Anschluss in Austria To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK Times: Your disratch of Sept. 11, from Wash- ington, concerning Secretary Hull's statement on Austria, must have occa- sioned considerable amazement to per- sons familiar with Austrian problems. The statement that "a considerable nucleus of the old Socialist and liberal groups of Austria resisted Anschluss" is not only historically false but also dangerous to future political settle- ments in central Europe. It was pre- cisely the Socialist leaders and the lib- erals who did everything in their power to prepare and promote Anschluss. Liberalism in Austria had almost be- come synonymous with "Grossdeutsch" (pan-German or pro-Anschluss), espe- cially at Austrian universities, which were the principal incubators of na- tionalism long before the first World War and ever since. The real oppo- nents of nationalistic trends in Austria were farmers, especially Catholics and Monarchists. The majority of workers presumably were also of the same mind, but unfortunately this cannot be said of their leaders. The president of the main organization promoting An- schluss was Paul Loebe, former Social- ist president of the German Reichstag, and if the Austrian Socialist leaders 1 1 had one ambition it was to outdo their German comrades in zeal for the cause / of "Greater Germany." When in 1938 Anschluss had become 8" an accomplished fact-which really was due much more to the failure of the great powers than of the Austrian peo- ple or Government-the reaction of the exiled Socialist leaders was that they regretted it was Hitler who achieved it, but welcomed the achievement itself as a "historical progress," whatever that may mean. Even to this very day their attitude remains the same. It is quite probable that this stand is completely out of har- mony with that of their former fol- lowers inside Austria, since the Com- munist leaders, obviously acting on orders, have adopted an Austrian pro- gram clearly opposed to any union with Germany, even after Hitler. Hence it would be most regrettable, not to say absurd, for Allied post-war planning for an independent Austria to rely on its mortal and traditional enemies. KLAUS DOHRN. New York, Sept. 12, 1944.