Word: peasant
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...however, earn the two silver stars of a First Lieutenant. Stars on the collar tabs denote rank in the Austrian army. Edelweiss and "caper-cailzie" plumes are an integral part of the 14th Army Corps, the Edelweisskorps, H. Q Innsbruck, Tyrol, of the old Imperial & Royal Army. . Peasant upbringing and uncertain antecedents were no handicap to promotion to First Lieutenant in the "extremely aristocratic army of Franz Josef." Requirements were high school diploma, successful completion of officers' training school, about 20 months in the front. But Dollfuss earned distinction by winning the "Verdienstkreuz," Cross of Merit, a decoration given...
Only members of this class, the Chancellor decreed, may hereafter be called "peasants," which title shall become throughout the Fatherland a badge of honor. To qualify as a "peasant" a German must: 1) prove that none of his family since Jan. 1, 1800 A.D. have been Jews or Negroes; 2) possess a homestead large enough to support a family but not larger than 300 acres...
...decide who is to be a privileged "peasant" and who a mere "farmer," the new decree sets up a vast Nazi bureau topped by an imposing Agrarian Supreme Court. Members of the new peasantry cannot be dispossessed for debt. Neither can their crops or goods of any sort be seized by private creditors. In the words of Chancellor Hitler's decree, "the peasantry are lifted out of the capitalist system...
...last week's decree there was only one catch. Every peasant, in order to retain his status, must be "honorable"- the requisite degree of honor being defined as ''honorable enough to pay his debts if he is able to do so after proper administration of his land." Peasants who flagrantly cheat their creditors will suffer a peculiar penalty: the cheater's estate will pass while he is yet living to his heir. If the heir turns out to be a cheat, his heir gets the estate, and so on until an "honorable peasant" is found...
Resolved to make his uplifted peasant class an "eternal aristocracy" Chancellor Hitler wound up his epochal decree by providing that no peasant may sell or divide his homestead and must bequeath it at death to one sole heir. Jews, being considered ipso facto without honor, were barred from ever inheriting either a peasant homestead or any German farm land whatsoever...