Austria

Hitler in Salzburg

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A rare, early speech by Adolf Hitler, delivered on 7 August 1920 to the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany in Salzburg, Austria

Over 7-8 August 1920, representatives from the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), the German Socialist Party (Deutschsozialistische Partei, DSP), and the Czech, Polish, and Austrian branches of the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, DNSAP) gathered together in Salzburg, Austria for the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany. Among the various attendees who met in Salzburg to discuss tactical questions and points of theory was a certain delegate of the NSDAP who, at the time, was still largely unknown outside völkisch circles in Munich: a rabble-rousing young orator and propagandist named Adolf Hitler. Hitler’s appearance at the Salzburg Conference would turn out to be an important moment in the history of his career. The speech he delivered to the assembled representatives made a significant impression upon those present, leading to Hitler’s statements being mentioned in the DNSAP party press and also to the DNSAP leadership extending him an eager invitation (which he accepted) to undertake a speaking tour of Austria in support of the party’s upcoming electoral campaign. There is even a story (possibly a piece of hagiographical propaganda) that, upon the speech’s conclusion, Czechoslovakian DNSAP delegate Rudolf Jung turned to his secretary and declared: “One day he will be our greatest.” Regardless of the veracity of Jung’s reaction, the reaction of the broader National Socialist movement was certainly enthusiastic, and following the conference’s conclusion DNSAP branches across Austria clamored for a visit of their own from Hitler, evidence of a growing international recognition of his talents and of an influence which was beginning to extend beyond the confines of Munich’s beer-halls. Hitler’s speech at Salzburg thus arguably marks the first beginnings of the Führer myth, in which Hitler was to be gradually elevated from the movement’s evangelistic ‘drummer’ to the role of overarching Leader – first of the cross-border National Socialist movement, then ultimately of every member of the German Volk wherever they might reside. The speech was considered significant enough that a transcript of it was preserved by attendees and survives to this day within the German Bundesarchiv in Berlin, although unfortunately it is in terrible condition, barely legible in some areas due to faded type. My translation of Hitler’s Salzburg speech – the only complete translation in English, so far as I’m aware – has been made from historian Eberhard Jäckel’s reconstruction of the transcript. Jäckel put a considerable amount of effort into locating National Socialist newspaper articles and historical works which mentioned the Salzburg Conference, using their quotations from Hitler to reconstruct those portions of the text which are virtually unreadable in the original transcript. Some words were unfortunately still indecipherable (these have been marked [illegible] in my translation), but for the most part the speech is otherwise now available in full. Considering the sorry state of the original transcript, Jäckel’s work deserves commendation – I would not have been able to make a translation of the speech without it. 

Speech to the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany
By Adolf Hitler
Delivered 7 August 1920 in Salzburg, Austria 

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Dear folk-comrades! [Liebe Volksgenossen und Volksgenossinnen!]

I am almost ashamed that only today, after so many years, has that same movement which began in German-Austria as early as 1904 begun to gain a foothold in the German Reich.1 And it is tragic that only the great misfortune which has befallen us was able to demonstrate to our Volk that they must above all forsake personal interests, that the class conflict which differentiates only between proletarians and non-proletarians must come to an end, and that ultimately a distinction must someday be made between folk-comrades who produce honestly, and the drones and scoundrels.2 (Applause). The collapse had to come first, and it did not occur because seven, eight, or nine Jews made a revolution for us, it came because we were genuinely morally indolent inside, because we had forgotten and forsaken the numerous principles which a Volk must acknowledge if it wishes to achieve self-determination for itself at all. We have enveloped ourselves in class arrogance on the one hand and in class-conscious proletarian conceit on the other, and we have forgotten that there is no difference between physical and intellectual workers, that together we must [illegible] the state or thereby bring it to ruin. We have also forgotten that such a state must possess moral foundations, and that it is lunacy when in such a state, at the very moment in which thousands of folk-comrades are being forcibly bled to death, others are merely giving money to the state at interest and doing nothing but trading with the [illegible]. We have forgotten that it should have been a social and a moral duty – in a situation where thousands of others were making sacrifices for the highest good; where families at home were enduring hardship, sorrow, and poverty; where unscrupulous, sordid fellows were running rampant among this [illegible] Volk and ignoring the fact that a Volk which is not national ultimately pronounces the death sentence upon itself – to keep clear in our minds that there can be only one goal, to be national, or else to perish in the maelstrom of internationalism. (Applause). And we have forgotten a further truth, that a Volk can and should be led only by its folk-comrades. We have forsaken the fundamental law and fundamental truth of [illegible] that only he who is a [illegible]3 can be a citizen of the state, and that it is madness to introduce foreign races into the [illegible] citizenship rights and eventually to entrust to them the entire [illegible] and to place the leadership of the Volk into their hands. As a result, what had to happen happened – we collapsed. And out of that collapse came disillusionment. Then came the pressure of the Entente, which day by day weighs more and more heavily upon the German Volk, and which increasingly sparks the conviction that the provision of relief through small measures, via minor reforms, is no longer productive. The system of the bourgeoisie and the system of the proletariat have outlived themselves, and that is how our party was born. We should not reproach one another, for the same thinking and the same hardship caused the same movement to arise at all ends of the Reich. Naturally we were independent of one another. Hence nobody in Düsseldorf even realized that things were also the same with us, and Munich did not realize that it was also thus in Kiel; and this road to a solution which we have found is proof that our programmes, although they arose independently from one another, ultimately say the same thing. Continue reading →

The Salzburg Conference and the National Socialist Party of the German Volk

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National Socialism across borders: the programme and proceedings of the 2nd Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany, held in Salzburg, Austria over 7-8 August 1920

In 1904 the German Workers’ Party in Austria (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in Österreich, DAPÖ) was founded in Trautenau, Bohemia, by representatives from Austria-Hungary’s various ethnic-German trade-unions and workers’ associations. In May 1918, as part of a general post-War restructuring, the members of the DAPÖ voted to adopt a new name for their organization: the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, DNSAP). When in November 1918 the Treaty of St. Germain awarded the territories of the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia and Austrian Silesia to Poland, the DNSAP consequently found itself divided into three separate national branches; in an effort to keep the party unified and coordinated under these new circumstances, the first ‘Inter-State Representatives’ Conference of the National Socialists of Greater Germany’ was held by the DNSAP in December 1919 in Vienna, with delegates attending from party branches across Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The following year the 2nd Inter-State Congress was held in Salzburg, Austria, over 7-8 August, with this meeting in particular proving to be a significant event in the early history of National Socialism. The DNSAP in 1919 had established contact with two nascent political parties in the German Republic: the German Socialist Party (Deutschsozialistische Partei, DSP), most active in northern Germany, and the Munich-based National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP). Although neither group had attended the first Inter-State Congress, both were acknowledged by the DNSAP as National Socialist “brother-parties” and both dispatched formal delegations to the 2nd Congress in Salzburg, where unity was the central topic of conversation. Delegates at Salzburg voted to establish an ‘Inter-State Chancellery’ in Vienna to act as a liaison organization between them, and it was further agreed that the five brother-parties would unite as constituent parts of a single cross-border association, the National Socialist Party of the German Volk (Nationalsozialistischen Partei des deutschen Volkes, NSPDV), in which they would maintain their own programmes and independence while being subordinated to the broader programme of the NSPDV – the eventual aim being formal unification as a single party in a united Greater Germany. To that end, DSP and NSDAP delegates also agreed to divide Germany into respective ‘spheres of influence’ as a prelude to their own unification at the DSP’s upcoming party conference. Although made with great enthusiasm and pursued vigorously by National Socialists in their relations with one another over the next few years, these decisions ultimately proved ineffective. A young and still largely unknown delegate at Salzburg named Adolf Hitler would, through his eventual ascension to the NSDAP leadership, ultimately be their undoing, jettisoning the concepts of consensus-based leadership and merger-as-equals in favor of subordination to the NSDAP and centralized diktat from Munich. The five documents translated below, consisting of articles and reports by National Socialists describing the discussions at Salzburg and the programme of the NSPDV, provide an insight into this early period of ‘inter-state’ National Socialism, when the movement had a more democratic caste and when its leading figures were labor activists from Austria and the Sudetenland, rather than Hitler and his supporters.  

The Salzburg Conference in Overview
The Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse of 14 August, 1920.

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The article below first appeared in the Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse, the central party-organ of the Austrian DNSAP, on 14 August 1920. It provides a thorough synopsis of the events of the Salzburg Conference, its various attendees, and the topics discussed and voted upon by the conference’s delegates, and thus serves as an excellent introductory overview of the conference and of its significance to the early National Socialist movement. Although the article is unsigned, it is nonetheless probable that Dr. Walter Riehl, the chairman of the Austrian DNSAP at the time, was responsible for its authorship – Riehl was also the editor of the Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse and so would have been behind many of the newspaper’s editorials and unsigned pieces. Furthermore, the article was translated from Dr. Alexander Schilling’s biography of Dr. Walter Riehl (Dr. Walter Riehl und die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, 1933), which reproduces a significant number of Riehl’s articles from the course of his long political career. (Schilling, incidentally, was also a longstanding National Socialist, and he attended the Salzburg Conference as a delegate for the DNSAP branch in Bielitz, Poland). The article is particularly notable for its mentions of Hitler, probably the first references to the future Führer within the National Socialist press outside Germany. – Bogumil

The Greater German Representatives’ Conference of all National Socialists in Salzburg.

It cannot be denied that we awaited today’s conference, to which völkisch-socialists from across the Reich were invited for the first time, with great trepidation. To our great joy, to the jubilant enthusiasm of the old National Socialists from the German Sudetenland and of we German-Austrians, the conference not only brought us the reconciliation of two larger groups within the German Reich which had previously stood in opposition to one another (the German Socialist Party – headquartered in Hanover; and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party – headquartered in Munich),1 but also the long-awaited goal, the merger of our groups and of the new Reich-German groups to form the

National Socialist Party of Greater Germany.2

The conference enjoyed excellent attendance, not only from the German-Austrians, who by exercising their full rights of representation sent 180 representatives from all local groups, including almost every member of the party-leadership – party-chairman and Landtag deputy Dr. Riehl;3 the Salzburg Landtag deputies Prodinger4 and Wagner;5 Ertl, the chairman of the Trade-Union of German Railwaymen;6 Gattermayer, chairman of the Trade-Union Council;7 Schulz, vice-chairman of the German Postal Workers’ Union;8 Legmann, director of the district DHV;9 Heiduk, chairman of the Reich Association of German Working Youth and paymaster of the national party-leadership10 – but also representatives from abroad. This time, the German National Socialists of Czechoslovakia sent not only our revered theoretician, Prague parliamentary deputy Ing. Rudolf Jung,11 as at previous conferences, but also the first chairman of the National Socialists of Czechoslovakia, deputy Hans Knirsch,12 editor Dr. Schilling,13 and the chairman of the German-Bohemian provincial party-leadership, Galle,14 as well as Bornemann from Znaim,15 all of whom were sorely missed at the last conference. For the German Socialist Party (headquartered in Hanover), Ing. Brunner (Düsseldorf)16 and Dr. Runge (Leipzig)17 appeared, as well as five other representatives of this tendency, which is located chiefly in the north of Germany. Exceptionally numerous were the delegates from the second group, which has sought its adherents primarily in Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden: the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. This was represented by its first chairman, the metalworker Drexler from Munich, and by its outstanding popular Munich agitator, Adolf Hitler. Altogether the Inter-State Conference was attended by 235 authorized representatives. About a hundred external guests turned out, among them a member of the German National Assembly, National Councillor Geisler from Berlin,18 and a representative of the Greater German Freedom Party in Berlin,19 as well as representatives from Reich-German newspapers and from German newspapers in the successor states20 and in German-Austria.

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The Second Danger: A Warning from the Fatherland Front

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Fatherland Front propaganda writer Dr. Edwin Rollett’s “wake-up call” to Austrians on the “second danger” to their homeland: National Socialism

On 19 June, 1933, the ‘National Socialist German Workers’ Party – Hitler-Movement’ (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – Hitlerbewegung, NSDAP-HB) was banned by the Austrian state. This measure was hardly a bolt from the blue – the Hitlerians had long been strident, aggressive enemies of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss’s own Christian-Social Party, and the threat they posed to the Chancellor’s government was compounded not only by their penchant for violent radicalism and their stated goal of undoing Austria’s sovereignty, but also by the fact that they were being  supported in their endeavors by the resources of Adolf Hitler’s administration across the German-Austrian border. Attempts had been made to entice the Austrian National Socialists into joining Dollfuss’s government prior to the ban, and attempts to do so would be made again afterwards – but for the most part the Hitlerians remained enemies of the Austrian state, with their enmity soon giving way to an escalating wave of underground activism and terror attacks which led, in July 1934, to a failed putsch and to Dollfuss’s inadvertent murder. Prior to his assassination, Dollfuss had begun the process of shoring up the position of his ‘patriotic’ government, not only by banning certain parties (including the Social-Democrats and the Communists), but also by laying the foundations for an emerging ‘Austro-Fascist’ state through the promulgation of a new, corporatist constitution, and through the founding of a mass movement which would serve as a unifying vehicle for cohesive political rule: the Fatherland Front (Väterlandische Front). The Front was more a coalition of various different right-wing forces than it was a totalitarian mass party, and as such its ideology and direction were not always clear. To help the Front clarify its positions to the Austrian masses a propaganda bureau had been established alongside it: the Österreichischer Heimatdienst. One of the key concerns of the Heimatdienst was combating the influence and propaganda of the National Socialists, who – as the most prominent remaining advocates of Anschluss – still held a considerable degree of popularity among Austria’s population in spite of their ban. The pamphlet translated below, The Second Danger: A Wake-Up Call to All Austrians, was written by Christian-Social journalist and literary critic Edwin Rollett for the Heimatdienst sometime between 1933 and 1936 (the actual pamphlet is undated; most online sources give the publication date as 1936, but a few place it as early as 1933). Emphasizing National Socialism’s hypocrisy and ‘Marxist’-style radicalism in particular, The Second Danger provides a fairly typical example of the kinds of arguments which the Austro-Fascists employed in their efforts to dissuade the Austrian public from abandoning their Austrian homeland to the cause of the National Socialists. Along with the translation, the layout of the pamphlet has been reproduced here as closely as possible, including the accompanying illustrations and the publisher’s ‘dramatic’ spacing choices.   

THE SECOND DANGER:
A WAKE-UP CALL TO ALL AUSTRIANS
An undated propaganda pamphlet by Dr. Edwin Rollett
Published by the Heimatdienst, propaganda bureau of the Fatherland Front

The Old Enemy and the New Danger.

Austria is presently in the process of liberating itself, with tremendous effort, from the murderous grip of Marxism.

Already we can feel the enemy’s muscle tension subsiding and the bonds loosening. Already we are breathing more freely and are readying one last, mighty release of strength which will free us forever from the wrecker of our homeland.

Yet the secular adversary of Western culture, the sworn enemy of social order and genuine liberty, still exists, the two-headed dragon is not yet lying dead upon the ground; it is still spitting poison and bile from its wide-flung jaws, is still menacingly raising its paws for a treacherous blow – and already we are being threatened from behind by a new danger.

This second great danger for our Austrian homeland is called:

National Socialism!

In its homeland, in the German Reich, National Socialism has undoubtedly accomplished a historic mission. Albeit with means and methods which we Austrians are not entirely sympathetic to, for they are far too reminiscent of the means and methods of the firm of Lenin, Stalin, & Co. Continue reading →

Woman as National Socialist

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A 1926 defense of women’s role in political life, by Austrian National Socialist activist Rita Marholz

On 25 November 1920, in a speech before the Czechoslovakian parliament, German National Socialist Workers’ Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, DNSAP) deputy Rudolf Jung declared, in response to an accusation of sexist conduct from a political opponent: “I would therefore like to explicitly state here that it was in no way my intention, as is evident from the full meaning of my speech, to insult women in general or any of the women here, or to suggest that I do not consider them to be equal. On the contrary. The turn of phrase which I chose was intended to give credit to the lady who spoke before me, not so much as a woman, but as an orator…. This should be self-evident to anyone who knows my party’s position on the question of women.” The “party position” Jung was referring to was section (h)2. of the DNSAP programme, which explicitly demanded “legal and political equality for women and further advancement of the Marriage Law.” This position set the DNSAP somewhat apart from its younger ‘brother-party’ (the NSDAP) across the border in Munich, whose programme offered no real stance on women’s issues beyond a mention of health care for mothers, and whose political culture was more overtly militant, masculine, and ‘conservative’ in nature; although the official position of the NSDAP on women was somewhat more complex than it is often given credit for, it was undeniably less progressive in regards to the ‘Frauenfrage’ (‘woman question’) than the older National Socialist parties in Austria and the Sudetenland. The original German Workers’ Party in Austria (Deutschen Arbeiterpartei in Österreich, DAPÖ), out of which the DNSAP had been reorganized following the end of the First World War, had featured women activists among its ranks from its first beginnings in 1904, and the DNSAP regularly ran women members as candidates in elections after the introduction of women’s suffrage in 1918, with a number even going on to win and to represent the party in municipal and provincial councils. This aspect of the DNSAP’s organizational culture was one of several challenged by the ascent of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP in the early 1920s, particularly after the older National Socialist parties in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland officially acknowledged Hitler as the supreme Führer of the NS movement in 1922 and subsequently came under increasing pressure to accept political directives issued from the more ‘rightist’ Hitler-party in Munich. The article translated below, written by activist Rita Marholz in 1926 and published in the Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse (the central party-organ of the Austrian DNSAP), presents a favorable perspective on the idea of women as National Socialist political activists. Marholz’s article can be seen as a defense of the more ‘traditional’ National Socialist perspective towards women – characterized by support for female equality and for women’s untrammeled participation in political life – in the face of the challenge posed by rising conservative elements among the movement. It is notable also for its ‘pro-worker’ language, such as its positive references to “proletarians” and to Social-Democratic politicians, a not uncommon characteristic of DNSAP publications. 

Woman as National Socialist
By Rita Marholz
First published 2 October, 19261 in DNSAP newspaper
Deutsche Arbeiter-Presse vol. 18, no.36

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Women in political life! It sounds new, and yet it really isn’t. Only the historically illiterate or disinterested person who reads nothing and who never thinks holds the view that such a thing in our day would be an innovation. Even if women were not always in the foreground of political events, they have nonetheless often had considerable direct and indirect influence upon leading minds in politics, upon statesmen, kings, and high-ranking military officials. From the Greek Aspasia and the Byzantine Empresses, to the great English Queen and the Russian Tsarinas; from the mighty Marquise Pompadour and the Prussian Queen who went to plead with the Corsican conqueror for the oppressed Fatherland, to the national and municipal councilwomen of today; the one and the same path leads to the same exact goal: the exercise of political power, political influence, and political ambition. Yet motives were just as varied as methods and fields of activity. Elizabeth of England reigned as a true regent, borne along in all constitutional decisions by the spirit of her father, Henry VIII – i.e. by an audaciously masculine spirit – while the scepter of Catherine de’ Medici was guided by cruelty and bloodlust, especially towards her principal enemies, the Huguenots. Maria Theresa governed, which means she established reforms, waged wars with her royal neighbor, and involved herself in all of the important affairs of state alongside her chancellor and councillors. The Tsarina forged alliances; Queen Louise stood at the head of the German war party, wishing to see Prussia’s freedom secured by defending it with the sword. The refined but scheming spirit of the Pompadour wove the threads of French politics, though not for the benefit of the Bourbons and the French Volk, and it remains open to discussion how great her indirect share in the ensuing atrocities of the Revolution may have been, for as the mistress of the royal libertine she dominated him in the most unfavorable manner, both personally and politically; moreover, she squandered a great deal of money on her external people. Countess Dubarry, the “best friend” of Louis XV, unfortunately arrived too late… By contrast, the influence of the noble hetaira2 Aspasia on that renowned statesman of ancient Greece, Pericles, was the most advantageous imaginable. Thaïs, the lover of Alexander of Macedonia, appears to have influenced him in a heroic fashion. Antiquity recognizes both these female figures as heroines of the spirit, appropriate to the greatness of the ancient world. All of these women, as with men, practiced politics from different perspectives, dependent upon the circumstances necessitated by their country at the time. But for many, personal vanity and the pursuit of power played the greatest part in the influence which they enjoyed in political life, particularly when it came to imposing their opinions upon an influential statesman or king. Whether consort or courtesan – feminine beauty and devilry triumphed in particular cases, often enough to the ruin of a nation, a royal family, an individual man, etc. Empress Eugenie of France and Carlota of Mexico constitute striking world-historical examples of what one should not do in politics, in order not to invoke catastrophes of monstrous proportions. – A thirst for power and excessive ambition, these evil mainsprings of their actions led to a bitter end, including for themselves. Continue reading →