On March 12, 1938, German troops crossed the border into Austria and annexed the country without firing a single shot. They were met not with armed resistance, but with cheers and flowers. Thousands of Austrians turned out to greet Adolf Hitler as he traveled first to Linz and then on to Vienna.
Meanwhile, terrified Jews, leftists, and other opponents of the Nazi regime raced toward the country’s borders, hoping to escape before they were closed. Most were trapped in a rapidly Nazifying Austria. However, one Jew was awarded special protection by Hitler himself, who personally intervened to ensure his safety. His name was Eduard Bloch.
Eduard Bloch was born on January 30, 1872, in Frauenberg, then part of Austria-Hungary. He studied medicine in Prague and served as a medical officer in the Austrian army. In 1899, he was ordered to Linz in Upper Austria, where he opened a private practice in 1901. One year later, he married Lilli Kafka. The marriage produced one daughter, Trude.
Like most Jews in Linz at the time, the Bloch family was assimilated. Eduard Bloch was held in high regard, particularly among the families of lower and indigent social classes. He was willing to call on patients at any time, even at night.
Among such families was the family of Klara Hitler. Her husband Alois, who was "awfully rough" with her and "hardly ever spoke a word to her at home," had died in 1903. Their marriage produced six children. Alois Hitler was a stern, masterful, and often irritable father who demanded unquestioning respect and obedience from his children.
One of his children was Adolf, born in 1889, who would later become dictator of Germany. After Alois died, Klara sold the house they owned in Leonding and moved to an apartment in Linz.
In 1906, Klara Hitler discovered a lump in her breast but initially ignored it. She finally consulted the family doctor, Eduard Bloch, in January 1907 after experiencing chest pains that kept her awake at night. She explained that she had been busy with her household and had neglected to seek medical aid.
Bloch chose not to inform Klara that she had breast cancer. Instead, he left it to her son Adolf to tell her. Bloch told Adolf, who was almost 18 at the time, that his mother had a small chance of surviving and recommended that she undergo a radical mastectomy.
The Hitlers were devastated by the news. Bloch later said: "Klara Hitler accepted the verdict as I was sure she would – with fortitude. Deeply religious, she assumed that her fate was God's will. It would never occur to her to complain."
She underwent the mastectomy in Linz, whereupon the surgeon discovered that the cancer had already metastasized to the pleural tissue in her chest. Bloch informed Klara's children that her condition was terminal. Adolf, who had been in Vienna to study art, moved back home to tend to his mother, as did his siblings.
By October, Klara Hitler's condition had rapidly declined, and Adolf begged Bloch to try a new treatment. For the next 46 days, from November to early December, Bloch performed daily treatments of iodoform, a then experimental form of chemotherapy. Klara Hitler's mastectomy incisions were reopened, and massive doses of iodoform-soaked gauze were applied directly to the tissue to "burn" the cancer cells.
The treatments were incredibly painful and caused Klara's throat to paralyze, leaving her unable to swallow. Because of the poor economic situation of the Hitler family, Bloch charged reduced prices, sometimes taking no fee at all. Adolf would never forget this gesture.
However, the treatments proved futile. Klara Hitler was 47 years old when she died at her home in Linz from the toxic medical side-effects of iodoform on December 21, 1907. She was buried in Leonding.
In February 1908, Adolf Hitler moved to Vienna with the goal of attending the art academy and becoming a great artist. The same year, he wrote Bloch a postcard assuring him of his gratitude and reverence. He also expressed his thanks with handmade gifts, including a large wall painting.
However, when Hitler tried for the second time in October 1908 to gain admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, his test drawings were judged as so poor that he was not even allowed to take the formal exam. In May 1913, he left for Munich. There, he drifted and supported himself by painting watercolors and sketches until World War I, which began on July 28, 1914, and gave new direction to his life.
Hitler joined the army, was wounded twice in 1916 and then in 1918, and was awarded several medals. In October 1918, after he was partially blinded in a mustard gas attack near Ypres in Belgium, Hitler was sent to a military hospital in Pasewalk. News of the November 11, 1918, armistice reached him there as he was recuperating.
Released from the hospital in November 1918, Hitler returned to Munich. In 1919, he joined the Information Office of the Bavarian Military Administration. In August 1919, as a course instructor, Hitler made his first virulent antisemitic speeches. A month later, he first expressed an antisemitic, racist ideology on paper, advocating removal of Jews from Germany.
Hitler joined what would become the Nazi Party in October 1919 and helped devise the party political program in 1920. The program was based on racist antisemitism, expansionist nationalism, and anti-immigrant hostility. By 1921, he was the absolute leader of the Nazi Party.
Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. In July 1932, Hitler and the Nazis became the largest political party in Germany. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg.
One of the main objectives of the Nazi regime was to redraw the map of post-World War I Europe. Hitler and the Nazis considered the postwar international borders unfair and illegitimate. They claimed that Germans had been denied the right of self-determination.
Redrawing Europe’s borders would allow the Nazis to achieve two main goals: unite all Germans in a Nazi German Empire and acquire Lebensraum, meaning "living space," in eastern Europe. The annexation of Austria would help the Nazis achieve the first goal.
In March 1938, after Hitler threatened an invasion and ordered Wilhelm Keitel to conduct military maneuvers near the Austrian border to make it appear an invasion was imminent, Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg resigned his office on March 11. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Austrian Minister of the Interior and Hitler’s Nazi ally, was appointed his successor. Austrian Nazis took over the country without firing a single shot.
On March 12, German troops crossed the border. They were not met with armed resistance, but with cheers and flowers. Terrified Jews, leftists, and Schuschnigg supporters tried to flee Austria. They raced toward the country’s borders, hoping to reach them before they were closed. Some managed to escape, but most were trapped in a rapidly Nazifying Austria.
Among Austrian Jews who did not flee the country was Eduard Bloch with his family. However, he was in a different position than the rest of Austrian Jews, as he would be protected by Adolf Hitler himself. Even in 1937, Hitler had inquired about Bloch's well-being and called him an Edeljude, meaning "noble Jew." Hitler also said, "If all Jews were like him, there would be no Jewish question."
On March 13, Austrian Nazi Chancellor Seyss-Inquart signed the law called the "Reunification of Austria with Germany." This law, sometimes called the Anschluss law, formally incorporated Austria into Nazi Germany and gave the Anschluss the air of legality.
On March 13, Adolf Hitler visited his parents' grave in Leonding. Austrians welcomed Hitler warmly as he traveled first to Linz and then on to Vienna. Thousands turned out to greet the Führer, and on March 15 he spoke to a huge crowd in Vienna’s Heldenplatz, a large square in the center of Vienna.
Film footage and photographs of the crowds appeared in German newsreels and newspapers. Their goal was to demonstrate Austrian enthusiasm for the Anschluss and thus justify the illegal takeover of another country. When Hitler returned home to Berlin, he was greeted as a hero.
The April 10 plebiscite was another propaganda opportunity. The result of the referendum seemed to indicate that around 99 percent of the Austrian people wanted to unite with Nazi Germany. However, between 300,000 and 400,000 Austrian citizens, such as Austrian Jews, Roma, and the Nazis’ political opponents, were forbidden to vote in the referendum.
For Austria’s approximately 200,000 Jews, the Anschluss marked a terrible turning point. Beginning on the night of March 11 and in the weeks that followed, there was pogrom-like violence across the country. Austrian Nazis and others beat up, attacked, and humiliated the Jews. They forced Jews to scrub the streets, clean public toilets, and perform humiliating exercises.
Many decided to try to leave Austria, and lines appeared at consulates across the city of Vienna. However, Eduard Bloch was not among them. After the 66-year-old Bloch wrote a letter to Hitler asking for help, Hitler personally intervened to ensure his safety.
Consequently, Eduard Bloch was put under special protection by the Gestapo. He was the only Jew in Linz with this status. Eduard Bloch stayed in his house with his wife undisturbed.
But two weeks after the Anschluss, on March 28, 1938, Gestapo officers paid them a visit. One of them said to the Blochs: "I am informed that you have some souvenirs of the Führer, I should like to see them." The Gestapo demanded that the items, two postcards and the painting from Adolf Hitler, be handed over.
The Gestapo confiscated the postcards but not the painting, which the Blochs did not possess anymore at the time. The Blochs remained in their home in Linz without disturbance for nearly three years.
Eduard then asked Hitler if he could join his daughter in New York City. She had emigrated to the United States with her husband, Dr. Franz Kren, before the beginning of the Second World War. Adolf Hitler ordered that the procedures for leaving the country be made easier for him. In the meantime, the Gestapo made sure that no one bothered them. Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, personally supervised everything.
When the formalities for his emigration from the Third Reich and immigration to the United States were completed, Eduard Bloch and his wife Lili were able to sell their family home at market value. This was highly unusual, given the distress sales of emigrating Jews at the time and Nazi expropriation of Jewish assets through the Reich Flight Tax.
Moreover, the Blochs were allowed to take the equivalent of 16 Reichsmarks out of the country. The usual amount allowed to Jews was a mere 10 Reichsmarks.
In October 1940, Eduard Bloch and his wife were able to leave for Lisbon. Portugal was officially neutral during World War II. There, they embarked for the United States on board a Spanish ocean liner, settling in the New York borough of the Bronx.
However, Bloch was no longer able to practice medicine because his medical degree from Austria-Hungary was not recognized. During his stay in the United States, Bloch said about Hitler: "As a youth he was quiet, well mannered and neatly dressed. He waited patiently in the waiting room until it was his turn, then like every 14 or 15 year old boy, bowed as a sign of respect, and always thanked the doctor politely. He was tall and pale and looked older than his age. His eyes which he inherited from his mother were large, melancholic and thoughtful."
He also said: "While Hitler was not a mother's boy in the usual sense, I never witnessed a closer attachment. Their love had been mutual. Klara Hitler adored her son. She allowed him his own way whenever possible. For example, she admired his watercolor paintings and drawings and supported his artistic ambitions in opposition to his father at what cost to herself one may guess. Adolf Hitler was the 'saddest man I had ever seen' when he was informed about his mother's imminent death."
In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote: "I honoured my father but loved my mother. Her death was a dreadful blow."
Eduard Bloch was 73 years old when he died on June 1, 1945, barely a month after Hitler's death.