Österreich 1938-1945. Im Spiegel der NS-Akten by Karl StadlerReview by: Harry HanakThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 46, No. 107 (Jul., 1968), pp. 539-540Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4206025 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 05:16

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and EastEuropean Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic andEast European Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.216 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 05:16:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

reviews 539

scholarly detail not only the policies and attitudes of all parties, but also the origins and motivations of those policies and attitudes. On the other hand there is a slightly ingenuous quality in Professor Toscano's repeti? tions of one of his basic themes: that since the Treaty of Saint-Germain,

signed and ratified by Austria in 1919-20 and confirmed in 1947, is now an old-established piece of international law, the question of the rightness of the original Italian annexation of the Alto Adige is no longer open to

discussion, and that the 'inner refusal to accept the Treaty of Saint-

Germain' by 'many people at Innsbruck, Bolzano and Vienna' is futile

and can only exacerbate the issue of the status of the Alto Adige within the

Italian Republic. Does Professor Toscano, then, agree with Mussolini's

dictum that 'frontiers are not there to be discussed; they are there to be

defended'? That he should have written so thorough and lucid a study is sufficient evidence that he does not.

London H. Hearder

Stadler, Karl. Osterreich 1938-1945. Im Spiegel der NS-Akten. Sammlungen: Das Einsame Gewissen. Beitrage zur Geschichte Osterreichs 1938 bis 1945. Band III. Verlag Herold, Vienna and Munich, 1966. 427 pp. Index.

The first Austrian Republic was happy, in 1938, to be absorbed into the Third Reich. Reading Mr Stadler's careful account of Austrian resistance in the war years one would hardly think so. It can be argued that the Anschluss was followed by revulsion towards both the Germans and the Nazis. No doubt this actually happened but the majority of Austrians remained loyal to their Fuhrer. Some 350,000 of them perished in Hitler's armies. The documents from the Gestapo archives in Vienna of which Mr Stadler makes such good use are mainly reports from Austrian informers employed by the Gestapo.

Mr Stadler would perhaps not have made his book a caricature of mock heroics and super patriotism of the Austrian style had he been clear in his mind what exactly is entailed in the word resistance. The greater

part of the book is made up of reports of more or less innocent grumbling on the part of isolated individuals. The typical attitude of a Svejk. To curse the Germans or the Prussians, or even Hitler and the Nazis, to make love to a slave worker or to give a piece of bread to a prisoner of

war, to praise the Jews or to doubt the outcome of the war, were all serious crimes which resulted in imprisonment for the incautious Austrian. Such an attitude of grumbling was not unknown even in Germany. But it does not amount to resistance. Perhaps it is the background from which resist? ance may stem, although even this is doubtful. The people who appear in the pages of Mr Stadler's book could so easily be the same ones who

laughed with glee at the sight of Jews scrubbing the streets of Vienna in

September 1938. The kind of massive grumbling that the Gestapo infor? mers collected can be found today in eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union. It is a sign of dissatisfaction; but it is not resistance.

Of course, there was an Austrian resistance. Judging by what Mr

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.216 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 05:16:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

540 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

Stadler tells us, it was more effective in Vienna and Lower Austria and in the mountains of Carinthia through which Tito's partisans roamed. The

Socialists, the Catholics and the Communists all had their resistance

groups, and the parts of the book where Mr Stadler deals with them are the most interesting. Loyalty to the second Austrian Republic rests to an

important degree on the fact that both the Catholics and the Socialists

organised resistance to the Nazis. Resistance may take many forms but its basis is a realisation on the part

of the resister that he has a personal responsibility for the common weal. This immediately gives his actions a significance denied to those numerous

grumblers who strut through Mr Stadler's book. From this it follows that a resister will seek out others who share his opinions, though cases of individual resistance ending in martyrdom are not uncommon. The resister will become a member of an organisation and hence the effective? ness of his resistance will be magnified. The organisation will pursue the aims of the combined resisters by propaganda, sabotage, and under favourable circumstances it will prepare the use of force, as in Vienna on 20 July 1944. Looked at from this point of view Austrian resistance takes on modest proportions. Qualtinger's Herr Karl, able to fit in with any regime, is the true Austrian hero.

London Harry Hanak

Horelick, Arnold L., and Rush, Myron. Strategic Power and Soviet Foreign Policy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966. xii+ 225 pp. Index.

I n recent years considerable advances have been made in our knowledge and our understanding of Soviet strategic policy and its relation to foreign policy. The book by Mr Horelick and Mr Rush is particularly valuable because of the new light it throws on the Berlin and Cuban crisis. In 1942 Stalin pronounced a verdict on the conduct of wars. Such transitory factors as a surprise attack could not decide the final outcome of the war

although it might cause considerable damage to the attacked party. Permanently operating factors like the morale of the population, the

quality of leadership of the armed forces, etc., would in the long run decide to whom the laurels of victory would go. This is what had happened to the Soviet Union after the German attack of 1941. This is also what had

happened to the Americans after Pearl Harbour. Such a doctrine, flattering though it was to Russia, was a dangerous illusion in the nuclear

age. It was not till after Stalin's death that Soviet strategists dared put forward other views. At the twenty-second party congress in October 1961 Marshal Malinovsky announced that the most important task of the Soviet armed forces was to be prepared to deal a timely blow in order to frustrate the aggressive designs of a potential attacker.

In order to be in a position to retaliate effectively the Soviet Union needed a nuclear strike force powerful enough to deter the United States. Parity in weapons was never reached though for a number of years the Soviet Union was successful in fooling the West about its missile strength

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.216 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 05:16:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions