Status Updates From Austrian Requiem

"Ladies and gentlemen, I beg of you in the name of the Tyrolean district government to consider yourselves our guests..." We are dumbfounded. We look at each other somewhat diffidently, somewhat afraid that this is a dream. Soon, we shall wake to the reality. But the impossible has happened...They have spoken to us like human beings!

I feel that I alone bear the responsibility. Had I by some means put off the actual Anschluss for only twenty four hours, I could have saved many if the most valuable lives in Austria, But it would have been some individuals against an unpredictable number of nameless victims.

The terrorist activity on the illegal Nazi underground movement in Austria, which constituted a serious domestic problem, reached its climax on July 25, 1934, when fifty Nazis, disguised in the uniforms of the Austrian police, entered the chancellery at the Ballhausplatz in Vienna and assassinated the Austrian Chancellor, Dr. Englebert Dollfuss.