JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 432

This  rare pamphlet–located in only two collections worldwide–was published in Vienna in 1934 and takes accurate and vicious aim at Austrian Nazis.  The Austrian Nazis were busy fighting amongst themselves, the factions breaking down into pro-Italian fascists and pro-German Nazis.  Or at least that is what this seems to me to be for a one-line summary of a complex four-year struggle, The Nazi party existed in Austria well before the Anschluss of 1938 (when the Nazis swept into the country and took geo-political-military control), and attempted to seize power in the country from the very their  outset.  The pamphlet  also seems to have been printed after the 1934 attempted coup (July Putsch) and successful assassination (by a group of eight German Nazi agents) of the Austrian leader turned dictator Engelbert Dollfuss, who was replaced by another fascist dictator, Kurt Schuschnigg.  (The OCLC lists 1934 as the year of publication; there does seem to be a caricature of Schushnigg being pummeled by an Austrian Nazi on page three, making this pamphlet a product of the second half of 1934.)  Schuschnigg was another  dictator replacing a dictator and the leader of the Austrofascist party, who in turn was thrown away in the Anschluss and sent to Dachau and Sachsenhausen.  He survived and wound up teaching polysci at Saint Louis U from 1948 to 1967.

The pamphlet was a real display of courage at a very difficult time.  I hope that this frivolous treatment of a complex story wasn’t too far off the mark.