The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

egime, pogrom riots began, that remained unique. The specific acts of violence
in Austria, which was called „Ostmark” from then on, the „Völkischer
Beobachter”, as you can read at Safrian, commented in this way: „Whereas
National Socialism frequently had to direct the attention of the people of
northern Germany to the private, in a sense apolitical dangers of the Jews, the
task in Vienna is the opposite. Concerned to preserve the irreproachability and
purity of the movement, it is the duty of responsible public education to contain
the seething radicalism and to guide the understandable reaction to Jewish
excess throughout an entire century into orderly channels. For, as everyone
needs to remember, Germany is a constitutionally governed state. That means
that in our Reich nothing happens without foundation in law….” 34
The pogroms in the „Ostmark” did not meet the technocratic Anti-Semitism
of the Nazi party leadership, which wanted their actions to be protected in a
bureaucratic and pseudo-legal way. Because of that, next to the arbitrary riots a
state organized terror of the new rulers was added.
A „Dejudification of the economic in the Ostmark” should be guaranteed by the
so-called „Vermögensverkehrsstelle”, which checked already performed and new
„Arisierungen” 35 . The Jewish population was forced to leave the country, but it
was meticulously made sure that they had to leave behind all their property. Many
Jews from Vienna also fled the hopeless situation, by committing suicide.
The situation of Jews in Vienna was far more extreme than in the
„Altreich”. Many bureaucratic hurdles were put in the path of an „emigration”
in the „Ostmark”. The Jews of Vienna had to pass gauntlet runs, at which they
were delivered to the arbitrariness, corruption and wickedness of the officials.
In addition to that they had to give up their property in most of the times. Very
good descriptions of these days in Vienna can be found at Carl Zuckmayer 36
and Hans Safrian with Hans Witek. 37
Eichmann in Vienna
In that stage described above, the men of the department II-112 began their
work in Vienna. Under leadership of Hagen and Eichmann, soon under the sole
guide of Eichmann, files and documents of Jewish organizations and individuals
were seized and brought to Berlin. According to lists, which Eichmann brought
from Berlin, officials from Jewish organizations were arrested to paralyze those
organizations. 38
34 Völkischer Beobachter, 26th of April 1938. SAFRIAN, Hans: Eichmann’s Men. 23.
35 „Arisierung” means the expropriation of Jewish property by a so-called „Aryan master race”.
36 ZUCKMAYER, Carl: Als wär’s ein Stück von mir. Horen der Freundschaft. Frankfurt, 1966.
37 WITEK, Hans u. SAFRIAN, Hans (Hgg.): Und keiner war dabei. Dokumente des
alltäglichen Antisemitismus in Wien 1938. Wien, 1988.
38 SAFRIAN, Hans: Eichmann’s Men. 27. WILDT, Michael (Hg.): Die Judenpolitik des SD
1935 bis 1938. München, 1995. 52. FRIEDLANDER, Saul: Das Dritte Reich und die Juden.
München, 1998. 256.
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