belated congratulations on Schmidt’s appointment as foreign
minister in Vienna. This letter was found years later, still unsent,
in Göring’s desk. It was never sent because late on the ninth Dr.
Schuschnigg astonished Berlin by announcing that he was call-
ing a snap plebiscite in Austria in four days’ time, designed to
reassert his country’s independence.
Hitler had told Major von Below that he half expected
Schuschnigg, sooner or later, to take a false step. Now he had
done just that. He “felt that the call of Providence had come,” as
he put it one month later. He phoned for Göring and telegrams
went out to bring back the missing generals. Uneasy at his own
temerity, Schuschnigg meanwhile directed his military attaché
in Rome to ask the Fascist government what it would do if the
Germans marched into Austria. Mussolini’s response was com-
forting he was sure that the Germans would never do it.
“Göring gave me his word!” he said plaintively.
This, then, was the matter of vital interest to the Reich that
had suddenly “cropped up,” obliging a wildly excited Field
Marshal Göring, the next morning, to adjourn the court of
honor against Fritsch sine die. Delighted that Ribbentrop was
momentarily in London, he seized control in Berlin.
That morning, March , , he found the Chancellery
already teeming with ministers, generals, and brown-uniformed
party officials. General Keitel had sent off for the Case Otto file.
Hitler summoned General Ludwig Beck, the unenthusiastic
chief of general staff, and directed him in a five-minute inter-
view to have two army corps standing by to cross into Austria on
Saturday the twelfth. At : .. Milch arrived back in Berlin
and went straight into an operational conference with Göring
and Stumpff. Ribbentrop’s Staatssekretär Baron von Weizsäcker
suggested they cloak their invasion in a semblance of legality by
getting an “appeal” from the Austrian government for German