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World War II early aggressions -- Germany Anschluss popular reaction Wehrmacht World War II early aggressions -- Germany Anschluss popular reaction Wehrmacht
NAZI Anschluss: Popular Reaction to the Wehrmacht
Figure 1.--Here we see an adoring Austrian boy obviouly enjoying the company of a German soldier a few day after the Anschluss. The Wehrmacht and Goebells Propaganda Ministry took some photographers. But images like this come from the kinternational press. The caption read, "A German soldier makes himself welcome in Austria: A snapshot taken in a village near this city [Linz], after the recent entrance of the German troops. A German soldier holds an Austrian ladon his knee and they chat in a friendly way." The photograph was dated March 21, 1938. The unidentified boy wears an Austrian folk jacket and the soldier's cap.
The Whermacht crossed the Austrian border (March 11). There were no shots fired, except as one author mentions, Jews commoting suiside. [Roberts, p. 7.] They encountered wuidespread popular support. The Anschluss became known as the "flower war" as flowers and arms outstraeched in the NAZI salute greeted the Wehrmacht as they drove toward Vienna. The Wehrmacht would acquire a forbidable abnd feared reputation during Wotld War II. And they would commit terrible attricities, often supporting SS operations against civilians. But in the early years the Wehrmacht was welcomed by the German populations that Hitler brought back into the Reich, such as the Saaerland (1935) or the remilitarizatiion of the Rhinreland (1936). The Anschluss was more of these operations. As was the Sudetenland a few months later (October 1938). The men of the Wehrmacht much have felt great pride with these achivements. It would not be hard to understand that they saw themselves as liberators. This only changed shortly before the war when Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht into what remained of Czechoslovskia (March 1939). This was Hitler's first seizure of a non-German populstion. The images we have found all show a very positive Austrian respinse to the Wehrmacht. This reception could have not have been mnufactured. There werw Austrians who opposed the Anschluss. Some were arrested. Others understanding the depths of the public reaction had the good sence to be quiet. There are countless images of Austrians warmly receiving the Wehrmacht, both crowds and individuals. The international press was operating freely in Austria at the gtime of the Anschluss. Thus many if not most of the cimages are press photographs anf not images produced by Goebells propganda machine.
