Lebensraum.
Hitler
failed to convince his audience, and was met with reservations and criticisms.
But Nazi military planning in December became increasingly offensive, rather
than defensive, in nature. By February 1938, Hitler had engineered a purge of
the Army leadership, replacing conservatives critical of his views with others
more amenable to Nazi plans. Fritsch was replaced by General von Brauchitsch;
fourteen senior generals were retired, and fortysix others had to change their
commands; the post of War Minister, held by Blomberg, was simply abolished,
and Hitler himself became Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (in
addition to being Supreme Commander by virtue of his position as head of
state). General Keitel became the new head of the Oberkammando der
Wehrmacht (OKW) which replaced the old Wehrmacht office. In February 1938,
finally, Ribbentrop replaced Neurath as Foreign Minister. The changes meant
that the regime was now more specifically Nazi, less constrained by the more
traditional considerations and ambitions of orthodox German nationalists.
Hitler was able to achieve two of his major foreign policy aims in the course
of 1938–9 by – relatively – peaceful means. Despite Germany’s reassurances in
1936 about respecting Austrian independence, which had facilitated the
rapprochement with Italy, tensions continued in relation to Austria. Under
considerable pressure from Goering, who took much of the initiative in the
course of 1937, the Austrian issue came to a head in the spring of 1938. The
Austrian chancellor Schuschnigg, who had succeeded Dollfuss, had talks with
Hitler in February 1938. Schuschnigg then called a plebiscite in March 1938,
formulated to predetermine the outcome; Hitler (and Goering) managed to effect
a postponement and rewording of the plebiscite, and a handover of power from
Schuschnigg to the Nazi sympathiser Seyss-Inquart. Austrian troops were then
instructed to offer no resistance when German troops marched triumphantly into
Hitler’s native country, greeted by welcoming crowds, and with this bloodless
invasion the
Anschluss
of Austria was effected. Despite its prohibition in the
Treaty of Versailles, other European powers saw little reason to protest. For
Austrian Jews, the consequences were disastrous. The vicious anti-semitism of
Austrian Nazis was given free rein, and Jews in a country which later purported
to be ‘Hitler’s first victim’ received worse treatment than their brethren in
Germany.
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