My parents wanted me to go to Washington University in St. Louis, which was a Catholic university in the 1950s. If I had taken the advice of my parents, one of my history teachers might have been Kurt von Schuschnigg, the former Chancellor of Austria, who became a professor at Washington University after World War II. I could have gotten a first-hand account of the how “Hitler took Austria” from the former Chancellor himself.
Now his son, also named Kurt von Schuschnigg, has written a book entitled When Hitler Took Austria. You can read about Kurt, the son, in this news article. His father, the Chancellor, also wrote a book; it is entitled The Brutal Takeover.
I became interested in the story of Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg because I almost got to meet him. I did some research on “the brutal takeover” and wrote about it several years ago on my website here.
After the Anschluss, Kurt von Schuschnigg was imprisoned by the Nazis from March 1938 until early May 1945. He spent some time in the VIP section of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp before he was transferred to Dachau in the last days of the war. He was one of the prisoners who were taken from Dachau to the Tyrol, where he was finally liberated by American troops.
Kurt von Schuschnigg was detained for two years by the American Military until he was finally allowed to emigrate to America in 1947. In 1948, he became a Professor of International Law and Contemporary Diplomatic History at Washington University. He retired to Innsbruck, Austria where he died in 1977.
Austria belongs, now as then, with Germany.
Comment by schlageter — October 15, 2012 @ 3:37 pm
Always interesting to compare the fate of the leaders of nations which declared war on Germany and for a long period were held by the German authorities. The former French Prime ministers Daladier and Blum ( the latter Jewish ) were kept in relatively good conditions at Buchenwald so much so that Blum’s wife decided to come and join her husband voluntarily. Like Schuschnigg they ended up in the Tyrol in 45. Compare their fate to the leaders of the German state in 1946 who mostly ended up at the end of a rope.
Comment by Pete — October 15, 2012 @ 1:10 pm
The official story of the Holocaust is that the leaders of nations were taken to the Tyrol in order to kill them, but they were saved in the nick of time.
Comment by furtherglory — October 15, 2012 @ 2:55 pm
The August 21, 1944 edition of Time magazine, reported that Léon Blum had “reportedly” been made into “Human Bone Meal” by the Germans at Majdanek.
http://winstonsmithministryoftruth.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/nazis-fertilizing-fields-with-french.html
Comment by The Black Rabbit of Inlé — October 15, 2012 @ 4:12 pm
Time magazine like Newsweek have had for decades a role of propagandizing to the US masses and their stories bare little resemblance to any reality a bit like Fox tv.
Recently the Newsweek magazine had the headline that “Nazi doctors were responsible for thalidomide “.
Comment by Pete — October 15, 2012 @ 5:58 pm