on the night of November 9-10, 1938 all over the Reich. Synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses vandalized and ransacked, thousands of Jews were beaten, arrested and deported. It was particularly brutal in Austria.

Jews in Vienna being forced to wash the street


Most synagogues were razed to the ground. Here is Seitenstettengasse Synagogue, a lucky one. Because of an edict by Emperor Joseph II, this synagogue built in 1825 fitted into a block of houses so it would be hidden from plain view. The Nazis couldn't burn it because it would destroy nearby buildings. They ransacked and vandalized it instead. The damage was repaired in 1949.


The German government oppressed other ethnic minorities besides Jews. In Burgenland minority schools were closed, and speaking Croatian or Hungarian was discouraged. Sinti and Roma (two groups of Gypsies) were exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Between 220,000 and 500,000 Sinti and Roma died. In Burgenland many were held at a concentration camp in Lackenbach.

War loomed, but women are always interested in fashion. This is what they were wearing in Europe in 1939-40.


Popular shoe in Europe in 1939-40. Continuing proof that there have never been comfortable shoes for women before the modern tennis shoe.


War began on September 1, 1939 when the Nazi Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe invaded Poland. For three years things went very well for Germany and its Axis allies. This map shows Europe in 1941 before the Reich's invasion of the Soviet Union. Note Klingenbach on the border between the Axis and its Axis allies, probably not a comfortable place to be.


Austrian soldiers preparing to leave for the front


A Flakturm in Vienna. There were three pairs of these flack towers.


When you sow the wind, you eventually reap the whirlwind, and it certainly raged through Austria. The Flakturms didn't prevent Allied bombing of targets; Vienna was bombed 52 times during the war, and 20% of the city was destroyed. Only 41 civilian vehicles survived, and 270,000 residents were left homeless. Nearby Wiener Neustadt, home to many military factories, was also heavily bombed (for more info on that, see blog #45).

A bombed palace in Vienna in 1944


A Viennese family


Women clearing bomb debris


The Austrian concentration camp, Mauthausen, a stain on the national conscience of Austria.


Victims at Mauthausen


Waiting for relatives to return at the end of the war


Austrian refugees


So World War II, the most destructive war in the history of man, was over after some fifty million people died. Austria lost 380,000 soldiers and 145,000 civilians, a considerable number for such a small country. To show how devastating the losses were, Austria lost close to the same number of soldiers as the United States, a country with 20 times the population. Austria was on the losing side for the second time in the 20th century, but the Allies didn't reduce the little country again; she was already so tiny. But Austria was divvied up into four parts and occupied for ten years.

Occupied Europe after the war. The pale yellow is British occupied, the gray by the Soviet Union, the green by the U.S., and the orange by the French.


Occupied Austria. The purple is French occupied, the yellow by the U.S., the pink by the British, and the green by the Soviet Union. This is where unfortunate Klingenbach lay.


In most of Austria the Allied occupation was strict but not cruel. That can't be said of the area in Austria the Soviet Union occupied, which included Burgenland and Klingenbach. Enraged by the severe losses they'd suffered during the war (20 million soldiers and civilians), they were especially cruel to citizens of the former Third Reich, and that included the residents of Burgenland. The Cold War will be the next chapter in the long and twisting history of Klingenbach.