http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KG74s4DnRw
Austrian Nazis made the German Nazis look like pikers.....Even before the Anschluss, the German SS had to tell the Austrian SS to tone it down a bit.
bump
BFL
"Hitler was born at Braunau. Braunau is in that part of Upper Austria which went Protestant at the Reformation. After that it was forcibly Catholicised by the forces of the Counter-Reformation, the Hapsburgs and the Jesuits. Since then there has been no religion in that part of the world."
The parallels are between Hitler and 0scumbag are unnerving.
Now THAT article gives one the willies
In his book Not Peace but a Sword (New York: Doubleday, 1939), left-leaning journalist Vincent Sheean reported seeing brown-shirted members of the Nazi Sturmabteilungen (SA, or storm troopers) standing in front of the polling places and telling voters that if they were in favor of the Anschluss with Germany, they should drop their ballots into the boxes that the brownshirts had with them. The SA men took note of those who insisted on casting their ballots into the official ballot boxes.
One of Obama’s heroes.
bfl
The money paragraph:
The Final Steps – Gun Laws:
Next came gun registration.. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.
BookMark
Dear Lord, guide our course.
Tatt
I used to wonder how any population could elect such a monster. Today I know.
I checked via Wikipedia and found that there was a phebliscite. This being a straight question to the people. By then the Nazis were in power and counted the votes. 99.7 percent favouring the Nazi rule. I find it hard to discount that the Nazis did not roll in with force, I do not know for certain, needs more research. The figures of the phebliscite do tell of a majority vote for National Socialism. That is the surprise. This was stated in the text, but the vote did not take place before the Nazis arrived. They counted the votes.
On a historical note, the Austrian Nazis had attempted a coup in 1934. Ten of them broke into the chancellors residence and murdered Englebert Dollfus (1892-1934). The Austrian government tried and hanged all ten. Somehow when the Nazis finally gained power in 1938, they were said to have destroyed statues of Dollfuss.
The Austrian people only voted on an accomplished fact.
The article isn’t quite correct about the Austrians “electing” Hitler. The Austrian government agreed to the annexation and Hitler’s military moved in...to widespread approval, very true. But only weeks later AFTER the Nazis had full control was a plebecite election held...so people could of had all kinds of motivations to approve of Hitler, and I expect the Nazis would of had no qualms about rigging the vote either. 98% approved of the annexation, AFTER it was done...but they didn’t really “elect” dictator Hitler.
None-the-less it is true, that at first, Hitler’s Nazism was much more popular in Austria, than it ever was in Germany.
It’s also true there were more un-repentant Nazis—and antisemitism and neo-Nazis today—in Austria, than in Germany.
Cold war pressure—made us focus most all of the blame for WWII on Germany, not Austria, therefore historically since, there has been less national repentance and reform...