In the Vienna of the First Republic a tendency to anti-semtism was particularly marked in the years of economic upheaval, between 1921 and 1923. . . … - Kurt Schuschnigg

The situation changed visibly when sentimental reasons and long-term political aims gave way to a stern, ruthless nationalist ideology which would brook no compromise. Hitler had categorically demanded the Anschluss in "Mein Kampf". . . . As early as 1923 Hitler had decide that, if necessary, the National-Socialists must take over the government in Austria by force.

Austria had become the second German state in fact, because there German culture, now homeless in its old home, found a new country. The more violent the opposition to German National-Socialism, the more justified became the Austrian claim to be the representatives of the now homeless German culture and of the higher values of Germanism. To all intents and purposes Weimar had been exiled from the Third Reich and had found its home in Vienna.

As in other European countries there were anti-semitic tendencies in pre-Hitler Austria too. Formerly political forces, together with the official authorities, had been sufficiently strong to prevent any excesses and nip any outburst in the bud apart from some verbal invective. Karl Renner says: … Throughout the Christian Social period in power no harm came to a single Jew in Vienna; in fact the Jewish element made far greater progress in the press, literature, theatre and business worlds than in the previous so-called liberal period. . . It must not be forgotten, however, that Vienna was the entry point for Jews from the East who did not assimilate easily.