When Hitler Took Austria: A Memoir of Heroic Faith by the Chancellor's Son

by Kurt von Schuschnigg, Janet von Schuschnigg

Kurt von Schuschnigg erzählt in bewegender Manier aus seinem bewegten Leben als Sohn des österreichischen Bundeskanzlers, dessen Familie nach dem Anschluß Österreichs unter Sonderarrest der deutschen Invasoren stand. Aus der österreichischen Heimat wurde Kurts Vater zunächst in das Gestapo-Hauptquartier in München, später in das Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen verlegt. Dort hatte Kurt außerordentliches Besuchsrecht, galt jedoch den Nationalsozialisten als eine zu schmähende Persönlichkeit. Mit gerade 16 Jahren meldete sich Kurt von Schuschnigg zur Marine, von wo ihm, schwer verwundet, die Flucht durch das daniederliegende Deutschland in den Süden gelang. Dort schloss er sich dem Widerstand an und traf erst nach Kriegsende wieder auf seine Familie.

Genres: World War II, Nonfiction, History

339 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Not to be confused with his father, Kurt von Schuschnigg.

Reviews

[A.L. Sowards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. On one hand, it’s the story of a boy growing into adulthood. It’s also a personal view of the last chancellor of Austria before the Anschluss, as told by the chancellor’s son. Interwoven are elements of faith and survival, and the story of a family enduring a variety of challenges in a world torn apart by war.

Warning, mild spoilers ahead.

Kurt von Schuschnigg (son of Kurt von Schuschnigg), or Kurti, didn’t have a normal childhood. His grandfather was a field marshall in the Austro-Hungarian Army and his father was a soldier, lawyer, and then a politician. His family was wealthy, but he grew up in uncertain times. Austrian politicians were threatened by both Fascists and Communists, so Kurti went to school with a bodyguard (much teasing from his classmates ensued). The night Dollfuss was assassinated and Kurti’s father became chancellor, Kurti slept in a neighbor’s apartment while gunshots sounded all around the complex. When his father was arrested the day of the Anschluss, Kurti was at a boarding school. The oldest group of students slept with their hunting rifles in the hall outside Kurti’s dorm because no one knew what would happen next.

While the elder Schuschnigg spent time in several Gestapo prisons and concentration camps, Kurti remained free, but was considered politically unreliable. He was dismissed from schools and threatened from time to time, but eventually became old enough that he would have to join the military. He joined the German Navy, mostly so he wouldn’t be sent directly to the Eastern Front with an army punishment battalion (he was, after all, politically unreliable).

Kurti was injured during an explosion in one of his ship’s boiler rooms, and while recovering had to evacuate several hospitals just before the Soviets arrived. For the second evacuation, he was supposed to be on the ill-fated Wilhelm Gustaff. But after being injured on one ship, Kurti was extremely reluctant to board another, so he swapped a package of cigarettes and got an orderly’s spot on a train instead.

More good luck followed. A sympathetic doctor warned him that the hospital staff was supposed to turn him over to the Gestapo when he recovered, so Kurti took to the trains (without proper paperwork) trying to elude the Gestapo, MPs, and civilian policemen. He made the comment that his guardian angel was severely overworked—and there’s a lot of truth in that statement.

I thought one of the more compelling elements of the book was the relationship between father and son. There was love in their relationship, but Chancellor Schuschnigg was a very busy man for most of Kurti’s early life. Before the Anschluss, Kurti would catch trout for him (one of his father’s favorite meals) and his father would leave salami sandwiches for him, even if he was working until long after his son had gone to bed. Kurti mentioned how strange (and welcomed) it was to have his father all to himself when one of the Gestapo guards in Munich told Kurti he could come visit his father when he wished, as long as he didn’t overdo it.

There were times (especially during the final war years) when Kurti’s actions proved that, yes, he was still a teenager. And as you might expect, his view of his father’s time as chancellor is very favorable. If you go into it expecting a detailed account of the Anschluss, you might be disappointed. But if you go into it expecting a fascinating memoir, you may end up loving it.

[Jeff Emanuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE BASIC HISTORY of World War II's European front is (or should be) well known to every western adult and schoolchild. From the offensives that brought the majority of the European continent under Axis control, to the D-Day invasion and Operation Overlord, to Hitler's unthinkable campaign to exterminate Jews and other "undesirables," the general flow of the first half of the 1940s has been the subject of countless books, films, and documentaries. The flow of events leading up to that period is less well known, though, particularly with regard to the role countries like Austria played in the years, months, and days leading up to the second world war.

When Hitler Took Austria shines a bright light on the events of the late 1930s in Austria from a very particular point of view: that of a chancellor's son who came of age during the events he is recounting.  As may be expected, a significant portion of this memoir focuses on the author's father, Kurt von Schuschnigg the elder, both as Chancellor of Austria prior to the German invasion (1934–1938) and as a prisoner of Hitler's government.  The recollections in the book as a whole, and in the pre-Anschluss portion in particular, are made up of a precise intertwining of history and personal memory, and the result is a narrative that is as intellectually informative as it is personally engaging.  Von Schuschnigg sets his own youthful exploits and learning experiences against the backdrop of serious situations and events that his father and his country faced in the run-up to WWII, from Austria's long and painful climb back from the economic knockout punch delivered it after the first world war to the desperate attempts by the chancellor to keep his nation independent and secure in the face of the growing Nazi threat across the German border and at home.

The picture of Chancellor von Schuschnigg drawn by the author is the same as the man whom Marquess Falcone Lucifero, chancellor of the Italian royal household, referred to late in the war as "the herald to Europe and the world" about the threat Hitler posed.  Unfortunately, as Lucifero went on to lament, "because of our own preoccupations, this continent turned a deaf ear...until it was too late. That [von Schuschnigg] was left standing alone is our collective shame" (p. 297).  In fact, Schuschnigg the elder was left standing alone in more ways than one, having lost his wife in a car accident (which may have been the result of a Nazi plot [pp. 48, 52]) before being arrested by the invading Germans and shipped off to Gestapo headquarters in Vienna, where he was kept in solitary confinement and subjected to horrific treatment (p. 107) before being transferred to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp along with his second wife Vera (whom he had married by proxy while imprisoned) and their young daughter.

THE LION'S SHARE of the text after this is concerned solely with the exploits of the younger von Schuschnigg – and they are fascinating exploits indeed, seemingly recounted as vividly in print as they appear within the author's memory.  From being educated in Germany at the only school that didn't refuse to turn him away because of his name, to the ever-increasing military and civilian workload borne by adolescents due to the long war's human cost, the author's teenage years seem to have lacked dull moments altogether.  After receiving his "wartime diploma" (the term for the automatic graduation of all 17-year-old students in preparation for their conscription [p. 158]), von Schuschnigg avoided army duty by attending the Naval Academy and being stationed aboard a naval vessel in service of the very government that had annexed his homeland and was keeping his father, step-mother, and half-sister in a concentration camp.

Following a tour of duty on the cruiser Prinz Eugen that saw him gravely wounded in an engine room explosion, von Schuschnigg deserted from the German military.  The remainder of the text is primarily focused on his constant effort to stay one step ahead of the Gestapo while making it back first to Austria, and then safely out of Axis territory.  Each scene is vividly presented, and the dialogue recalled from decades ago for this memoir is as sharp and noteworthy as the sights, sounds, and feelings the author describes.  Further, the book's subtitle, A Memoir of Heroic Faith, could very easily have been replaced by "A memoir of the man with the most over-worked guardian angel alive," as the remarkability of von Schuschnigg's own exploits is only matched by the amazing number of times that he avoids death and capture where others repeatedly fail, and by the number of people with whom his path crosses who are amazingly willing to lend assistance at great personal risk to themselves.

THE AUTHOR'S RECOUNTING of the horrors witnessed at the concentration camp where his family was interned – which they were not subjected to due to their status, but which took place in plain view from the unshuttered windows of their small cabin at the camp's edge – is but one example of this memoir's deeply personal look at the horrors of Hitler's Reich and the reign of terror he, his enablers, and his allies unleashed on Europe.  As with all works that touch on this subject, most readers will likely search the text for some further assistance in understanding how peoples and nations went so mad as to allow and assist Adolf Hitler's incomprehensibly evil acts.

While its author cannot completely answer that question (and while portions of the book make that maddeningly distant answer seem farther away that ever), When Hitler Took Austria includes characters and dialogue that shed representative light on some mindsets of the time.  For example, the reader meets several German officers who claim to think very little of Hitler, his plans, and his cult of personality, but who have taken up arms to serve the fatherland all the same.   Additionally, a particularly illuminating conversation between von Schuschnigg and a school friend's father is recounted, in which the author attempts several times to tell the Hitler supporter "the true state of affairs" at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (of whose existence it was illegal to speak) and in Hitler's Reich.  The latter doggedly refuses to believe that "the führer would...do anything that was unjust," and instead insist that the concentration camps house only those who need protection or who make up "a hard-core criminal element that the National Socialist Party refused to  put up with any longer" (pp. 146–47), and that Jews are only being held until they can be transported to countries which had offered them asylum.  With the benefit of decades of hindsight, such naivete is too remarkable for words.

A FAST-PACED, ENGAGING memoir, When Hitler Took Austria outclasses a great number of its peers within the genre.  The book is well-written, thanks in no small part to the narrator's wife (and titular co-author) Janet,* who took on the large task of writing down her husband's recollections, and whose first-person writing in the preface and acknowledgments should not be confused with the first-person narrative of the book itself.  Further, its unique point of view and informative personal anecdotes make it a must-read for those interested in run-up to the war in Europe, as does its focus on events in Austria, a country whose story rarely receives the attention it deserves, perhaps due to the Austro-Hungarian role in WWI.  Whatever the reason, When Hitler Took Austria makes up for a deficit of information and recognition on two fronts.  The first is the story of Austria in the years before WWII, which has received precious little attention from the general public.  The second, of a far less ephemeral nature, is the recognition this book provides for overworked and underappreciated guardian angels everywhere, without whom neither the author nor his family would have survived a fraction of the encounters recounted in this excellent book.



* Janet von Schuschnigg née Cook is also my lovely wife's aunt.

[Maureta Bohon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an interesting read and it helped clear up some misconceptions that I had about the role Austria played in WWII. Even after reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I didn’t fully understand the impact that was placed on Austria.

[Jacob Wolinsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this interested in more of politics in Austria during Dolfuss-Schuschnigg years but the author's survival story is aboslutely incredible and the more interesting part of the book

[Tim Elston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a well written, fast moving memoir of Kurt "Kurti" von Schuschnigg's boyhood and young adult experiences during the Nazi occupation of Austria. The most memorable chapters are those that narrated his experiences in the German navy and his evasions as a deserter from it during the final days of the Third Reich. I got the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there was at least some embellishment of actual events, mainly because it is difficult to trust Schuschnigg's ability to remember the degree of detail that is captured in the narrative. The first occasion of suspicion about this came when Schuschnigg incidentally mentioned that his dog wagged its tail during an event that occurred before Kurti was ten years old. Who remembers a dog wagging its tail during an event of distant childhood? This was only the beginning of a highly--unbelievably--detailed retelling that often read more like fiction than actual memory.

Fandangled or not, the story was well crafted and made for an engaging read, and, trusting that the tale was generally true, I found Schuschnigg to be a likeable, daring young man, whose courage stands as an honor to his father, Kurt von Schuschnigg, Chancellor of the Federal State of Austria, 1934-1938. The description of the political context in which young Kurt's experiences transpired are valuable, too. The authors included the right amount of historical background to make the work informative of a general Austrian perspective of Nazi events.

One last observation: Some digital metadata I downloaded for this book after I purchased it made me fear that it was going to be heavy on religious propaganda, with labels such as "Christian life" and "Spirituality". While there are incidental references to von Schuschnigg's Catholicism and religious beliefs, the story does not focus on them and I got no sense that the work was a cover for ulterior religious motives.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant surprise. Going by the official introduction, by a European Catholic cardinal, I expected nothing much beyond an official "rehabilitation" of the senior von Schuschnigg, the last pre-Anschluss chancellor of Austria, who, while no Hitler, was fine with a "corporatist" type government which was, itself, halfway to fascism.

However, much of the story was actually about the son's maturation in general, and in specific, under the tight scrutiny of post-Anschluss Nazi Germany. That includes his "desertion" from the German Navy in the last months of the war to avoid Gestapo internment.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book relating the exploits of Hurt Schushnigg, the son of the pre-war chancellor of Austria. It deals with his seven years in occupied Germany, his pressed service into the German Navy and his desertion and ultimate escape into Switzerland and reuniting with his family in Capri.

Reads like a novel of fiction but is a true story. I highly recommend it to all.

[Jim Maher]

Just finished. Good read though it feels like a fiction novel rather than true story . To many heroic escapes But non the less it was a very enjoyable read Fiction or nonfiction it was fun read

[Christy Leskovar]

I really enjoyed this book. It's the World War II memoir of Kurt Schuschnigg, the son of the Austrian chancellor who refused to capitulate to the Nazis. Quite a story. The beginning assumes some knowledge of Austrian politics before the war. Don't be deterred, stick with it, it's worth it.