New Perspectives on Austrians and World War II

Fritz Plasser

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138528840
• eBook ISBN: 9781351503136
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

For more than a generation after World War II, offi cial government doctrine and many Austrians insisted they had been victims of Nazi aggression in 1938 and, therefore, bore no responsibility for German war crimes. During the past twenty years this myth has been revised to include a more complex past, one with both Austrian perpetrators and victims.Part one describes soldiers from Austria who fought in the German Wehrmacht, a history only recently unearthed. Richard Germann covers units and theaters Austrian fought in, while Th omas Grischany demonstrates how well they fought. Ela Hornung looks at case studies of denunciation of fellow soldiers, while Barbara Stelzl-Marx analyzes Austrian soldiers who were active in resistance at the end of the war. Stefan Karner summarizes POW treatment on the Eastern front. Part two deals with the increasingly diffi cult life on the Austrian homefront. Fritz Keller takes a look at how Vienna survived growing food shortages. Ingrid Bhler takes a rare look at life in small-town Austria. Andrea Strutz analyzes narratives of Jewish refugees forced to leave for the United States. Peter Ruggenthaler and Philipp Lesiak examine the use of slave laborers. And Brigitte Kepplinger summarizes the Nazi euthanasia program.The third part deals with legacies of the war, particularly postwar restitution and memory issues. Based on new sources from Soviet archives, Nikita Petrov describes the Red Army liberation. Winfried Garscha analyzes postwar war crimes trials against Austrians. Brigitte Bailer-Galanda and Eva Blimlinger present a survey of postwar restitution of property. And Heidemarie Uhl deals with Austrian memories of the war.

I. Soldiers

Austrian Soldiers and Generals in World War II

Richard Germann

More than 1.3 million “Austrians” were drafted, between 1938 and 1945, into the Wehrmacht. This was 40.5 percent of the male “Austrian” population in 1939,¹ a figure slightly lower than the whole of the population of Vienna today. The vast majority were deployed on all fronts. During the course of the war, 242,000 of them lost their lives.² The Second World War is without a doubt a foundational event in modern Austrian history.

Integration in the Wehrmacht and Blitzkrieg 1939/40 Integration in the Wehrmacht

After the Anschluss of Austria by the Third Reich, the Austrian Army was integrated into the Wehrmacht. The rapid and comprehensive utilization of Austrian military resources became a high priority for Berlin.³ This integration proved a relatively easy task, not least on account of the euphoria of the Austrian populace at the time of the German takeover in March 1938. Problems arose particularly in 1938 and 1939 when reichsdeutsche soldiers (soldiers from Germany within its borders in 1937), in the course of training, humiliated and disparaged their new, no longer Austrian, comrades.⁴ The Wehrmacht itself did its best to take steps to counter this phenomenon⁵ because it threatened to hinder the rapid utilization of the Austrian resources. Thus the arrogance of some reichsdeutsche Germans was regarded as counterproductive. The integration of the “Austrians” in the Wehrmacht ran—despite a few hiccups—according to plan. Three primary reasons account for the—on the whole—smoothness of this operation.

First, the majority of the Austrian soldiers were willing to recognize the Wehrmacht as their new army. The reasons for this were numerous. Among them was the desire to belong to a “major power” as well as the wish for betterment in terms of social status in general and of promotion and improved pay in particular. Of course, language was not a barrier. It need also be mentioned that, prior to 1938, there was hardly any strong sense of Austrian identity, so that in itself proved no hindrance.

Second, the Austrian military elite was “cleansed,” and Austrian National Socialist officers were reactivated. On the very first day of the German entry, the Germans began to get rid of those Austrian officers considered unacceptable by them. The Germans set up a commission chaired by the former military attaché to Vienna, Lieutenant-General (Generalleutnant) Wolfgang Muff, and Austrian officers who were regarded as reliable in the eyes of the National Socialists served as advisors to it. Of course, many Austrian officers were denounced out of revenge, mere suspicion, or a desire for personal advancement. The original list of those officers to be dismissed was significantly shorter.⁶ The higher ranks of the Austrian Army were largely “cleansed” by the officers themselves. After this process, few remained of the old Austrian military elite. Two-thirds of those commanding divisions and more than half of those commanding regiments were “cleansed,”⁷ and by the end of 1938, more than 400 Austrian officers had been dismissed.⁸ That meant that the Austrian soldiers lacked figures of authority with whom they could identify. At one and the same time, the return of a large number of officers who had left the service on account of their National Socialist sympathies⁹ served as a catalyst for the “political and intellectual re-education” for those in need of it. An especially “fitting” return was that of Oberst Dr. Lothar Rendulie, who had been born in Wiener Neustadt.¹⁰ His superior, a reichsdeutsch officer, General Kienitz, commander of the Wehrkreis (army corps area) XVII, had the following opinion of his chief of staff Rendulie¹¹ in March 1939: “Passionate advocate of the idea of a Greater Germany. More Prussian than the Prussians in his demand that those of the Ostmark unconditionally submit to the concepts and conduct of the German army.”¹²

Third, on the whole the Austrian soldiers tended to end up in ostmä rkische divisions.¹³ The “Ostmark” (mainly the former Austria) was divided into two army corps areas: Wehrkreis XVII (including Vienna, the “Upper Danube” (Oberdonau), “Lower Danube” (Niederdonau), and what was formerly northern and central Burgenland) and Wehrkreis XVIII (including Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg). In these corps areas—both Generalkommando XVII and XVIII—the Austrian units (eight divisions and a brigade) were disbanded and five ostmä rkische divisions created: the 44^th and 45^th Infantry Divisions, the 2^nd and 3^rd Mountain Divisions, and the 4^th Light Division (which became the 9^th Panzer Division in 1940).¹⁴ These new ostmä rkische divisions were not identical with the Austrian ones, but were mainly constituted with former Austrian soldiers. This meant that the ostmä rkische troops stayed largely “at home,” were not scattered all over the Third Reich, and were not torn away from friends and family.

Austrian soldiers were treated, on the whole, as equals within the hierarchical structure. In the Wehrkreisen XVII and XVIII, Berlin took great, almost pedantic, pains in 1938/39 to guarantee a degree of “deutsch-ostmä rkische” parity when it came to the choice of candidates for higher posts.¹⁵ This policy was clever on the part of Berlin. On the one hand, it disarmed those who complained about the strength of German influence and, on the other, guaranteed it.

Once integrated within the Wehrmacht, the ostmä rkische soldiers participated in the annexation of the Sudetenland (autumn 1938) and the occupation of Czechoslovakia (in the spring of 1939).

The Blitzkriegs

In the war against Poland in 1939, all the divisions that had been created in the Ostmark were concentrated on the southern flank as part of the German 14^th Army. This is interesting for a number of reasons: on the one hand, it showed that the military leadership regarded the ostmä rkische units as ready for action, while on the other it showed that it had no fear of their massive concentration. Only two Bavarian divisions were deployed among them, implying a faith in their military ability, a faith that proved, as the course of events was to show, wholly justified.

A short sketch of the theatre of operations of the ostmä rkische divisions in the course of the attack towards the northeast reveals that they were operating in territories that formerly belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. The names of the towns they marched through tell a tale of their own: Nowy Sacz/Neusandez, Kraków/Krakau, Gorlice, Tarnów, Przemy ³l, Jaros•aw, and Lviv/Lemberg.¹⁶ The ostmä rkische soldiers carried out the tasks assigned to them with success and were even thanked for it. Of their prowess, Generaloberst List, the commanding general of the 14^th Army, wrote, “The Ostmä rker in the 14th Army proved their mettle in the numerous battles and on the long, hot, dusty marches together with the Bavarians and the Silesians.”¹⁷

The reports of the commanders of the 45th Infantry Division— Generalleutnant Friedrich Materna from Oberdonau (Upper Danube) and Generalmajor Dr. Alfred Hubicki of the 4^th Light Division from Vienna and Niederdonau (Lower Danube), both of Austrian origin— were, on the whole, positive. Of course, regrettable incidents of “friendly fire” occurred, especially in the night, and the 4^th Light Division was attacked from the air by German planes on three consecutive days.¹⁸ Six members of the 131^st Infantry Regiment (belonging to the 44^th Infantry Division) were killed by German bombers (Dornier Do 17s). The following days were characterized by nervousness amongst the troops and a lot of shooting at (predominantly German) aircraft.¹⁹ The 45^th Infantry Division suffered from the fact that the reserve officers were sometimes too old (many had already served in the First World War) and, therefore, lackluster in their performance. Furthermore, the reserve officers had not completed training enabling them to adjust to the German style of fighting.²⁰ What didn’t help were the poor or nonexistent roads that rapidly turned to mire. This reduced the scope of operations, dampened morale as the postal service became irregular, and made the task of supplying the men extremely difficult. What was euphemistically termed “living off the land” became widespread. A report of the 45^th Infantry Division complained of “[p]lundering. Tendency of the soldiers to misappropriate property not belonging to them despite threats of punishment and widespread instruction; […].”²¹

The first campaign was complete, and ostmä rkische divisions had proven themselves in battle. Mistakes had been made, lessons learned, and the proven methods improved upon.

A lot of ostmä rkische mountain troops from the 2^nd and 3^rd Mountain Divisions²² were involved in the next campaign, against Norway, which began with attacks on the coastal towns on 9April 1940. Even the commander of the 2^nd Mountain Division, Lieutenant-General (Generalleutnant) Valentin Feurstein, was from Bregenz.²³ The success in the campaign did much to enhance the self-confidence of the mountain troops, who made no secret of their Tyrolean, Styrian, or Carinthian roots, as was illustrated by their songs, such as the “Alpenjägerlied/Narvik-Lied”:

[…] Should anyone ask where we’re from,

This song will answer in the wind:

From Styria, Tyrol, and the Carinthian mountains,

High up in the north in snow and ice we fight

Dietl’s Alpine corps wearing Edelweiss! […].²⁴

Narvik—where the 139th regiment (Klagenfurt), under the command of the Bad Fischau/Lower Austrian-born Colonel Alois Windisch²⁵ (a part of the 3rd Mountain Division) was deployed, proved a hard-won victory and was very nearly a defeat. Although the survivors of a German destroyer reinforced the mountain troops, the overwhelming majority of whom were ostmä rkisch, Norwegian, British, French, and exile Polish forces outnumbered them. Their fight against seemingly impossible odds was remembered by the highly decorated Bavarian Lieutenant-General (Generalleutnant) Eduard Dietl,²⁶ who commanded the 3^rd Mountain Division, which had been set up in Graz: “Mountain troops from all ostmä rkische Alpine regions, especially Carinthians, have once more provided the historical proof that the German fighting spirit is capable of overcoming even the most seemingly hopeless odds and crowning all with success.” ²⁷ The success in Norway gave the ostmä rkische mountain troops considerable prestige as elite specialists within the Wehrmacht.

The concentration of ostmä rkische troops in the course of the invasion of Poland and Norway was determined by geographical factors. This was not to be the case when it came to the campaign against France in 1940. In April 1940, the OKH sent the ostmä rkische Major-General (Generalmajor) Glaise-Horstenau on a tour of four ostmä rkische di-visions, including the 44^th, 45^th, and 262^nd Infantry Divisions. He reported that both discipline and morale were good and that the altreichsdeutsche officers, the officers from the Germany of 1937, were largely showing a degree of empathy and understanding toward their men. In the case of the 44^th Infantry Division, however, the reichsdeutsche, Viennese, and Niederdonauer had not quite got used to one another yet.²⁸ When, by contrast, in April 1940 the Gauleiter of Oberdonau, August Eigruber visited “his” 45th and 262nd divisions, he knew what to bring: bacon, alcohol, and cigarettes.²⁹

In the course of the invasion, the 9th Panzer Division (formerly the 4th Light Division) fought around Rotterdam and then Dunkirk. The 2^nd Panzer Division, as a part of Panzergruppe Kleist was involved in the breakthrough at Sedan and the attack toward the coast. The 44^th Infantry Division was involved in the fighting on the Somme and Oise while the 45^t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• New Perspectives on Austrians and World War II
• copy
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• I. SOLDIERS
• II. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE
• III. War Crimes/Crimes Against Humanity
• IV. THE AFTERMATH: OCCUPATION, RESTITUTION, MEMORY
• REVIEW ESSAYS
• BOOK REVIEW
• ANNUAL REVIEW Reinhold Gärtner: Austria 2007
• LIST OF AUTHORS