Austria's prewar democracy had many pallbearers, but the most prominent, after Adolf Hitler, was a good-looking young blueblood named Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg. He was a fascist when the world barely knew what the word meant. In 1923, he stood by Hitler's side in the unsuccessful Munich beer hall Putsch. Back in Austria, he was fond of bleating such sentiments as: "We have much in common with the German Nazis . . . Austria will go fascist sooner or later. Better sooner than later . . . Asiatic heads [meaning Jews] will soon roll in the sands." In...
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