TEMBER 16, 1944. Lette Freedom of Austria Urged Passive Resistance Is Believed to Be Country's Best Weapon To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES: In his article in THE TIMES of Sept. 12, "Austria Is Warned to Earn Free- dom," your Washington correspondent stated that "a considerable nucleus of the old Socialist and liberal groups of Austria resisted Anschluss." The state- ment is true in regard to the Socialist workers, who, together with their Cath- olic colleagues, tried with all means at their disposal to resist the Anschluss. of one of these workers, begged The words by will Chancellor von Schuschnigg to forget their differences, go into history: "Mr. Chancellor, the issue is no longer about black or red, but to save our 'Landl.'' (Our small but be- loved country.) I do not remember that any of the liberal groups had thought of resist- ance. On the contrary, most of the lib- term-were not only not opposed erals-in the European sense of the to nazism but favored it openly or cryp- tically. There may have been excep- tions, but surely these were only a few. Moreover, it should never be overlooked that nazism, as far as Hitler himself is concerned, stemmed from the same intellectual background as did the lib- erals. He is mentally the true off- spring of those groups which for gen- erations were anti-Austrian and Pan- Germanists. There Was Opposition Unfortunately, the article does not mention those groups which actually did everything in their power to oppose the Anschluss-the Christian Socialists and the so-called Legitimists. I have witnessed how the Legitimists did all that they could to organize a resistance movement. Their leader, Baron Zess- ner-Spitzenberg, paid for it with his life in the concentration camp of Dachau, las did others. Other centers of resist- ance sprang from a high official in the Foreign Office at Vienna and several members of the Austrian Legation at Paris. And one other should not be forgot- ten. It is known, from the courageous letter he sent to Chancellor von Schuschnigg after the disastrous meet- ing at Berchtesgaden, how Otto of Aus- to persuade Schuschnigg to put tria up tried veterans If I am an armed resistance. rightly informed, 200,000 would have obeyed such an appeal. Further, the army was still in the hands of the higher officers, who, save for a few exceptions, were loyal to the regime. The last responsibility for the Anschluss, in my well-informed opinion, does not rest with the Austrians, who, to a high percentage, made every effort to avoid the inevitable. It weighs heavily on the great powers, which, instead of helping Austria in her momentous struggle to preserve her independence and sovereignty, were ap- If peasing the Nazi rulers of Germany. there was a Schober in Austria-by the way, a liberal and Pan-Germanist -who made the Customs Union with Germany, there were also a Seipel and Dollfuss who, manlike, resisted any attempt a to destroy Austria's freedom. Information Held Incomplete Unluckily, information in America about these decisive years in Austria come mostly from persons who has either blinds during them those were not in Austria years or whose ideology to judge objectively the efforts made by Seipel and Dollfuss for securing the in- dependence of Austria. Other efforts, as, for example, those made at Salzburg in building up the Catholic University for all German-speaking countries in middle Europe, are never mentioned in connection with the political events, al- though the Nazis were very well aware of the importance of such an ideological it opposition and therefore attacked accordingly. Mr. Hull in his last declaration on Austria seems to make it a condition for restoring independence that the Austrians should help actively in the liberation of their country. I think that time, a thing in which the Austrians only one thing is possible at the present were always masters-passive resist- ance. I am sure it is practiced already there and will be still more when the Allies come closer to the borders of the country. Regardless of this and for reasons of plain justice, the independence of Austria should be restored at any rate. Without a free and strong Austria there will never be peace and order in middle Europe. And I still believe, with all Americans, that the Allies are fighting for such a cause, as we Aus- trians have done in our modest way for years before the Anschluss. (Rev.) THOMAS A. MICHELS, O. S. B. Keyport, N. J., Sept. 12, 1944.