[The police in Vienna announced the arrest of several “clericals,” The Associated Press reported, after Heinrich Himmler, chief of all Germany’s police, had ordered the seizure of persons belonging to “certain clerical quarters,” whom he accused of spreading false rumors.]
There are constant house searches for individual suspects. This afternoon, for example, this correspondent noticed large crowds around a block of houses on the Schottenring surrounded by a cordon of German Elite Guards with rifles, while other guards searched the apartments and offices inside.
Cars requisitioned by the Elite Guards, bearing in huge figures the number of the “standards” that have appropriated them, and escorting motor trucks with prisoners, constantly drive up and discharge their loads in various prison courtyards.
Reports have been sent out that Dr. Sigmund Freud has been arrested, but the writer is able to state authoritatively that they are untrue. The eminent psychologist remains in his home, having refused all suggestions to flee the country until it was too late and the border was rigidly closed to all Jews.
Princess Fanny Starhemberg, mother of Prince Ernst Ruediger von Starhembert, former Vice Chancellor and Heimwehr leader, was arrested yesterday, but after telephone inquiries from her son, who is in Davos, Switzerland, she was released from prison today and placed under house arrest.
What the Nazi press calls the great Spring cleaning – in other words, a wholesale dismissal of Jews from the various employments and professions – continues at high speed. It was announced today that theatres and vaudeville housed had been entirely “cleansed” of Jews and that those that were Jewish-owned had been placed under “Aryan” commissars.
All directors of the postal and telegraph services have been replaced by Nazis. Representatives from the German Postal Ministry are in Vienna, arranging to incorporate the Austrian system into the German.
Eight judges of the criminal courts and nine judges of the civil courts have been dismissed because they have Jewish blood.
In the Jewish quarter of Leopoldstadt tonight all Jewish shops and cafes were compelled to display huge placards in their windows reading “Jewish concern.” Non-Jewish-owned shops display the swastika; those belonging to adherents of former Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg who fail to do so voluntarily are visited by the police and forced to comply.
In Vienna’s fashionable center Jewish-owned stores have not yet been labeled; presumably this is being reserved to celebrate Julius Streicher’s anticipated visit.
Dr. Franz Hueber, Field Marshal Hermann Goering’s Austrian brother-in-law, who is Minister of Justice in the present curious government of a non-existent Austria, announced that work had already begun on the assimilation of the Austrian legal system by the German.
The first German laws to come into effect almost immediately are the Nuremberg “race pollution” laws and those forbidding marriages of Jews with non-Jews.
The introduction of these laws will certainly cause innumerable personal tragedies in a country where there are large numbers of non-Jews married to persons with Jewish blood who have been Catholics for one or two generations. An increase in the already heavy daily rate of Jewish suicides is expected to result.
A number of officials of the German Ministry of Justice will be exchanged with their colleagues in the corresponding Vienna Ministry in order to speed up the coordination of the legal system.
There have been many cases of men in Storm Troop and Elite Guard uniforms entering Jewish-owned shops and carrying off whatever goods they fancied as well as money, and going into private houses and demanding large sums of money or, in default of personal jewelry, other valuables.
In other cases not only are automobiles removed but their owners are also asked to hand over money for gasoline. The Jews are too terrified to resist or protest.
The police, however, today explained that the persons carrying out these outrages against property were not Storm Troops or Elite Guards, as had appeared, but Communists who in some unexplained manner had managed to get themselves disguised in Nazi uniforms.
The police stated that these Communists were making “illegal seizures of property in house searches and arrests.” The police announced that sharp measures would be taken to deal with such offenders.
Josef Buerckel, the German commissar whom Chancellor Hitler appointed to supervise the plebiscite April 10 and the reorganization of the whole Austrian Nazi party, announced that “in order to poison public opinion and damage the name of the National Socialist movement” contributions were being extorted “by evil elements” for Nazi “fronts.”
All such contributions already made must be reported to Herr Buerckel, the giver as well as the receiver being punishable if this is not done.
Dr. Victor Kienboeck, the Austrian financial genius who has been president of the National Bank for so many years, has resigned, being replaced by a Nazi, Dr. Joas.
At a press conference to which Austrian and foreign “Aryan” correspondents were invited, the newly appointed Nazi Mayor, Hermann Neubacher, said he and his aides would administer Vienna on National Socialist lines and lead it on to a future that would defy all criticism.
He declared he was convinced that before the end of the year unemployment for Vienna would be merely an evil memory. He called Vienna the Hamburg of the east.
As the first measure to court popularity he announced the abolition of the existing small tax on bicycles.
The German Labor Front has invited 10,000 Austrians to visit Germany free of charge, and they will soon leave on this trip.
Daily Vienna loses something more of its status as a capital. Yesterday the Hungarian Legation ceased to exist and became a consulate general. Today the Italian Legation closed and the Italian Minister left for Rome.
Admission to the Austrian Nazi party has been closed until after the plebiscite and until then no appointments to permanent posts will be made. It is announced that the question of subsequent admission to the party and the allotment of good jobs will depend on the amount of propaganda work done to obtain satisfactory results at the plebiscite.
Vienna, March 17 (AP). – The police today announced the arrest of several “clericals” for disseminating disturbing rumors.
The arrests were announced after Heinrich Himmler, chief of all Germany’s police, had ordered the seizure of persons belonging to “certain clerical quarters,” whom he accused of spreading “false rumors about the new National Socialist Austria.”
Their object, he said, was “not only to sow unrest within, but also to disturb the Reich’s good foreign relations.” He mentioned no names but warned that an immediate clean-up was in store.
Among rumors laid to these “clericals” by Herr Himmler was one that he said had Premier Mussolini of Italy giving Germany South Tyrol, formerly a part of Austria.
The new administration threw its propaganda machine into high gear to turn out a heavy vote in favor of Austria’s union with Germany in the April 10 plebiscite.
A branch of Dr. Joseph Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry was set up in a section of the old Austrian Parliament building, the Nazi headquarters, to carry out the job. One of the initial steps was to order 20,000 radio receiving sets form Germany for distribution to remote localities.
A spokesman for the plebiscite campaign organization warned against overestimating Nazi strength.
“We are sure we will have a most impressive majority of the people with us,” he said, “but it would be a mistake to contend that we will have such a fabulous figure as 95 per cent or more.
“We realize we are in a region where the opposition press has been lambasting Nazis for a long time. We know we will have to work hard for an impressive percentage of ‘yes’ votes.
“But there will be a most satisfactory majority.”
Josef Buerckel, former Commissioner of the German Saar, who is in charge of the plebiscite campaign, said there would be only one multiple question to be answered April10:
“Are you German, do you belong to your Germany and its Adolf Hitler, or have you nothing to do with us?”
The Nazi administration disclosed plans for development of the Danube, through which German builders envisage a ship-canal route from the North Sea to the Black Sea by way of the Danube and the Rhine.
The Reich war flag was raised ceremoniously over the old Austrian War Office, in the presence of General von Bock of the Eighth Amy Corps, which now includes Austria.
A rumor widely circulated was that accidents had resulted in the death of several German soldiers as they entered Austria. It was reported officially that seven had been killed when a truck slid from an icy highway near Radstadt, a town close to Salzburg.
Prime Minister Chamberlain and President Roosevelt need to push the peace process forward, or else the German people could rise up in an Intifada!
Freud and his family were allowed to leave Austria in June. They went to England, where he died the following year.