Many people, especially those who get their historical knowledge from television documentaries and popular, mass-market history books, may be surprised to learn that the original German Workers Party (DAP) was not founded in Munich in 1919 by Anton Drexler. Nor was the original National Socialist Workers Party founded in Germany by Adolf Hitler. Both of these "movements" were originally founded in the Germanic hinterlands of the multi-ethnic Austrian-Hungarian Habsburg Empire.

The German Workers Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) of Austria-Hungary was founded on November, 15 1903, in Aussig (Ústí nad Labem in Czech), Bohemia, in the present-day Czech Republic. DAP founding members were Ferdinand Burschofsky and Karl Hermann Wolf, an adherent of Austrian politician and proto-Nazi Georg von Schönerer and friend of Franz Stein. Aussig would remain the epicenter of early National Socialism for the next fifteen years, and local businessmen and printers would produce almost all of the fledgling Nazi movement's books and literature. 1

The DAP of Austria-Hungary sought to defend German ethnic interests in the vast polyglot empire ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, and its party program was founded upon and influenced by all aspects of Pan-Germanism. It was also vehemently anti-Slavic, anti-Junker, anti-Catholic, anti-Capitalist, anti-Semitic, anti-Marxist and anti-Liberal. Years later it would provide the prototype for both the Austrian and Czechoslovak Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei (DNSAP), as well as Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Party, the NSDAP.

In the elections for the Austrian Imperial Council in 1905 and 1911, the DAP secured 3 seats. In 1912 Hans Knirsch was chosen as parliamentary chairman. One of the DAP's staunchest supporters was Dr. Walter Riehl, who joined the party in 1908 and soon became a leading personality of the emerging National Socialist movement.

In 1913 at Iglau (Jihlava in Czech), Riehl along with Rudolf Jung, drafted the DAP's charter and party program "which contained a more detailed comparison of international Marxism and national socialism and a more pointed attack on capitalism, democracy, alien peoples, and Jews. At this time antisemitism ranked behind anti-Slavism, anti-clericalism and anti-capitalism." 2

Iglau (Jihlava) was an manufacturing and mining town in Moravia, Austria, and was at the center of the second largest German-speaking enclave in that part of Austria after Schönhengst (Hřebečsko). Because of its location on the ancient frontier between Moravia and Bohemia the town was fractured by national and ethnic fears and antagonisms. At that time the Jews of Iglau numbered about 1,500 in a total population of 24,687.

Riehl was elected chairman of the Austrian DAP in May 1918 and moved to Vienna that same month. In August 1918, almost three months before the end of the First World War, Riehl changed the Austrian DAP's name to the German National Socialist Worker's Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, DNSAP) at a meeting in Vienna. At almost the same time, Hans Knirsch would take up the leadership of the Czechoslovak DNSAP, a forerunner of the Sudeten German National Socialist Party.

In September 1919, Riehl sent copies of the Austrian Nazi program to Anton Drexler, chairman of the new German DAP. Riehl suggested that Drexler change the name of his new German organization to coincide with that of Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP).

At a meeting in Vienna in December 1919, the Interstate National Socialist Bureau of the German Language Territory (Zwischenstaatlich nationalsozialistischen Präsidium des Deutsch-Sprachkurs Territorium) was founded and Walter Riehl was named Chairman. Representatives came from Germany, the Sudetenland and Polish Silesia.

In February 1920, Riehl designed a new Austrian DNSAP party flag using a swastika on a white field.

Between 1920 and 1923, Hitler spoke at more than a half dozen rallies in Austria sponsored by Reihl's group, and in February 1923, published an article in the Austrian Nazi Party (DNSAP) newspaper. Later that same year, however, Hitler and Riehl are said to have split over strategy and tactics. As Hitler's fame grew, Riehl was pushed more and more into the background, but continued to play an active role in Austrian Nazi circles.

The year 1923 was critical for both the German and Austrian Nazi parties. For the Germans the year was climaxed by the disastrous Beer Hall Putsch in November. The uprising failed miserably; Hitler was arrested and imprisoned, and the German NSDAP had to start virtually anew fifteen months later. For the Austrian Nazis, 1923 marked the beginning of an endless series of leadership disputes and factional strife. The quarrels amounted to a veritable civil war.

The year also witnessed the efforts by older and more moderate Austrian Nazis to preserve their party's autonomy against Hitler's drive for dictatorial power, not only over the Nazis of Germany, but of Austria and the Sudetenland as well. The attack on Austrian Nazi independence in 1923 and again in 1926 would prove only a prelude to the whole national dilemma (Anschluss) in March 1938.

Riehl founded the Deutschsozialen Verein after a splitting of the Austrian National Socialist Party (DNSAP) in June 1924, and was active in the Front Fighters Association (Frontkämpfervereinigung). In 1930 he joined Hitler's German Nazi Party (NSDAP).

After World War War Two

The Austrian Nazis were virtually been forgotten after World War Two. Not only were they neglected by their National Socialist contemporaries in Germany, they also suffered a similar fate at the hands of most western historians. With their nation and their lives in Allied and Soviet hands, the Austrians had little incentive to discuss their contributions to the history of National Socialism.

When the Allies declared at the Moscow Conference in November 1943 that Austria was the "first victim of German aggression," the Austrian Nazis were only too willing to agree. For the Allies, the declaration that the Austrians were victims was a very useful pretext to reduce German territory. 1

For the Austrians it was a heaven-sent alibi, an admission by the Allies themselves that Austria played only a passive role in the Anschluss drama of 1938. During the ten long years of postwar Allied occupation the Austrians were even more anxious to avoid raising any issues that might be used by the Allies to prolong their stay.

Thus, when a former prominent Austrian Nazi, Alfred Persche, wrote an excellent account of the Nazi party's activities between 1936 and 1938, the Austrian chancellor Alfons Gorbach, leader of the conservative People's party, strongly recommended that it not be published. 3

Although Gorbach admitted that the book had "many new and highly interesting details," the author's claim that 80% of the Austrian people had been Nazis would have "certainly be exploited by the Soviet Union, the Communists, and the Socialists." Persche's book "would only arouse a violent controversy over the years 1934-38." 4

Consequently, Persche book "Hauptmann Leopold" remains unpublished to this day.

For personal reasons too, a curtain of silence has been drawn across the history of Austrian National Socialism. Until 1949 the Allied Control Com­mission in Austria indiscriminately applied denazification laws to all former Nazis thus excluding them from the franchise and discriminating against them in all areas of public and private life. Under these circumstances former Nazis would obviously not discuss their past political activities voluntarily.

Former party members were not eager to tell their children or grandchildren about their past activities or motivations
for joining. The younger generation, they fear, growing up in completely different and happier times, would never under­
stand the anxieties, frustrations, and hopes that governed their actions so many decades earlier. 1

Sources:

1. Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis: A History of Austrian National Socialism. Bruce F. Pauley - author. Publisher: University of North Carolina Press. Place of Publication: Chapel Hill, NC. Publication Year: 1981.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=3415665

2. Leftism Revisited, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Regnery Gateway, Washington, D.C., 1990. pp 147-149.

3. Alfred Persche, "Hauptmann Leopold," DÖW, #1460.

4. Legal judgment by Alfons Gorbach, pp. 3-5

External Links:

German Workers' Party (Austria-Hungary)

German National Socialist Workers' Party (Czechoslovakia)