March 12 not only marks the anniversary of the Anschluß, but also of its forgotten harbinger of things to come; the Antisemitentag. The Antisemitentag took place in Vienna, exactly 17 years prior to the Anschluß. March 12 in Austria is dedicated to the commemoration of the events of that day in 1938. From the late evening of March 11 in 1938, the National Socialists under leadership of Arthur Seyss-Inquart took command, which instigated attacks on the Jewish population in Vienna. On March 13, the Übergangsregierung carried out the Annexation administratively on behalf of Adolf Hitler, who had arrived in Austria the day before. With the Anschluß now formalized. Jews were humiliated with degrading “Reibepartien“, during which they had to use brushes to clean the streets of pro-Austrian slogans. And in April Hermann Göring announced that Vienna was to be made “judenrein” by 1942. A society that Hugo Bettauer had already described in 1922, in his novel “Die Stadt ohne Juden”, became reality.
(Kikeriki, Wiener humoristisches Volksblatt – March 20, 1921; jocular poem about the Antisemitentag to the left of a cartoon)…
