Diplomats in Turmoil: Creating a Middle Ground in Post-Anschluss Austria

Extract

As Hitler's armies moved across Europe, American diplomats confronted the turbulence left in their wake. One such diplomat, John Cooper Wiley, served as American counselor of legation and consul general in Vienna from July 1937 to July 1938. During this critical time in Europe, Wiley oversaw the transition forced on the American consulate general following Austria's annexation to Germany in March 1938.1 The consulate general found itself suddenly besieged by Austrian Jews desperate to emigrate following their incorporation into Greater Germany.2 Irena Wiley, the consul general's wife, described the changes in the consulate general immediately following the Anschluss (annexation):

John understood so well the importance of human dignity that the first thing he did after Hitler had seized Austria was to assemble the entire staff of the legation, from the counselor to the office boy. He told them: “Thousands of people are coming to ask for help. For most of them there is little or nothing that we can do. You will be tired, overworked and irritable, but I still ask you always to treat each of them with sympathy, courtesy, and when you can't do anything for them, when nothing else is available, give them your time and sympathy so that here at least they will be respected human beings and not hunted animals.”3