Hitler's Hometown under Nazi Rule: Linz, Austria, 1938–45

Abstract

Nearlyfour decades have passed since the collapse of the Greater German Reich, but the subject of Nazi rule in Hitler's homeland of Austria still remains something of a mystery. While the appearance of pioneering works by Karl Stadler, Radomir Luža, Gerhard Botz, and John Bernbaum, among others, has illuminated the landscape of what until recently wasterra incognita, a great many dark valleys and ravines still remain. The purpose of this essay is to examine Nazi control in the Upper Austrian city of Linz as a means of addressing certain unresolved issues of Central European history such as the degree of Austrian participation, support, or acceptance of the Hitler regime, the role of the Roman Catholic Church, the extent of German penetration of Austrian institutions after 1938, and the impact of fascist industrialization in transforming and modernizing Austrian society. Linz should make a particularly interesting test case since it has long mirrored the currents and ambiguities of Central European history. The boyhood home of Hitler, Eichmann, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, it was a center of German Nationalist agitation before World War I, a model of democratic propriety during the 1920s, and a major battlefield of the Austrian Civil War of 1934. Rapidly evolving from a bastion of Social Democracy into a stronghold of National Socialism, it was a focus of the Anschluss in 1938 and the recipient of lavish aid from its Führer-son thereafter. What occurred in the Danubian city between 1938 and 1945 foreshadowed something of Hitler's intentions, not simply for Austria but also for much of the Greater German Reich.