Those familiar with the origins of World War II know that on February 12, 1938 Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg met face to face with Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Here the Führer browbeat Schuschnigg into appointing Austrian Nazis to his cabinet. On March 9, Schuschnigg attempted to pull his chestnuts out of the fire by calling for a plebiscite on Austrian independence. This was too much for the Nazi dictator. Two days later, German troops invaded Austria, where they were rapturously received by the population. There were many reasons why a majority of Austrians welcomed the Anschluss, although scholars concur that Schuschnigg himself must bear a share of the blame. After all, he had outlawed and persecuted the Social Democrats in such a way as to drive many of them to support the indigenous Nazi party.
But what happened to Schuschnigg? Briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo, he disappeared from public view, his whereabouts known only by a handful of relatives. In 1945, he was freed by the Allies, amazingly healthy and well dressed. In this remarkable book, Erika Rummel explains how and why Schuschnigg survived as a privileged prisoner in the Third Reich. Shortly after the Anschluss, the Nazis placed him in solitary confinement at the Hotel Metropole in Vienna. In November 1938, he was transferred to Gestapo headquarters in Munich. Although under surveillance in both locations, he was incarcerated in cells resembling modest living rooms and permitted to go for brief walks and enjoy weekly visitations with his second wife, whom he had married in 1938. The couple had a daughter in March 1941. In December of that year, Schuschnigg was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, assigned a small house, and permitted to live with his wife and daughter until shortly before the end of the war.
Relying on several, often contradictory editions of Schuschnigg's memoirs as well a trove of diary entries and personal letters, Rummel brilliantly describes and analyzes how Schuschnigg attempted to cope psychologically with his personal plight and to explain to himself why he had failed as chancellor. She devotes just under two-thirds of her study to Schuschnigg's observations within Sachsenhausen, his daily life, his various coping techniques, and, above all, his personal soul-searching. The account is organized topically rather than chronologically. One of Rummel's most important chapters focuses on Schuschnigg's religious faith as a source of solace. As a devout Roman Catholic, the former chancellor missed the rituals of the institutional church and its ceremonies, most notably Easter. He yearned to take Holy Communion and confess his sins to a priest. He never lost his faith in God, recalling after liberation that imprisonment actually reinforced it.
Schuschnigg found considerable comfort in reading and rereading an enormous number of books, mostly from his personal library, including some in English, French, and Italian. As a highly educated member of the Bildungsbürgertum, he concentrated almost exclusively on classical literature and philosophy, including Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, and Plato. Rummel notes that Schuschnigg never attended a cinema, indicating that he had little understanding of or interest in the people he governed. His interests were “wide ranging” though focused unsurprisingly on political, economic, and social events of the past century. Here the author provides a detailed explication of Schuschnigg's writings, subtly calling attention to his elitist obsession with Plato. Readers are thus reminded how and why the Anschluss came as a tremendous shock to the embattled Austrian chancellor.
Much the same could be said of Schuschnigg's taste in music, which favored works by classical composers, such as Beethoven, Dvořák, and Borodin. But, as a Wagnerian, he found it difficult to separate Austrian composers from German ones, not to mention his awareness of Hitler's obsession with Wagner. As a privileged prisoner, he was given a radio to which he listened frequently, taking extensive notes on musical programs. His writings reveal once again his disdain for popular music and even operettas composed by Franz Lehar. Rummel continues by examining Schuschnigg’ use of wit as another coping device. The former chancellor possessed a subtle sense of humor, making fun of Nazi bigwigs by using coded language in letters both to friends and to fellow VIP inmates. In this respect, however, he was hardly unique. Even those suffering in Auschwitz resorted to jokes and laughter to maintain their sanity.
Rummel reminds us that memory plays an important part in everyone's life but particularly in those traumatized by searing events. In Schuschnigg's case, keeping a diary and writing letters helped him pass the time and cherish memories, most notably of his childhood and the love of his parents. Above all, he admitted after the war that remembrance of things past served as an escape from reality. More significantly, the author asks, were Schuschnigg's political memories reliable, wishful thinking, or self-justification? In many ways, she argues, they may be considered a “sacramental confession.” He admitted mistakes, although always in good faith. And he argued, either disingenuously or naively, that his government's policies had not alienated a majority of Austrians to the point of welcoming the Anschluss. In fact, he contended that the events of his four years in office had been “predestined.”
In 1946, Schuschnigg published the first of several memoirs, hoping that posterity would recognize his efforts as chancellor to oppose Nazi Germany, first by aligning Austria with Italy and after 1936 by appeasing Hitler. Rummel's scrupulous study reveals that neither his memoirs nor his prison writings are reliable. Furthermore, Schuschnigg never admitted that he had presided over an autocratic government that could be harsh and capricious. In short, the self-righteous chancellor never grasped his personal shortcomings and failures.
