Chapter 280: Are we Austrian or German?

Words : 1190 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Vienna, June 1937. Inside the grey building of the Austrian Ministry of Interior. The sound never stopped. It was the sound of surveillance, of memos, of forms half-filled and always returned. Officials combed through records of meetings, posters, rumors, church sermons. Any phrase that ended in "German blood," "cultural destiny," or "brotherhood" was circled. Copies were made. But nothing stuck. It had become harder to tell what was propaganda and what was merely polite conversation. At the café Prückel, beneath yellow lamplight and high Baroque ceilings, the debates had changed tone. University students still gathered in their coats, sipped their weak coffees, but the talk was now more careful. Less about socialism or the failures of Dollfuss’s authoritarian experiment. More about culture. Music. The border. "Wagner’s been on Radio Wien every other night," said one student, pale, blond, sharp-eyed. "You think that’s an accident?" His friend sipped slowly. "You think it’s Berlin’s doing?" A shrug. "I think it’s no longer just Vienna’s business." Across the room, an elderly man folded his newspaper Die Reichspost and sighed heavily. He whispered to the waitress, "Have you noticed how many Germans come in here these days? Not the loud ones. The quiet ones. The ones that tip." "I thought they were tourists," she replied. "They’re not," he said. "They’re visitors." A few blocks north, in Leopoldstadt, the Jewish quarter moved slower. Quiet. Cautious. Families walked arm-in-arm but watched the corners. Flyers had begun to appear small, precise, clean advertising "German lectures on family law" or "cultural unification seminars." The names on the flyers were Austrian. But the fonts, the paper, the phrases they were unmistakably foreign. At the Stadttheater, rehearsals for Faust ran late. In the dressing room, director Eduard Sommer paced with his script in hand, voice low. "We’ve received a letter," he told the cast. "From the Ministry of Arts. They suggest we revise Act II. Remove Mephisto’s comments about nations." One actress spoke. "And if we don’t?" He folded the paper. "Then we’re not subsidized this season." Silence. Then nods. Far from Vienna, in the Tyrol countryside, conversations were different. In villages like Kufstein and Imst, where church bells still ruled the day and gossip still traveled faster than the mail, the changes came not through ideas, but through presence. New books at the schoolhouse. A German-language radio tower "accidentally" broadcasting into Innsbruck. A visiting orchestra from Munich. And men. Young, polite, clean. Enrolling in local trade associations, showing up to council meetings, sitting in the back of church pews and saying nothing. Listening. "You see the coat that man wore?" the butcher whispered to the priest. "German tailoring," the priest said. "Expensive. Not local." "He tipped me with a Reichsmark." The priest didn’t answer. He just crossed himself. Back in Vienna, the President of Austria, Wilhelm Miklas, sat in his study with three advisors, reading an internal security report. The findings were damning in a quiet way. Unions were restless. Newspapers cautious. Students divided. Army reservists had started "social visits" with their cousins in Bavaria. And worst of all, the German embassy had not made a single overt move. Not one speech. Not one demand. Just concerts. Books. Visits. "They’re not knocking," said one advisor. "They’re repainting the door." Miklas set the report down. "And what of the Fatherland Front?" "Still fractured. The monarchists want distance from Germany. The corporatists say they see merit. And the socialists... well, they still whisper about syndicalism, but most have gone quiet." Miklas stood and looked out over the Ringstrasse. "There’s no debate left," he said softly. "Only delay." On the other side of town, a man named Friedrich Jantsch hosted a quiet meeting in his apartment. Six men. All former officers. All with ties to the old Austro-Hungarian army. They met once a month to drink, reminisce, and now to plan. "Berlin is watching," Jantsch said, pouring a small glass of schnapps. "We must prepare a line of resistance." "With what? Old medals?" another laughed. "With clarity," Jantsch snapped. "If they come, we must already know who is with us, and who has been bought." "But bought with what?" said a younger man. "They’ve offered no bribes. No promises. Just music and brotherhood." Jantsch looked into his glass. "Sometimes that’s the most dangerous currency of all." The first real break came with a letter printed in Salzburg, translated in Vienna, and posted quietly in several university dormitories. It read simply. "Austrian Youth for German Unity invites all students to a symposium on shared values, shared destiny, and common language." No flag. No Nazi symbols. Just the phrase. Ein Blut. Eine Stimme. Eine Zukunft. One blood. One voice. One future. The reaction was swift, and split. Some tore the flyers down. Others recopied them by hand. By morning, four professors had requested administrative leave. By noon, the Ministry of Education issued a statement condemning "foreign ideological interference." By nightfall, that statement was printed in Neue Freie Presse right beside an op-ed from an anonymous contributor asking whether Austria had the right to deny "cultural expression rooted in shared history." In the suburbs of Vienna, in the home of a music teacher, a child named Stefan asked his father. "Are we Austrian or German?" His father paused, looking at the boy’s homework a map showing the borders of the Empire in 1914. He circled Vienna. Then Berlin. And drew a soft line between them. "We’re both," he said. "We’re just not sure which comes first anymore." Across the Danube, a small community of Communists met under surveillance. They knew it. They still met. One of them, a woman named Clara, held up a radio set. "They’re pushing into the air," she said. "Every night, German broadcasts are stronger. Our own news is softer. Not silenced. Just blurred." Another nodded. "It’s psychological war." "No," Clara replied. "It’s psychological peace. That’s worse." By the end of June Berlin had not moved a single soldier. But in Austria, the mood had shifted. Bookstores now had "German philosophy" tables. Newly translated copies of Goethe’s Faust and Schiller’s plays were promoted with slogans like "The Soul of the Volk, Across Borders." A traveling exhibit opened in Graz Shared Soil -A Century of Austro-German Unity funded quietly through an art collective no one could trace. And in the town of Villach, just twenty kilometers from the German border, the mayor was asked by a local citizen why the city had accepted a German grant for road repairs. He replied, "Would you rather have potholes for the sake of pride?" At a train station near Linz, a group of schoolchildren waited for a cultural exchange ride to Passau. Their teacher stood nervously as an official checked papers. "All papers in order," the officer said. "Thank you," the teacher replied. He leaned in. "They’ll be back in three days. But they’ll come back with questions." "I’ll answer them." The officer looked at the children. "Be ready." As July approached, President Miklas sat alone one morning, rereading an old speech from his predecessor. It said nothing profound. Only that the Austrians were a "people of their own destiny." He put it down.

Chapter 280: Are we Austrian or German?

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