On 12 March 1938 Austria was incorporated into Nazi Germany. Although this involved German troops marching into Austria, there were many across much of the political spectrum who welcomed the development, both for historical reasons and because Austria's economic performance had been dire for many years, whereas Chancellor Hitler appeared to have found a way, at least in Germany, to beat the ongoing run-off from the Great Depression. News reports distributed and viewed round the world showed Austrians greeting the columns of German troops with flowers. Morawitz had grown up in the Social Democratic milieu of the city's , however, and within the family there was little sympathy with the fashion for populist extremism. Lisl was a member of the Young Communists and now found herself pitched into resistance activism by what had become a one-party dictatorship.