teeny-weeny bit concerned about Czechoslovakia.
: Oh no, no. There’s no question of that at all.... Yes, I’m convinced too that Halifax is a pretty in-
telligent man.
“Anybody who threatens us,” he continued, “will find (in strict
confidence) that he’s up against fanatical resistance from both
our countries.”
A few hours later Ribbentrop arrived in person at Carin-
hall, having driven straight over from Tempelhof Airport. To-
gether they listened to the welcome accorded to Hitler on his
return to Linz from his parents’ grave at Leonding. But the big
shock was just about to come.
At about : .. the Forschungsamt, still tapping the
Austrian legation’s telephones, heard an official of the foreign
ministry in Vienna, one Max Hoffinger, telephone Tauschitz,
the Austrian chargé d’affaires, with news that the new Seyss-
Inquart Cabinet had approved a suggestion by Hitler that the
two countries agree to immediate Anschluss, an indissoluble
union. Tauschitz telephoned this historic news to the Reich For-
eign Ministry.
The Brown Page hit Göring like a trench mortar. An-
schluss now just like that? Ribbentrop telephoned Tauschitz
direct to investigate, only to have the phone snatched out of his
hand by Göring indignantly bellowing, “What the hell is going
on!”
Of the astonishment in their voices there can be no doubt.
Tauschitz, testifying nine years later, vividly recalled it.
So this was how Germany and Austria came to be reunited,
in the fifth year of Hitler’s rule. Anxious for the safety of his
protégé Guido Schmidt, Schuschnigg’s foreign minister, the
field marshal sent his personal plane down to Vienna to whisk