Iron Mountain Squeeze

More than 500 Austrians died in the civil war which Nazis started in Styria Province at the signal of a bullet fired into heroic little Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss' spinal cord (TIME, Aug. 6). Last week the new Government of stern, thrifty Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg took the amazing step of compelling one man to pay the entire cost of Styria's civil war.

In all Austria nothing else is quite so valuable as the Erzberg, Styria's great tawny mountain of iron ore. In the Erzberg nestle some 800,000,000 tons of iron. It belongs to Alpine Montan Gesellschaft and A. M. G. is controlled by the German Steel Trust of Fritz Thyssen, No. 1 contributor to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party funds. Unable to crack down on Thyssen in Germany, the Austrian Government last week sent soldiers to A. M. G.'s resident Director General Herr Anton Apold. Under his nose they shoved an order from the Ministry of Justice, demanding $40,000 reparation for damage done in Styria by Nazi rebels, plus $30,000 as the Government's estimated cost for suppressing the rebellion.

Herr Apold waved his hands, spluttered. All Styria knew that A. M. G. had been behind the attempted Nazi Putsch. A few years ago A. M. G. used to back not the Nazis but the Heimwehr, private army of Austria's present Vice Chancellor, Prince Ernst Ruediger von Starhemberg. It was doubtless Thyssen who caused A. M. G. to switch over to what, for the present at least, has proved the losing side. Reputedly last week it was the Heimwehr, furious at their former backer, who demanded that Chancellor Schuschnigg squeeze the 'Iron Mountain" for a cool $70,000. According to a Heimwehr manifesto, "If the Government fails to make its fist felt by the all-powerful Director Apold of Alpine Montan Gesellschaft, all the Government's efforts against the Nazis in Styria will prove vain."

The Government claimed to possess proof last week that Director Apold would have received a portfolio in the Nazi Cabinet expected to be formed in Austria, after Dollfuss' assassination, by the late Chancellor's treacherous Minister to Italy. Dr. Anton Rintelen who sought to commit suicide when the insurrection failed. Dr. Rintelen was convalescent last week and Director Apold was supposed to know something about an attempt by Nazis to kidnap Rintelen out of his hospital ''because he knows too much." This attempt Vienna police foiled in time's nick. Last week Director Apold, who may yet hang with Dr. Rintelen, made not the smallest protest as the Government confiscated $70,000 worth of his goods, in effect stamped Styria's revolt "Paid."

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