With Dollfuss assassinated, Schuschnigg suddenly became Chancellor—and his health kept deteriorating.
Sensing he didn’t have much time left, he chose his closest friend, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, recently appointed Interior Minister, as his successor.
“Take care of things, Arty. Please lead the country well without me.”
“Don’t worry about that. Kurt, mind your body first.”
May 3, 1936,
Schuschnigg resigned for health reasons, and Seyss-Inquart took the chancellorship.
Three days later, on May 6, Schuschnigg died. I issued a statement of condolence and ordered flags at half-staff nationwide.
As Chancellor, Seyss-Inquart moved immediately.
***
May 10, 1936
Führer’s Chancellery, Berlin, Germany
“My Führer! A message from Seyss-Inquart!”
Goebbels burst through the door into my office. He was so excited his face was beet red.
His mouth was about to split into his ears.
“What did he say?”
“He requests support from the Wehrmacht to resolve internal security issues in Austria.”
“I see. An elder brother can’t ignore a younger one asking for help.”
Per Seyss-Inquart’s request, I immediately ordered the Wehrmacht to move into Austria.
The plan had been fully laid out already.
***
May 11, 1936
German–Austrian Border
“All right, let’s roll!”
As the barrier at the frontier lifted, the waiting Wehrmacht troops began their march straight into Austrian territory.
Austrian officers and soldiers shook hands with our men; reporters and the Army film crew worked hard to capture the scene.
The photos and reels would soon go out in newspapers and newsreels to the German public and the world.
“Welcome, German brothers!”
“Welcome to Austria!”
Austrians greeted the Wehrmacht with fervor. Unlike the ruling Fatherland Front, most Austrian citizens believed they should become one with their “brother nation,” Germany, and gladly accepted the German Army’s entry.
With the band playing the German and Austrian anthems, citizens tossed confetti and flowers from their windows.
Children handed flowers to the marching soldiers; housewives filled big jars with water so thirsty troops could drink; veterans of the Great War came out in their old uniforms.
It was happening all across Austria at once.
“This will only make that bastard Hitler even more full of himself.”
Beck, watching the Austrians welcome the Wehrmacht and the soldiers grinning with flower garlands around their necks, let out a sigh that seemed to cave in the earth. His cigarette tasted especially bitter today.
“No kidding. Heaven’s indifferent as hell. How could it favor a bastard like that…”
His subordinate, Erwin von Witzleben, one of the Army’s elder statesmen, exhaled smoke weakly in sympathy.
When Hitler became Führer and declared the scrapping of Versailles and the return of conscription, they’d kept close to neutral on him and the Party.
But once he ordered the remilitarization of the Rhineland, they understood. Hitler was the man to lead Germany to ruin again.
Public opinion sees Hitler as a war hero with an Iron Cross, a century’s genius who foresaw the Great Depression and Japan’s invasion of China. To Beck, Witzleben, and the other old guard, he’s just a former Sergeant aping Bismarck.
Rhineland had gone Hitler’s way, but no one knew if his predictions would keep hitting.
It wasn’t that the generals were pacifists sneering at Hitler and the Party.
They too strongly supported the goal Hitler touted—recovering Germany’s old lands.
They just disagreed on how to execute it.
Beck was convinced Hitler’s reckless speed and gambler’s streak would doom Germany.
If war broke out now, with our military still un-recovered, Germany would surely be crushed. Hitler didn’t seem to grasp that.
If anything, he looked down on Britain and France and rampaged.
“This one worked out by luck again, but luck won’t last. Then war will break out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Before that, we need to kill Hitler… but with the current mood, that’s going to be hard.”
After the Rhineland move, public support for Hitler was through the roof.
Now that he’d taken Austria too, no one in the public would dare oppose him.
Try a coup now and the people themselves might rise against us.
They had no choice but to wait and watch for a while.
Beck flicked his butt to the ground and crushed it under his boot. He wanted a harsh schnapps to wash down the bitterness in his gut.
***
“Good to see you all. Truly good to see you.”
Amid the cheers, I stepped onto the platform.
This is Vienna, Austria’s capital—the city with the Academy of Fine Arts Hitler so badly wanted to attend.
On the way here, the Austrians came out like it was a festival, giving a rousing welcome to me and the troops.
Even I—who lived in 21st-century Korea until I woke up as Hitler—felt a lump in my throat at the reception. The real Hitler? He must’ve been high as a kite.
Then the Second World War came, and Austrians were conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the front.
The country was wrecked by war, and afterward the West—America and Britain—and the Soviets split and administered the land.
It did reunify in 1955 as a permanently neutral state, but still.
In a past loop, a civil war broke out, and Italy and Czechoslovakia invaded. I barely joined Austria to Germany, and even then it fell to Italy in a civil war.
This time, I won’t let that tragedy repeat under any circumstances.
“Today I stand here with a trembling heart. On my way here I received your ardent cheers and warm greetings. Long ago, when I left for Germany, I couldn’t even imagine such a thing.
This moment still feels like a dream. When I first attempted revolution in Munich, my dream was to unite my native Austria, where I was born and raised, with a great Germany. And now that dream has come true.
Germany and Austria are no longer foreign to each other! From today, our two countries are one. We will finally arrive at the place we were meant to be.
But this is not the end. This is merely the beginning; we still have a long road to walk.
Yet we will do it. Just as Austria has become one with Germany today, we will achieve what everyone swore was impossible, and keep moving forward.
For one Germany, a great Germany, a great fatherland—let us stand together. Deutschland über alles!”
“Uwaaaaaaah!!!”
As the speech ended, the German national anthem poured from the speakers.
“Das Lied der Deutschen.” Its use dropped sharply after the war, but in Nazi Germany the song was a staple at events large and small.
Germany, Germany over all, o’er everything in the world—
In defense and attack, brothers stand together—
From the Maas to the Memel, from the Etsch to the Belt!
From children to old folks, everyone sang along as if hypnotized. A proper intoxicating spectacle. So this is what national-chauvinist euphoria feels like.
***
Even after the German Army entered, the shell of a state called Austria remained.
Wilhelm Miklas, the purely nominal president, transferred his powers to Seyss-Inquart, and by agreement with him a referendum was held to ask Austrians about unification with Germany.
The answer was as good as decided, but you still follow formalities.
The result: 94% in favor, 6% against.
Austria officially became part of Germany.
Seyss-Inquart, who made a decisive contribution to the annexation, received the honorary rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and became a Minister without Portfolio.
Britain and France kept silent again. Italy did deploy troops to the border, but that was it.
They’re up to their necks in Ethiopia anyway. In the real timeline Italy occupied Addis Ababa yet still bled against Ethiopian guerrillas into early 1937. It’s even worse now.
Even if they wanted a war, they’re in no shape to fight; they’ll have to swallow it.
I do wonder what expression Mussolini’s wearing right now.
***
“God damn it! Nothing’s going right!”
Mussolini, unable to contain himself, hurled a vase to the floor.
The ornate piece shattered, and fresh flowers scattered everywhere.
That wily bastard Hitler arming black Ethiopians had all been groundwork for annexing Austria.
Make Italy bleed in Ethiopia and seize Austria in the gap.
In truth, this Anschluss was somewhat off from Hitler’s original plan and owed a bit to chance, but Mussolini had no way to know that.
“Dollfuss’s death was that bastard Hitler’s doing too! He sicced the Reds on him!”
Raving like a madman at Austria—slated to be Italian territory—being snatched by rival Germany, Mussolini still knew none of this tantrum would change reality.
He just couldn’t master his rage.
If he didn’t vent like this, he felt he’d collapse from apoplexy.
Once he barely calmed down, Mussolini started thinking.
With German troops already inside Austria, the only way to drive them out was war.
But most of Italy’s main forces were on the Ethiopian front.
If war broke out, Germany could mobilize not only its existing divisions but the Austrian Army as well.
Mussolini didn’t think Italians were inferior to Germans, but he admitted the situation was unfavorable to Italy.
This time, he’d have to let it pass quietly.
“Send word to Hitler.”
“What shall we say, Duce?”
“That we will tolerate the Anschluss of Austria, but he is to make no claim whatever to the Tyrol. Add that if he ignores my warning, he should be ready for war.”
“Understood.”