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allied and „enemy alien“, and – as a broadcaster – to „throw bridges“ over to Austria.
He is, I suppose, like all other Austrian doctors, a member of the non-political
Austrian Medical Association which is affiliated to the Free Austrian Movement.
He is actively interested in the organisation of the refugee war effort.
He is a widower. His daughter is in Vienna, married to a politically nondescript
Austrian who has been called up at once, has seen service in Norway (where he was
as a child when Norwegians saved Austrian children from starvation in 1919) and
in Russia, and might be dead by now. For the sake of this daughter our speaker is
using an assumed name.
His son was in danger to be seduced by Hitler Youth heroics and romanticism,
and this was an additional reason for our man to emigrate and get the boy to a sane
atmosphere. He is now with the Pioneers, and ardently anti-Nazi – thus proving that
perhaps a great part of Hitler’s youth can be saved once they get out of the madhouse.
There is also the speaker’s nephew, an orphan he brought up in his house. He
lost him; the young man joined the Nazis; he is now one of those Austrian S.S.
committing atrocities in Serbia.
Background of Speaker to Austria.
I have given some more thought to this, and suggest that we should not make him
a lawyer after all. A lawyer is, to the Austrian man of the street, a Jew twisting the
truth and charging extortionate fees for it.
Instead, I suggest we make him one of those panel doctors with a large clientele
in a proletarian district. Some of them, though „bourgeois“ themselves,
commanded great popularity and full confidence with literally thousands of their
patients. (A notable example was Dr. W. Fischer of Vienna X., the brother of Ernst
Fischer – Moscow.)
I am working out the first script on the assumption that you accept this suggestion.
If you don’t, it can be altered in a minute.
R.N.
Speaker to Austria – In einem Gespräch mit dem Leiter des Deutschen Diensts der
BBC, Richard Crossman, im 2. Quartal 1942, erhält RN den Auftrag für das Konzept
eines wöchentlichen Radiokommentars: „Ein Österreicher spricht zu Österreichern“.
Vor der Ausstrahlung der ersten dieser 6-Minuten-Sendungen (am 1.8.1942) entwickelt
RN in einem Diskussionsprozess mit BBC-Redakteuren den imaginären Charakter
des Österreich-Sprechers. (Vgl. J. A. Arengo-Jones, BBC Internal Circulating Memo,
22.8.1942, BBC WAC, Copyright Neumann Robert)
Schuschnigg plebiscite – Die Volksbefragung für ein unabhängiges Österreich am
13. März 1938 kam nach dem Einmarsch der Truppen Nazi-Deutschlands nicht mehr
zustande. Der austrofaschistische Kanzler Schuschnigg hatte den Termin erst am
9. März 1938 angekündigt – mehrere Wochen nach der Zusicherung der Zustimmung
der seit 1934 illegalisierten Gewerkschaften.
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