Surviving Hitler: A Memoir of the Austrian Chancellor’s Son
By Dr. Jeff Mirus | June 04, 2012
www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=972
Kurt von Schuschnigg was the devoutly Catholic Chancellor of Austria when Hitler invaded and took control of his country. For several years prior to the invasion, von Schuschnigg negotiated desperately both with Hitler and with potential allies in an effort to preserve Austrian independence. He abhorred Nazism and worked tirelessly to minimize Nazi influence in his own country. Even before the invasion, he lost his wife in a deadly automobile accident caused by saboteurs. Once Hitler took over, von Schuschnigg spent the remainder of the war in a concentration camp.
It is painfully obvious in hindsight that the Chancellor’s efforts were doomed to failure. Other European nations were unwilling to stand with Austria, and of course Hitler never negotiated in good faith. Fortunately, however, Germany was ultimately defeated in World War II and Austria regained its independence. Von Schuschnigg, along with his second wife and their daughter, survived to be welcomed in the United States, where the former Chancellor became a political science professor at Saint Louis University.
But there was also his son by his first wife, young Kurti von Schuschnigg, who was left in the hands of friends and relations when his father was taken into German custody. At age 17, when he would have been drafted and almost certainly killed in the German army, Kurti joined the navy where some sympathetic officers were capable of ameliorating his fate. Late in the war, a victim of an explosion in the engine room of his ship caused by an allied bomb, he found himself in the hospital. From there he managed to give the Gestapo the slip and eventually made his way to freedom in Switzerland shortly before the end of the war in 1945.
Kurti too lived to tell his story, along with his Atlanta-born wife Janet, and that story has just been published by Ignatius Press in an engaging book entitled When Hitler Took Austria: A Memoir of Heroic Faith by the Chancellor’s Son. The tale covers Kurti’s mischievous childhood in the 1930s as his father gradually rose to the highest office of Chancellor; the years without his parents when he struggled to get a good education while avoiding schools which espoused the party line; his brief military service as a cadet; and his successful effort to escape and ultimately rejoin his family. Kurti survived under Nazi control from the invasion of Austria in 1938 when he was 12 until his escape in 1945 at the age of 19.
Catholicism is an undercurrent in this story. Hitler’s quarrel with Austria was political, but the von Schuschniggs, father and son, had a completely different vision of the common good which was deeply rooted in their Catholic faith. The father was a friend of the Pope and specifically attempted to rule according to Catholic social teaching. The son was assisted in his escape by Catholic priests and brothers. Even if young Kurti did not always get to Mass as a schoolboy on his own, he recognized and thanked God for the miracles at work in his escape. The Faith sustained both of them through their horrors. In the end, it was the German Fuhrer who committed suicide, while the Austrian Chancellor and his son survived against all odds.
When Hitler Took Austria is both entertaining and insightful. As Kurti grows up, he encounters many different kinds of Austrians and Germans, some who hated the Nazis, others who were obviously weather vanes, some who invariably assumed the best of Hitler and were unable to believe what went on in the concentration camps, and still others who were devoted heart and soul to the Nazi cause. The interplay is fascinating, and the account of Kurti’s later escape is riveting, even if events are recounted with a certain emotional detachment which masks some of the pain and fear. These are, after all, recollections at a distance of some sixty years. But they make a story that is both wonderful and true, and a valuable contribution to the historical record from the heart of the struggle.
See also Dollfuss: An Austrian Patrioit by Johannes Messner
160pp $14.95
With an Introduction by Dr. John Zmirak and a Foreword by Dr. Alice von Hildebrand (see below)
Dollfuss: An Austrian Patriot was written by neo-Thomist professor Fr. Johannes Messner based upon his close association and collaboration with Engelbert Dollfuss, Chancellor of Austria. Messner’s account of Dollfuss’s life provides a brief sketch of biographical details, but, more importantly, illustrates Dollfuss’s social vision and provides an account of his attempt to structure Austrian social and economic life along the lines determined by Quadragesimo Anno. As a leading exponent of Catholic Social Doctrine as it was expressed in the Austrian tradition established by Karl von Vogelsang, Messner is uniquely qualified to highlight the reforms initiated by Dollfuss as they relate to the traditional social vision of the Church.
Dr. Zmirak is a student of traditional and Catholic political economy, and the author of Wilhelm Roepke: Swiss Localist; Global Economist. Dr. von Hildebrand is a frequent writer and lecturer on Catholic culture and related subjects. Her husband, the late Dr. Deitrich von Hildebrand, collaborated with Dollfuss and his associates on the paper of the Austrian state, The Christian Corporative State.
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This is an edited version of Alice von Hildebrand’s foreword to the above book. Dr Hildebrand is the widow of the great philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand.
Journalism has its ironic side. How often are long columns devoted to the obituary of a man whose name, just a few months after his death, will be buried for ever. Dostoyevsky’s biting humour had this in mind when he wrote in A Raw Youth: “… all these talented gentlemen of the middling sort who are sometimes in their lifetime accepted almost as geniuses, pass out of memory quite suddenly and without a trace when they die.”
On the other hand, there are some truly great men who are so maligned by an antagonistic press during their lifetime that, even though their names make the headlines when they die (or are murdered), history must “rediscover” them.
How grateful, then, must we be to IHS Press for republishing Johannes Messner’s book on Engelbert Dollfuss. Written by someone who knew the Chancellor of Austria – who was later to be murdered by Nazi agents – it makes us realise that this victim of National Socialism deserves to be placed upon a pedestal as one of the very great political leaders of the 20th century – and possibly as one of the finest Catholic statesmen of all time.
Why, then, should his name be unknown to the overwhelming majority of American and English citizens who have no sympathy at all for National Socialism and who should therefore be eager to have an acquaintance with one of the most remarkable of its opponents?
Evil of Nazism
Dollfuss was one of the few political leaders of the day who saw with matchless clarity the evil of the National Socialist philosophy and who, in spite of the weakness of his country, which had been largely dismembered in the wake of World War I, became a new David confronting a new Goliath, Adolf Hitler.
It is for this reason that the book by Johannes Messner is to be highly welcomed: he gives the reader a superb view of who this man was, of his philosophy, of the inhuman difficulties that he was facing, of his courage and wisdom, of his goodness and sense of justice, of his deep faith, and of his martyrdom. It is thanks to Fr Messner, then, that history will finally do justice to Engelbert Dollfuss.
This is a book that fascinates the reader. Well translated, it presents facts with precision and clarity. It offers innumerable quotations taken from the writings and speeches of Dollfuss, and it permits readers to draw their own conclusions.
It should be welcomed not only because of its historical value, but also because it teaches contemporary statesmen a lesson: that one can be a good Catholic and a fine statesman; and that being a Catholic statesman means being someone who serves his country selflessly, someone for whom political power means to be at the service of his country, someone who is not ambitious, someone who does not seek to fill his own pockets, someone who does not seek to be served, but merely seeks to serve.
Some political leaders are hated because they deserve to be hated. Some are hated because they have the courage to oppose the Zeitgeist – the spirit of the age – and proclaim boldly a truth that is unpalatable to man’s fallen nature.
Dollfuss was much loved by those who understood that he was their friend: as a Catholic, as an Austrian patriot, as one of “them.” But his very goodness and his political clear- sightedness were bound to trigger the hatred of those who had endorsed evil causes: be it National Socialism, Communism, or Liberalism.
No one could have foreseen that the talented, modest, little man who was Engelbert Dollfuss – born of peasant parents, raised in rural conditions and accustomed to hard, agricultural work, devoted to his country, first serving humbly in the army during World War I and then pursuing a modest career of public service – would ultimately be compelled by circumstances to rise to meet some of the most decisive challenges that Austria would face during the first turbulent years of the 1930s.
When on 4 March 1933, the Austrian Parliament was dissolved, Dollfuss, who was already serving as Chancellor, saw with remarkable clarity that the call of the hour was to create an authoritative government which alone would have a chance of opposing the terrible threat outside its borders – National Socialism – and the violent threat within its borders – Communism.
Hitler had taken power in Germany just thirty-three days earlier, and Dollfuss understood that only a strong, internally united government based upon Catholic principles could raise Christ’s banner and wage a spiritual war against Nazi paganism and Soviet Russia’s atheism.
Mortal divisiveness
From early in 1933 it became apparent to the Chancellor that, regardless of his affections for German civilisation and the greater Germany, the Nazism of Berlin was quickly becoming yet another force that was contributing to the mortal divisiveness plaguing the country.
Divided between supporters of Nazism, Communism, and Liberalism, the latter two of which Dollfuss had already begun to contend with, the Austrian political situation looked as if it were beyond human repair.
Many were those who, hating Communism, became ardent Nazis; and many were those who, hating Nazism, turned to Communism – most failing to understand that these two seemingly opposite views were animated by the same anti-Christian ethos.
However, he saw that only a philosophy based on Christian principles, and following the precepts of the wonderful encyclical of Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, could build a dam to protect Austria.
Dollfuss, the modern David, knew that he was fighting a Goliath, but, like the man who was to become a great king to his people, he put all his confidence in God and used all the means at his disposal to save his country from the severe crises which confronted it during his brief Chancellorship.
The most severe of those crises was probably the socialist revolt of February 1934, during which Dollfuss was compelled to employ the army, and several hundred troops and agitators lost their lives.
The tragedy of the situation was only magnified by the treasonous way in which some leading Catholics, including the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who had just two months before expressed to my husband, Dietrich, his admiration for Dollfuss, slandered the Chancellor as one who trampled upon the workers.
Chesterton
To his (not surprising) credit, however, Chesterton saw the truth of the matter, and of Dollfuss’s career. Writing in The End of the Armistice, he praised Dollfuss as “a small man of poor and peasant ancestry, stood up by the ancient instinct of such ancestry, resolved to save the remnant of the Roman civilisation of Germany.”
My husband, like Messner, knew Chancellor Dollfuss personally, and was both inspired by his Catholic statesmanship, and filled with profound sorrow when he was murdered. Dietrich had sought earnestly to do his part to assist the Dollfuss Government in reaching its objectives, and he had been personally encouraged by the Chancellor to put his writing, teaching, and philosophical talents at the service of Austria.
Dollfuss supported my husband’s effort to establish a journal that would attack both Nazism and Communism simultaneously, which in those days was a unique enterprise.
While Dietrich had wanted a name for the journal that emphasised specifically the fight against National Socialism, Dollfuss’s associates insisted the journal be named after the chief idea of the “new” Austria.
That the Dollfuss Government took such a position on the importance of the Corporate ideal is not surprising, given the Chancellor’s own commitment to the medieval heritage of Social and Corporate Catholicism that he was seeking to build upon.
Hence his comment to my husband upon their first meeting: “For me the fight against National Socialism is essentially a fight in defence of the Christian conception of the world. Whereas Hitler wants to revive the old Germanic paganism, I want to revive the Christian Middle Ages”.
In support of that great idea, and out of devotion to its greatest modern exponent, my husband composed his own work on the Chancellor shortly after his assassination: Engelbert Dollfuss: Ein Katholicher Staatsman.
Fr Messner’s book, meanwhile, emphasises the crucial aim of Engelbert Dollfuss: to establish a truly Catholic state. Shortly before his murder, Dollfuss said: “It is not power or riches that will make for the happiness of nations, but interior peace, agreement and harmony among individuals. For this we do not need empty piety; but we do intend to be upright, honourable and resolute men. We do intend to become better and nobler men in accordance with Christian principles, and to behave as such in regard to our fellows …”.
“It is sound statesmanship,” he continued, “to foster and encourage a life of religion.”
It is likely that because of those high ideals, the death which Dollfuss died – a direct consequence of his commitment to them – was that of a martyr. That martyrdom, too, Fr Messner relates with poignancy and emotion. His book, however, ought not to be merely the occasion for learning about the sacrifices, struggles, and death of a great Catholic leader. It must also be an encouragement to imitate him in all the actions of our own lives.
“It is sound statesmanship,” he continued, “to foster and encourage a life of religion.”
“For several years prior to the invasion, von Schuschnigg negotiated desperately both with Hitler and with potential allies in an effort to preserve Austrian independence. It is painfully obvious in hindsight that the Chancellor’s efforts were doomed to failure. Other European nations were unwilling to stand with Austria, and of course Hitler never negotiated in good faith.”
“Catholicism is an undercurrent in this story. Hitler’s quarrel with Austria was political, but the von Schuschniggs, father and son, had a completely different vision of the common good which was deeply rooted in their Catholic faith. The father was a friend of the Pope and specifically attempted to rule according to Catholic social teaching.”.
A stopped clock is always right at least two times a day, and Hitler was not wrong about everything, but he and the Nazi Party were wrong about heliocentrism and Darwinism. That they believed in heliocentrism and Darwinism is not disputable. They did, and so does modernist liberalism.
These estranged creatures of belief like heliocentrism, Darwinism, modernist liberalism, and “scientific” materialism tend to lead their adherents astray at one level or another. They tend to form a crowd that is more disposed to becoming altogether lost in the cosmos and evolved from maniacs, monkeys, goldbugs, and la garbâge..
Geocentrism and the Biblical and Aristotelian correction are not about any sort of “flat-Earth” nonsense, but ironically it is heliocentrism that deforms the Earth and God’s creation and society in errors. Heliocentrism would pretend that the Earth is an “oblate spheroid”, “squeezed-in at the polar caps”, and “with an equatorial bulge”, but it is not. All satellite pictures and navigational observations show the earth is not moving and that it is a simple sphere with no “equatorial bulge” and no “squeezed-in polar caps.” Variations in terrain from the Grand Canyon to the Himalayas and Mt. McKinkley don’t change this overall perfect spherical aspect of the Earth.
For its part, Darwinism is mathematically, logically, and biologically impossible. So is NASA when it tries to tell the truth about the moon and return all the stolen black budget money, if it ever did.
With these errors and a few others isolated and extracted from the Church, society, and vigorous military orders, a crusade against Bolshevism and Judeo-Masonic tyranny and lies could or could not have been a bad idea, and could or could not have been in order, depending on morale, morals, and likelihood of practical success. Spaniards with the Germans sent La Division Azul into the military campaigning in Russia and had banners from Fatima.
So on and so forth, alwaysthemore and nevertheless, Hitler and the Nazi’s were heliocentric Darwinists like the Kaiser before them, and they failed in a crash worse than the Kaiser’s, but at the end of the day, St. Henry II, St. Adrian, Charlemagne, Barbarossa, St. Louis IX, and St. Joan of Arc would have fought communism militarily also.
www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/oss-profile-04-01.html
Adolph’s father, Alois Hitler, was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. It is generally supposed that the father of Alois Hitler was a Johann Georg Hiedler, a miller’s assistant. Alois, however, was not legitimized, and bore his mother’s name until he was forty years of age when he changed it to Hitler. Just why this was done is not clear, but it is generally said among the villagers that it was necessary in order to obtain a legacy. Where the legacy came from is unknown. One could suppose that Johann Georg Hiedler relented on his deathbed and left an inheritance to his illegitimate son together with his name. However, it is not clear why he did not legitimise the son when he fineally married the mother thirty-five years earlier. Why the son chose to take the name Hitler instead of Hiedler, if this is the case, is a mystery which remains unsolved. Unfortunately, the date of the death of Hiedler has not been established and consequently we are unable to relate these two events in time. A peculiar series of events prior to Hitler’s birth leaves plenty of room for speculation.
There are some people who seriously doubt that Johann Georg Hiedler was the father of Alois. Thyssen and Koehler, for example, claim that Chancellor Dollfuss had ordered the Austrian police to conduct a thorough investigation into the Hitler family. As a result of this investigation a secret document was prepared which proved that Maria Anna Schicklgruber was living in Vienna at the time she conceived. At that time she was employed as a servant in the home of Baron Rothschild. As soon as the family [Page 95] discovered her pregnancy she was sent back to her home in Spital where Alois was born. If it is true that one of the Rothschilds is the real father of Alois Hitler, it would make Adolph a quarter Jew. According to these sources, Adolph Hitler knew of the existence of this document and the incriminating evidence it contained. In order to obtain it he precipitated events in Austria and initiated the assassination of Dollfuss. According to this story, he failed to obtain the document at that time, since Dollfuss had secreted it and, had told Schuschnigg of its whereabouts so that in the event of his death the independence of Austria would remain assured. Several stories of this general character are in circulation.
Those who lend credence to this story point out several factors which seem to favor its plausibility:
(a) That it is unlikely that the miller’s assistant in a small village in this district would have very much to leave in the form of a legacy.
(b) That it is strange that Johann Hiedler should not claim the boy until thirty-five years after he had married the mother and the mother had died.
(c) That if the legacy were left by Hiedler on the condition that Alois take his name, it would not have been possible for him to change it to Hitler.
(d) That the intelligence and behavior of Alois, as well as that of his two sons, is completely out of keeping with that usually found in Austrian peasant families. They point out that [Page 96] their ambitiousness and extraordinary political intuition is much more in harmony with the Rothschild tradition.
(e) That Alois Schicklgruber left his home village at an early age to seek his fortune in Vienna where his mother had worked
(f) That it would be peculiar for Alois Hitler, while working as a customs official in Braunau, should choose a Jew named Prinz, of Vienna, to act as Adolph’s godfather unless he felt some kinship with the Jews himself.