Chapter 286: No one fears the brother who buys your bread.

Words : 1510 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

The banners were still up. Crimson and black, hanging over the morning mist across Vienna’s government buildings. The speech at Heldenplatz had ended not with an explosion but with absorption of sentiment, of territory and of expectations. But it was not a climax. It was a gateway. And in Berlin, the machine had already begun to move. There were no generals in the first meetings only clerks. No tanks in the first trains only ledgers and suitcases filled with stamps, forms, and blank papers with Reich headers. Occupation was not to be declared. It was to be filed. At the Ministry of the Interior in Berlin, a map of Austria had been pinned up beside that of Bavaria. A second overlay had already been drawn logistics, not borders. Roads connecting Salzburg to Munich, Innsbruck to Garmisch, Graz to Passau. No dotted lines, no walls. Just one flowing body. Wilhelm Frick oversaw the task. He spoke little in public, but behind his desk he operated with merciless order. "Everything must feel as if it was always ours," he said in the opening meeting. "No transition. Only revelation." Three days after Hitler’s speech, the first Reichsmeldung official integration bulletin was dispatched to municipal offices in Linz, Vienna, Graz, and Salzburg. It bore no threatening tone. It simply stated. "In accordance with administrative harmonization protocols, Austrian civil structures shall be adapted to meet Reich alignment guidelines." In plain words. Every Austrian civil servant now worked for Berlin. Within the week, every office from fire brigades to tax bureaus received new stationary. Police precincts were assigned a liaison officer from the SS. Not to command, but to "observe." These men arrived dressed not in black, but in gray. No rifles. Just files. The Vienna Police Commissioner, once hesitant, had already been summoned to Berlin. His return was quiet. His new orders quieter still. In the public schools, geography teachers were issued corrected maps. Austria’s name was not removed. It was just rebranded. Ostmark. Joseph Bürckel, newly appointed Reich Commissioner for Austria, understood symbolism as power. In his Vienna office, he issued precise instructions on speech and signage. "Every time we say ’German-Austria,’ we leave a door open. Close the door," he said. All official references to Austria were to be struck out. Hospitals replaced the "Austrian National Health Form" with the "Reichsvolkspass." Police stations were told to answer phones not with "Vienna District" but "Vienna-Reich Sector." It wasn’t enough to control. They had to rename. Memory itself was being overwritten. Unlike previous campaigns, there were no public arrests. No midnight banging of doors. Austria had to look undisturbed for now. But changes came nonetheless. The Ministry of Culture created a "List of National Disharmony," quietly compiled by SS clerks. It contained names of union leaders, journalists, professors, and clergy suspected of anti-German sympathies. Not Jewish, not communist necessarily just not enthusiastic. They weren’t detained. They were reassigned. A prominent historian from Vienna University, known for his lectures on Habsburg pluralism, was suddenly appointed to a post in East Prussia. An outspoken newspaper editor was invited to join a cultural delegation to Warsaw permanently. A Catholic priest who criticized the new "unity" message was transferred to a monastery in Tyrol. No blood. Just relocation. "You don’t need gallows to erase resistance," Bürckel said. "You only need railcars." Austria still ran on the schilling. But already, orders had been issued for a dual-currency period. Reichsmarks would begin circulation alongside the schilling within 45 days. Stores received calculators and conversion charts. By year’s end, the schilling would vanish. Even clocks began to change. A subtle order mandated synchronization of all Austrian radio stations with Berlin time. Not an hour off but symbolically immense. At precisely 12:00 PM in Vienna, it was now officially 12:00 PM in Berlin. "That’s the point," Frick said. "Not time itself. But the sense of being timed." Public offices were issued new rubber stamps with eagles and swastikas. Not mandatory yet. But slowly, the old Austrian seal began to fade from the paperwork. Goebbels’ Ministry had prepared long before the operation began. The most influential newspapers in Austria Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Wiener Zeitung were not shut down. They were simply bought, editorial staff replaced by Berlin-loyal writers. Articles still discussed Viennese opera, traffic accidents, and market prices. But beneath the fold, op-eds began to praise "cultural integration." Radio stations now carried "Wort des Führers" daily 10-minute clips of Hitler’s recent speech. They weren’t advertised. They simply played, subtly, between symphonies and folk songs. By the fifth day, Austrian citizens were singing patriotic German tunes they hadn’t heard in a decade. The Reich Ministry of Education had issued its guidelines under. "Directive 14: Harmonization of Learning." Textbooks were not burned. They were replaced. Schools across Austria received crates of "Deutsche Schulbuch 1937" with instructions to phase out the old Habsburg-era material. Literature focused less on Austrian uniqueness, more on Germanic unity. Teachers who hesitated were given "pedagogical retraining" notices. In Salzburg alone, thirty-seven instructors were reassigned. University students were less resistant. Many were already wearing the oak-leaf pins symbols of youth solidarity with Germany. Student groups, once nationalist in the Austrian sense, now held joint events with German groups. A week after the speech, Vienna University hosted a lecture titled "The Danube: Not a Border, But a Bond." It was standing room only. Rail was critical. If Austria could not be reached fluidly by train, the idea of unification would collapse under practical contradiction. Deutsche Reichsbahn issued orders to absorb the Austrian Federal Railways (BBÖ). New conductors from Munich were assigned to oversee key terminals in Linz and Vienna. Train station signs began to change. "Wien Hauptbahnhof" now read in smaller script. "(Ostmark Central Station of the Reich)." Meanwhile, customs booths at the German-Austrian border were removed. Not demolished. Simply... vanished. The posts still stood, but the barriers were gone. A man could now walk from Passau to Salzburg without passport, question, or pause. No tanks had rolled through the streets of Vienna. But soldiers were present in civilian clothes. Members of the Wehrmacht’s public relations division were stationed at key Austrian towns. Their task? Integration photography. Young Germans posed with Austrian farmers. A group of German doctors "volunteered" at a hospital in Graz. At the Naschmarkt in Vienna, a film crew shot scenes of German tourists praising Austrian sausages and beer. "No one fears the brother who buys your bread," Goebbels wrote in a memo. And in the background, quietly, Wehrmacht units were moved into barracks on the city’s outskirts not deployed, but stationed. As if they had always been there. The true engine of absorption was paperwork. In Berlin, a new bureau was created under the Ministry of Reich Integration. Its sole purpose, administrative fusion. Every Austrian ministry had to file a report detailing staffing, operations, expenditures, and department structure. This data was not for records. It was to be mirrored. Austrian ministries were told to realign their structures to match German models. The Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Welfare all began restructuring. Each Austrian minister received a liaison from Berlin. These men were "advisors," but they had full clearance. One Austrian undersecretary joked bitterly. "I now have two bosses. One I know, and one who knows everything." In Vienna’s coffeehouses, the political conversation had changed. There was no more fear of tanks. Instead, people debated how long before Austria "officially" ceased to exist. The Catholic Church issued a cautious statement urging unity and prayer. In small towns, many saw the new administration as an improvement. Trains ran better. Food shipments were stable. Salaries had not been cut. In Graz, a baker named Helmut told his daughter. "At least now, someone knows what they’re doing." But in the alpine regions, resistance stirred quietly. Pamphlets with slogans like "Austria lebt" (Austria lives) were found in inns and university libraries. They were unsigned. In one case, an anonymous letter to the Wiener Zeitung read. "You can cover our buildings in banners. You can edit our books. But you cannot tell a mountain it is not Austrian." It was never published. Back in the Reich Chancellery, Hitler read daily summaries of Austrian integration. He was pleased, but not yet satisfied. "It is not enough to make them compliant," he told Bormann. "They must forget they were ever separate." Bormann nodded. "It will take a generation." Hitler shook his head. "It will take one school year." That night, Hitler met privately with Frick and Bürckel. "I want the capital of Ostmark to be treated with the reverence of a first-born child," he said. "Everything clean. Efficient. Proud." He did not want a war. He wanted applause. And it was beginning to sound like it. Across Vienna, new posters went up that evening. They bore no slogans. Just a simple image. Two hands clasped. One gloved in German gray. The other bare. Below, in small print. "Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ein Morgen." (One People. One Reich. One Tomorrow.) And with that, Berlin’s grip tightened without a single shot.

Chapter 286: No one fears the brother who buys your bread.

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