Arthur Seyss-Inquart - Life Before The Anschluss

Life Before The Anschluss

Seyss-Inquart was born in 1892 in Stonařov, at that time Stannern, a German speaking village in the neighbourhood of the predominantly German speaking town of Jihlava (Iglau). This area constituted a German linguistic island in the midst of a Czech speaking environment and this situation may have contributed to the outspoken national consciousness of the family and the young Arthur in particiular. Iglau was an important town in Moravia, one of the Czech provinces of Austro-Hungarian Empire, in which an increasing competition between Germans and Czechs was going on. His parents were the school principal Emíl Seyss-Inquart and Augusta Hirenbach. The family moved to Vienna in 1907. Seyss-Inquart later went to study law at the University of Vienna. At the beginning of World War I in August 1914 Seyss-Inquart enlisted with the Austrian Army and was given a commission with the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger, subsequently serving in Russia, Romania and Italy. He was decorated for bravery on a number of occasions and while recovering from wounds in 1917 he completed his final examinations for his degree. Seyss-Inquart had five older siblings: Hedwig (born 1881), Richard (born 3 April 1883, became a Catholic priest, but left the Church and ministry, married in civil ceremony and became Oberregierungsrat and prison superior by 1940 in the Ostmark), Irene (born 1885), Henriette (born 1887) and Robert (born 1891).

In 1911, Seyss-Inquart met Gertrud Maschka. The couple married in 1916 and had three children: Ingeborg Carolina Augusta Seyss-Inquart (born 18 September 1917), Richard Seyss-Inquart (born 22 August 1921) and Dorothea Seyss-Inquart (born 7 May 1928).

He went into law after the war and in 1921 set up his own practice. During the early years of the Austrian First Republic, he was close to the Vaterländische Front. A successful lawyer, he was invited to join the cabinet of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in 1933. Following Dollfuss' murder in 1934, he became a State Councillor from 1937 under Kurt von Schuschnigg. A keen mountaineer, Seyss-Inquart became the head of the German-Austrian Alpine Club. He later became a devotee of Heinrich Himmler concepts of racial purity and sponsored various expeditions to Tibet and other parts of Asia in hopes of proving Aryan racial concepts and theories. He was not initially a member of the Austrian National Socialist party, though he was sympathetic to many of their views and actions. By 1938, however, Seyss-Inquart knew which way the political wind was blowing and became a respectable frontman for the Austrian National Socialists.

In February 1938, Seyss-Inquart was appointed Minister of the Interior by Schuschnigg, after Adolf Hitler had threatened Schuschnigg with military actions against Austria in the event of non-compliance. On 11 March 1938, faced with a German invasion aimed at preventing a plebiscite of independence, Schuschnigg resigned as Austrian Chancellor and Seyss-Inquart was reluctantly appointed to the position by Austrian President Wilhelm Miklas. On the next day German troops crossed the border of Austria, at the telegraphed invitation of Seyss-Inquart, the latter communique having been arranged after the troops had begun to march, so as to justify the action in the eyes of the international community. Before his triumphant entry into Vienna, Hitler had planned to leave Austria as a puppet state, with an independent but loyal government. He was carried away, however, by the wild reception given to the German army by the majority of the Austrian population, and shortly decreed that Austria would be incorporated into the Third Reich as the province of Ostmark (see Anschluss). Only then, on 13 March 1938, did Seyss-Inquart join the National Socialist party.