Newspaper article on the Nazi takeover of the Austrian government, including Seyss-Inquart's leading role (11 March 1938)

HOURS OF HISTORICAL DECISION By SS Brigadefuehrer Fritz Rainer Gauleiter of Salzburg
We were in the battle all through March 11, 1938. At 5 o'clock Globocnik and I had gone to the Federal Chancellery where we met Dr. Seyss-Inquart who had been in the most gruelling negotiations ever since 1 o'clock. We had to force the formation of the National Socialist cabinet under Dr. Seyss-Inquart that very night, or else civil war would have flared up. At 7:30 Miklas had said his last word. He remained firm and refused to have a government under a National Socialist Federal Chancellor.
I agreed with Globocnik that he should stay in the Federal Chancellery and advance there the development by all means while I hurried to the command posts of the party to give the orders for the occupation of the country. Klausner, the recently deceased Gauleiter of Carinthia, had given both of us general authority. At 8 in the evening I met at headquarters in the Seitzergasse, Lukesch, the Fuehrer of the SA, and Kaltenbrunner, the fuehrer of the SS. Lukesch was able to mobilize 6,000 SA men within half an hour. In addition Kaltenbrunner commanded 700 SS men. These 6,700 men received the order to advance toward and occupy the Federal Chancellery and to hold the Ring and the building until the National Socialist Government was proclaimed. A special detachment of 40 SS men under the command of Kaltenbrunner's adjutant, Felix Rinner, received the order to force their way into and occupy the Federal Chancellery.
In the meantime Klausner had arrived. I asked him for the instruction to issue to all nine Gauleiters in Austria the order for the seizure of power by the party. At 8:30 this order was issued and with it the seizure of power for A. Hitler rolled over the country. Upon an urgent call from the Federal Chancellery I
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returned at 9 o'clock to that place. When I arrived at the gate, entrance was refused. Through the narrow peephole I saw the shining bayonets of the guards. The building was occupied by the police and the guards. Outside security guards were concentrated in large numbers. At last, upon the intervention of Dr. Seyss-Inquart, I was admitted through a back-door, had to climb over machine guns and open munition boxes in order to get to the second floor where my comrades were assembled. Under these circumstances I deemed it impossible for Felix Rinner to carry out his order. Now there arrived minute after minute the news of the occupation of the country and of the most important positions in Vienna. General Secretariat of the Fatherland Front, Ministry of War, Trade Unions' Building, Ravag. It was going on 10 o'clock when the commanding officer of the guards reported to the Minister of Security, Dr. Seyss, who happened to be in our room, that a man accompanied by 40 others demanded to be let in through the gate, invoking higher orders. I quickly informed Dr. Seyss that these were Rinner and his 40 men who had been detailed for the occupation of the Federal Chancellery. Dr. Seyss ordered that Rinner be brought upstairs. I shall never forget this moment. Escorted by a guardsman as tall as a lamppost, Felix Rinner, the famous Austrian track champion and all-round athlete, stepped into the room where expectation had reached the boiling point. He wore a shabby dark overcoat, no hat, his face was pale and resolved, a swastika brassard was around his arm. Rinner was the first National Socialist Sturmfuehrer who entered enemy headquarters during the night of liberation.
Dr. Seyss, on his own responsibility, gave the order to open the gate and to let the 40 men in. These 40 men knew what was at stake for them.- Two-thirds of them had been there on July 25th, 1934, when the SS Standarte had for the first time fought its way into the Federal Chancellery. Then they had faced death boldly for weeks and for years had they been in prison. Now they had fallen in a second time to force the decision for the movement. They had nothing but pistols, no uniforms, the swastika brassard over the coat, 40 determined men whom no power could oppose. While the political negotiations continued and from the country there came in by telephone one victory message after another, while the report of the investment of the Federal Chancellery by 6,700 stormtroopers was carried to Miklas and gigantic demonstrations of the population assembled in Vienna surging toward the building, while the members of the coming cabinet, first of all Klausner, arrived at the Federal Chancellery, while all these
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nightly events rolled off in feverish haste, Rinner posted one SS guard after another in the Federal Chancellery. Ludwig was still hanging on the telephone and begging Paris and London for help when suddenly two SS men as tall as lamp-posts entered his room and took their posts. He then gave up. Under the pressure of this national uprising and of the news from the Reich, Miklas collapsed. He accepted the resignation of Schuschnigg and entrusted around midnight Seyss-Inquart with the formation of a cabinet. He had to set his signature under the new cabinet, then he was escorted to a motor car. When he stepped out of his room, two SS men were posted as sentries at the door. He took off his top hat and bowed before them who looked at him in iron discipline and cold contempt, leaving his office never to return.
I hereby certify that the above document is a complete and correct copy of a newspaper article by Dr. FRIEDRICH RAINER published on 12 March 1939, and that this copy is part of the files of the Landgericht for Criminal Procedure Vienna in the case against Dr/ SCHMIDT and others.
Nürnberg, 10 June 1946
[signed] Dr. Wolfgang Lassmann
DR. WOLFGANG LASSMANN [Seal] Representative of the Republic of Austria
Federal Ministry of Justice.