Editing Arthur Seyss-Inquart (section)

== Life before the Anschluss ==
Seyss-Inquart was born in 1892 in Stonařov, at that time Stannern, a German-speaking village in the neighbourhood of the predominantly German-speaking town of Jihlava (Iglau). This area constituted a German linguistic island in the midst of a Czech-speaking
<nowiki> </nowiki>environment and this situation may have contributed to the outspoken 
national consciousness of the family and the young Arthur in particular.
<nowiki> </nowiki>Iglau was an important town in Moravia, one of the Czech provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
<nowiki> </nowiki>in which an increasing competition between Germans and Czechs was going
<nowiki> </nowiki>on. His parents were the school principal Emíl Seyss-Inquart and 
Augusta Hirenbach.

The family moved to Vienna in 1907. Seyss-Inquart later went to study law at the University of Vienna. At the beginning of [[World War I]] in August 1914 Seyss-Inquart enlisted with the Austrian Army and was given a commission with the Tyrolean ''Kaiserjäger'', subsequently serving in Russia, Romania and Italy.
<nowiki> </nowiki>He was decorated for bravery on a number of occasions and while 
recovering from wounds in 1917 he completed his final examinations for 
his degree. Seyss-Inquart had five older siblings: Hedwig (born 1881), 
Richard (born 3 April 1883, became a Catholic priest, but left the 
Church and ministry, married in civil ceremony and became ''Oberregierungsrat'' and prison superior by 1940 in the Ostmark), Irene (born 1885), Henriette (born 1887) and Robert (born 1891).

In 1911, Seyss-Inquart met Gertrud Maschka. The couple married in 
December 1916 and had three children: Ingeborg Carolina Augusta 
Seyss-Inquart (born 18 September 1917), Richard Seyss-Inquart (born 22 
August 1921) and Dorothea Seyss-Inquart (born 7 May 1928).

He went into law after the war and in 1921 set up his own practice. During the early years of the Austrian First Republic, he was close to the Vaterländische Front. A successful lawyer, he was invited to join the cabinet of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in 1933. Following Dollfuss' murder in 1934, he became a State Councillor from 1937 under Kurt von Schuschnigg. A keen mountaineer, Seyss-Inquart became the head of the German-Austrian Alpine Club. He later became a devotee of [[Heinrich Himmler]]'s
<nowiki> </nowiki>concepts of racial purity and sponsored various expeditions to Tibet 
and other parts of Asia in hopes of proving Aryan racial concepts and 
theories. He was not initially a member of the Austrian National Socialist party, though he was sympathetic to many of their views and actions.<sup>[1]</sup> By 1938, however, Seyss-Inquart knew which way the political wind was blowing and became a respectable frontman for the Austrian National Socialists.

In February 1938, Seyss-Inquart was appointed Minister of the Interior by Schuschnigg, after [[Adolf Hitler]]
<nowiki> </nowiki>had threatened Schuschnigg with military actions against Austria in the
<nowiki> </nowiki>event of non-compliance. On 11 March 1938, faced with a German invasion
<nowiki> </nowiki>aimed at preventing a plebiscite of independence, Schuschnigg resigned as Austrian Chancellor. Under growing pressure from Berlin, President Wilhelm Miklas reluctantly appointed Seyss-Inquart his successor. On the next day German troops crossed the border of Austria at the telegraphed
<nowiki> </nowiki>invitation of Seyss-Inquart. This telegram had actually been drafted 
beforehand and was released after the troops had begun to march, so as 
to justify the action in the eyes of the international community. Before
<nowiki> </nowiki>his triumphant entry into Vienna,
<nowiki> </nowiki>Hitler had planned to leave Austria as a puppet state, with an 
independent but pro-Nazi government headed by Seyss-Inquart. He was 
carried away, however, by the wild reception given to the German army by
<nowiki> </nowiki>the majority of the Austrian population and shortly decreed that 
Austria would be incorporated into the Third Reich as the province of Ostmark (see Anschluss). Only then, on 13 March 1938, did Seyss-Inquart join the Nazi Party.<sup>[2]</sup>