Berchtesgaden Agreement

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The Berchtesgaden Agreement of February 12, 1938 was an agreement between the German Reich and the Federal State of Austria that had come about under pressure and laid down a number of measures to favor the Austrian National Socialists .

The dictation was formulated in Hitler's private residence, the Berghof in Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden . Reich Chancellor Hitler and Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop as well as Chancellor Schuschnigg and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Guido Schmidt signed the agreement. Among other things, it stipulated the free political activity of National Socialists and the increased participation of National Socialist politicians, whereby Arthur Seyß-Inquart was appointed Minister of the Interior and Security in the Federal Government of Schuschnigg IV on February 16, 1938 . In point 8 it was stipulated that Franz Böhme had to replace the Chief of the General Staff Field Marshal Lieutenant Alfred Jansa , who stood up for a defense against a German attack on Austria , which also happened on February 17, 1938.

Ultimately, the agreement sealed both the end of Austrofascism and the end of an independent Austrian state and led to a de facto takeover of power by the Austrian National Socialists in Graz at the beginning of March . As the loss of Austrian sovereignty threatened, the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg called a referendum for March 13th. However, Hitler and Hermann Göring managed to get this vote canceled and forced the government to resign on March 11th. The short-lived federal government of Seyß-Inquart made the “Anschluss” of Austria possible on March 13, 1938 . A referendum took place in April under a different auspices.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Berchtesgaden Agreement ( Memento from May 23, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) as Archivale of the Month (February 2008) at the Austrian State Archives
  2. Kurt Bauer : The Dark Years: Politics and Everyday Life in National Socialist Austria 1938 to 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2017, ISBN 978-3-596-29903-4 , pp. 28 ( Chapter online as a reading sample on the publisher's website (PDF; 82.1 kB)).
  3. From the memoirs of the FML Alfred Jansa , the chapter LEITER d. SECTION III. in the Federal Ministry of State Defense and CHEF d. STAFF GENERAL for the Armed Force