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Austria Repression and Compliance
In comparison with non-German minorities, the political
repression suffered by German Austrians was lenient but still
effective in preventing significant organized resistance. The
left had already been the target of political repression before
the Anschluss, but as early as March 1938, conservative political
leaders associated with the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime were also
subject to arrest and detention. Some 20,000 people were arrested
in the early days of the Anschluss. Most were quickly released,
but some, like Schuschnigg, were held at the Dachau concentration
camp throughout the Nazi era. During the entire 1938-45 period,
some 100,000 Austrians were arrested on political charges. About
34,000 of these died in prisons or concentration camps, and some
2,700 were executed.
Prior to the Anschluss plebiscite, the Nazis courted and
received the support of the Roman Catholic hierarchy for
annexation. After the plebiscite, the church desired to maintain
loyal cooperation with what was perceived as legitimate state
authority, but the Nazis were just as eager to eliminate the
church's influence in society on both the institutional and the
ideological level. In July 1938, the government declared the 1934
concordat void and closed Catholic education institutions,
dissolved some 6,000 church-affiliated associations, and took
control of the Catholic press. In August relations between the
church hierarchy and the state were broken off. Although it did
not see its role as supporting open resistance to the Nazi state,
the Catholic Church, as the only legal entity propagating an
ideology intrinsically hostile to Nazism, was a focus of
opposition to the regime and was closely watched by the state.
The persecution of the church over the next several years was
designed to gradually wear it down by depriving it of resources
and institutional unity. These measures, which evoked popular
resentment, were eased in late 1941 because of the need to
maintain public support of the regime during the war.
Nevertheless, by detaching the church from the state, the
policies had the effect of increasing the church's legitimacy and
credibility and helped lay the groundwork for a more positive
redefinition of the church's role in society after the war.
Data as of December 1993
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