Book Review: Western Europe: Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss, 1931–1938
| Published date | 01 March 1965 |
| Author | Robert Spencer |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000125 |
| Date | 01 March 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
130
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
public,
he
has
also
succeeded
in
making
a
real
contribution
to
our
knowledge
of
the
final
years
of
that
regime.
The
most
astonishing
characteristic
of
the
Party,
apart
perhaps
from the
charismatic
ascendancy
of
M.
Herriot,
was
its
political
elas-
ticity.
As
Mr.
Larmour
puts
it,
"The
Radical
party
was
not a
simple
center
party
with
well-defined
boundaries,
but
a
party
which,
represent-
ing
an
authentic
political
subculture, embraced
almost
the
full
scope
of
political
differences,
excluding
only
Marxism
on
the
left
and
cleri-
calism
on
the
right."
(p.
219)
The
succesive
ordeals
of
the
Stavisky
riots
and
the
Popular
Front
taxed
the
agility
of
even
the
Radicals
to its
utmost,
and
they
were
by
then
so
utterly
identified
with the
parliamentary
system
of
the Third
Republic
that
its
fall
inevitably
implicated them. Their
ascendancy
lasted
too
long
to
be
good for
France,
because
her
pressing
problems
were
economic
and
social,
and
their
immense
political
expertise
was
no
compensation
for
their
extreme
economic
illiteracy.
There
is
a
sense
in which
a profile of
the
Radical
Party
would
have
to
be
a
mosaic
of
detailed
local
and
regional
studies. Mr.
Lar-
mour
includes
close-up
examinations
of one
Radical
deputy,
M.
Michel
Geistdoerfer
of
Dinan,
and
of
the
contingent
of
Radical
deputies
for
Charente-Inf~rieure.
Though
illuminating, they
can
hardly
be
assumed
to
be
representative
of
other
areas.
Taken
together
with
Mr.
Francis
de
Tarr's
recent
book
on
the
post-war
Radical
Party
(From
Herriot
to
Men"s-France)
this
work
enables
us
to
make
intriguing
comparisons
between
the
inner
workings
of
the
Third
and
Fourth
Republics.
The
Fourth,
despite
its
weaknesses
and
frailties
which
have
been
so
loudly
proclaimed
by
the
Fifth,
seems
to have
been
a
substantial
improvement
on
the
Third,
if judged
by
the
relevance
and
effectiveness
of
its
efforts
to
solve
the
current
problems
of
France.
Sidney Sussex
College,
Cambridge
DAVID
THOMSON
AUSTRIA,
GERMANY,
AND
THE
ANSCHLUSS,
1931-1938.
By
Jtirgen
Gehl.
1963.
(London,
Toronto:
Oxford
University
Press.
xii,
212pp.
$6.00)
"The
future
of
Europe
turns
largely
on
the
fashion
of
our
facing
the
German
challenge
over
Austria."
So
Lord
Vansittart,
the
Permanent
Under-Secretary
of
State
for
Foreign
Affairs,
wrote
with
remarkable
prescience,
even
before
Hitler
came
to power.
If
the
Saar
was
the
Third
Reich's
first
territorial
acquisition,
the Anschluss
was
the
first
major
step
towards
revising
the
Versailles
territorial
settlement
and
achieving Nazi domination
of
the
continent.
The
general
lines of
this
episode
have
long
been
clear-at
least
until
A.
J. P.
Taylor
muddied
the
water
with
his
statement
that
"the
idea
of
Anschluss
probably
did
not
even
enter
[Hitler's]
head."
But
Juirgen
Gehl,
a
member
of
the
German
foreign
office,
who
studied
in
England,
has
now
produced
a
closely
argued and
well
documented
account
which
brings
the
story
neatly
together.
He
begins
with
the
ill-fated
project
for
an
Austro-German
customs
union
in
1931.
He
makes
it
clear
that
Hitler's
advent to
the
chancellery made
very
little
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