October 15, 2021

By Steve Jonas, MD, MPH

What have I known about "Der Anschluss" --- the pre-World War II "joining" of Germany and Austria?  Growing up in an anti-Nazi, historically-aware household during the Second World War, for me the word has always meant simply the event that took place on March 12, 1938, when through the invasion of Austria by Nazi Germany, that joining took place. However, looking up the term on (where else [?] ) Wikipedia, I discovered that the word dates back to the time of the unification of Germany, as the Prussian Empire, at the end of the Franco-Prussian War (Western terminology) in 1871.  “Der Anschluss” did not happen then, as Austria remained part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

But the "joining" became a wish among certain political elements on both sides of the border from that time right up until it actually happened, on March 12, 1938, when an unopposed invasion of Austria by Nazi Germany occurred, and Austria was unceremoniously absorbed into the growing Nazi (not Prussian to be sure) "Reich" in Central Europe. As is well-known, this growth occurred entirely in violation of the Versailles Treaty of 1919, but nevertheless entirely without any opposition from the Western Powers. (The Soviet Union didn't like what the Nazis were doing, but could never get the attention of Great Britain and France to cooperate on dealing forcefully with the issue of Nazi expansion eastward, which eventually led to the USSR buying time with the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 25, 1939.)  As for the desired “joining,” with the Nazi pressure building and the cooperation of the Austrian government, anti-Semitic and nazi (but not yet Nazi) itself, the German tanks rolled into the country, unopposed, on the date above.

As an adult, I came to a minor, indirect, but personal, connection, on the ground, to this series of events. On that morning of March 12, 1938, in Vienna, an 8-year-old Jewish boy woke up to look out his bedroom window to see those Nazi tanks rolling down the street. As it happened, political anti-Semitism had been (literally) invented in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1870s. The anti-Semitism that had been codified in the 5th century by St. Augustine had been for all of that time primarily religious in nature (building on "The Jews Killed Christ"), although it had been used for political purposes on many an occasion. The Austrian version was different in that it was political in nature.  It was in fact specifically designed for use in the elections that had begun to come into play in the several European powers as Constitutional monarchies were established in the part of the 19th century.

Political anti-Semitism was rife in Austria in the 1930s, leading up to Der Anschluss, and certainly paved the way for the series of events that led to it. And that little boy, Paul, had certainly been exposed to it. But seeing the Nazi tanks in front of the family window and then experiencing the massive anti-Semitic rally in Vienna at which Hitler spoke on March 15, was different. And the Germans were there. Austria had been absorbed into the Third Reich. That was different too.

Jews had been randomly killed in Austria before Der Anschluss, but this was surely to be different. As it happened that little boy's mother happened to be very resourceful and a few months later she somehow managed to spirit the family, including, of course, Paul's dad, who was a physician but not very good at doing such things, across the border into Switzerland. She eventually managed to get them all to the U.S., where Paul grew up and later became a major figure in broadcast radio in New York City. I met him later in life --- which provided me with that indirect, but personal connection to the events of that day. As Paul told me on more than one occasion, for all of the adventures in getting to the U.S., for all of getting educated, and for all of achieving what he eventually achieved here, the biggest event in his life was still seeing those Nazi tanks rolling into Vienna down the street in front of window on March 12, 1938, when he was eight years old.

The Role of the German Ruling Class in Enabling the Nazi Takeover

So why, you might ask, and probably have, why would I use a story about Der Anschluss, and quite a lengthy one at that, to introduce a column on the U.S. ruling class and the potential advent of full-blown Republo-fascism in this country. (For a review of my writings on this subject, see my most recent column here on Op-Ed News: "Republo-Fascism and Trump: A Brief Review of SJ Columns on the Subject": Click Here.)  Good question.

In 2018 the English translation of a book by a French author, Eric Vuillard, entitled "The Order of the Day" was published. In its original French, published in 2017, it was a prize-winner. The main text is a brief, entirely gripping description of the events that immediately preceded Der Anschluss itself. But for our purposes here, it is the book’s "Introduction" which is the most important part. For, the Publishers Weekly entry for the book (reference above) says, it begins with a brief description of “. . . a fateful February 1933 [emphasis added] meeting of 24 German business leaders with Hitler that led to their funding the Nazis' campaign(s) . . .".  This meeting occurred after the controversial appointment by the Weimar Republic's President von Hindenburg of Hitler as German Chancellor on January 30, 1933, but before the fateful Reichstag Fire of February 27, 1933 which, as it was used by the Nazis, led directly to the establishment of the Hitler Dictatorship under "The Enabling Act" of March 23, 1933.

One can only speculate at this point, but it is highly unlikely that Hitler and the Nazi Party would have been able to move ahead as they did without that meeting and the endorsement that occurred at it.  It happened that the attendees' list included virtually all of the major German “Captains of Industry,” names still well known to anyone who knows anything about German industry TODAY, e.g., Krupp, Schacht, Thyssen (who recruited as an early U.S. supporter of the German Nazi Party [1923], one George Herbert Walker), von Siemens, Opel, Quandt, Reuter, as well as major corporate elements of German industry and finance, such as BASF, Bayer, Agfa, I.G. Farben, Allianz, and Telefunken. The assembly was first addressed by Hermann Goering, and then by the man himself, Adolf Hitler. There were 24 of them, the crème-de-la-crime (if I may use a slight modification of the French term) of the German ruling class.

Hitler came to ask them for their approval, in general terms to be sure, of what he was planning to do. Not in detail, of course, but he had given countless speeches since becoming head of the then-burgeoning Nazi Party in the early 1920s.  As is well-known, in 1926 he had published a very detailed book on his program and plans, called "My Struggle" (which may be more familiar as Mein Kampf --- a book which apparently found a place on the nightstand of a man who would become known as a future U.S. President who never read anything, not even his Presidential Daily Briefs). At that meeting in 1933, the assembled throng gave that support and approval to Hitler, apparently unanimously. The purposely set Reichstag Fire came quickly, followed by a rigged election ripe with voter intimidation (sound familiar?) on March 5, then on to the Enabling Act on March 23, which established the Hitler dictatorship (the passage of which happened to have been finally enabled in the Reichstag by the Catholic Center Party, in return for certain guarantees of Catholic independence).

The Relevance of Then for Now

The experience of the five major fascist powers of the 20th century, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Spain, and Japan, showed that the fascist takeover of each, while different in form in each case, did not take place without the approval/sponsorship of the capitalist ruling class of each of those nations. The forms: Hungary, appointment by a monarch; Italy, appointment by a monarch; Germany, appointment by a President; Japan, military coup; Spain, victory in a civil war. In each case, as M. Vuillard illustrated so elegantly for Germany, the capitalist ruling class of the country was firmly behind what became in each case a fully authoritarian government (which came to be known [thanks to Mussolini] as "fascist.") If the U.S. Republo-fascists (as noted, see my most recent column on OpEdNews for a listing of all the columns that I have published on this subject) succeed in taking over all or a significant portion of the United States, if history is any guide, they will be able to do that only with significant Ruling Class support. They already have the Petro-chemical industry, certain chunks of publishing, certain sectors of finance, banking, and real estate, and so on and so forth. But --- they hardly have all of it.

Major chunks of the Ruling Class support the Democratic Party. They have found over the years that bourgeois Constitutional democracy works very well for them. This goes back to the time of the New Deal, which certainly had significant ruling class support as providing the best way out of the Great Depression. But at the same time, there was the pro-Nazi "America First" movement led by Henry Ford with Charles Lindbergh as their front-man. A Republican Right has certainly existed down through the years since then: e.g., Joe McCarthy, Ronald Reagan, G.W. Bush. But whether or not it has formerly believed in (capitalist/"bourgeois") Constitutional Democracy, it is only now, with Donald Trump as its front man, for a variety of economic, political and social reasons (that we have dealt with elsewhere in the referred-to columns-series) clearly moving to replace that system with a U.S. version of fascism.

I will be dealing with these issues again, of course, but for now it suffices to say that if the capitalist ruling class wing that has found happiness under traditional bourgeois Constitutional democracy wants to keep it, they had better start getting their act together, and soon. Or the Republo-fascists and its ruling-class supporters will have left them in their dust, just as the German ruling class of the 1930s caused the German version of bourgeois parliamentary democracy to be trampled into dust by the Nazis. Who happened to get themselves into the position where they could do that through the electoral system, which they then proceeded to destroy. One last point here: during the time of the post-World War One Weimar Republic, the Nazis were never more than a minority party. Sound familiar?

Returning to the Beginning of this Column

Let us just hope that one day down the road there is not an 8-year-old boy, living in the part of the nation that still is surviving under bourgeois Constitutional Democracy, who one morning awakes to see the tanks of the Republo-fascists coming down the streets of his city. For one thing, for that little boy (or girl) there will be no place to go.

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Addendum I

One hopeful sign: "Republicans are losing the support of the business community. Democrats should take advantage," Charlotte Rampell, The Washington Post, October 8, 2021

Addendum II

Second hopeful sign (from an authority who is usually rather on the pessimistic side, concerning the Republicans, Trump, and impending fascism, a term which he has used on more than one occasion to describe the aforementioned): "What if Things are About to Get Better?" Paul Krugman, The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2021.

Addendum III

Third hopeful sign: " 'Feud between GOP, pro-business groups explodes into view after spat over infrastructure bill.' .

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Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at StonyBrookMedicine (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 35 books.  In addition to his position on OpEdNews.com  as a “Trusted Author,” he is a regular contributor to BuzzFlash.com, and on occasion to Reader Supported News/Writing for Godot and From The G-Man.  His own political website, stevenjonaspolitics.com, is an archive of the 1000 or so political columns he has published since 2004, with the current columns being added to it as they appear.  He was also a career triathlete, 36 seasons, 256 multi-sport races, and writer on the sport (books and articles).  He now is officially retired from racing.

He has a blind-copy distribution list for his columns.  If you would like to be added to it, please send Dr. Jonas an email at sjtpj@aol.com.

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