"The small alpine republic now had only 7 million citizens (compared with 54 million in the empire), 2 million of them in Vienna itself. It was wracked by daunting social and economic problems, and deep political fissures, accompanied by smouldering resentment about its loss of territory and revised borders...Only for the pan-Germans, by now entirely sucked into the Austrian Nazi movement was an Anschluss with Hitler's Germany an attractive proposition."
Kershaw, Ian: Hitler, 1936-45: Nemesis, (Allen Lane, 2000),
p.65
It’s fair to say that the 1920s Austrian tourist board
wouldn’t be fighting too hard for Ian Kershaw’s signature based on the
description above but it does paint a fairly accurate picture of the country
formed by the collapse and breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the
interwar period one of the few crumbs of comfort for the Austrian people was
its exceptional football team known across Europe as the Wunderteam. Having
lost only once between 1931 and 1934 (to England of all teams) they reached the
semi-finals of the 1934 World Cup and the final of the 1936 Olympic Football
Tournament only to lose to Italy on both occasions. By 1938 the Wunderteam may
have been past its best but still entered the qualification stages of the 1938
World Cup as one of the favourites for the tournament.
In October 1937 Austria defeated Latvia 2-1 at home thus
securing their place in the finals of the 1938 World Cup. This was, however, to
be their last competitive international game until after the Second World War.
The Nazis had made the unification of all German speaking peoples the first aim
of their 25 Point Program in 1920 and whilst this had seemed like the absurd
rhetoric of a fringe extremist group at the time by 1938 the German state had
the means and the support to act upon it. On March 12th 1938 the
Wehrmacht crossed the Austrian border and three days later, following what was
effectively a triumphant parade through the country of his birth, Hitler
announced the Anschluss in Vienna. Austria was now part of ‘Greater Germany’.
Football was not necessarily the highest priority for the new rulers of Austria but with the World Cup in France approaching a solution to the inclusion of what were effectively two parts of the same country in the tournament was required. Germany, who had swept all before them in qualification, were unlikely to relinquish their place and so Austria withdrew from the tournament. FIFA accepted this decision without question and, having failed to convince England to take their place and short-sightedly not offering it to Latvia, the competition began with only fifteen finalists. Sweden were the side to benefit from Austria’s absence and gained a bye to the quarter finals.
Keen to appease their new citizens and present a show of supposed unity the Nazi authorities imposed a quota system on the national team insisting that at least five Austrian players had to be included in the starting line-up for the German team. Nine former Austrian internationals were included in the German World Cup squad including renowned forward Wilhelm Hahnemann who went on to score the opening goal in the replayed first round tie against Switzerland. After a 1-1 draw in the first game Germany raced into a 2-0 lead in the replay. Switzerland rallied and eventually won 4-2 dumping Germany out of the tournament in what remains their worst performance at a World Cup finals.
The German manager, Sepp Herberger, was quick to point the finger of blame at the recently recruited Austrian players by highlighting their defeatist attitude and desire to play against Germany rather than for it. Whilst Herberger is fondly remembered for leading a depleted West Germany side to victory in the 1954 World Cup it is important to remember that he had been a member of the Nazi Party from 1933 and was an ardent supporter of Hitler’s regime during the 1930s. Team cohesion may well have been an issue for such a hastily assembled squad of Austrians and Germans but to blame the attempted propaganda coup of a ‘Greater Germany’ side is to ignore the effects of the Anschluss on Austro-German football.
The Nazis were swift to impose anti-Semitic laws in Austria following the Anschluss and football was not exempt from these. FK Austria Wien, national champions in 1936, were denounced as the ‘Judenklub’ and saw vast swathes of their players and management banned from competition due to their Jewish heritage which denied the Greater German squad the services of many of Austria’s best players. Perhaps the most significant of these was the Austrian captain Matthias Sindelar whose prodigious talent saw him dubbed ‘the Mozart of football’. Sindelar was not Jewish himself but was appalled by the treatment of his compatriots and refused to attend training for the combined Austro-German team initially claiming he was injured. When the subtlety of this eluded Herberger, Sindelar retired from international football in 1938. Less than a year later he was found dead in his apartment alongside his girlfriend, supposedly due to carbon monoxide poisoning.