page_title: Austrians
section_title: World Wars
hierarchical_section_title: Austrians / History / World Wars
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. This description has been identified as biased or incorrect: Original Nazi-propaganda descriptionDes Führers Triumphfahrt durch das jubelnde Wien. Die Ankunft des Führers in Wien am Montagnachmittag gestaltete sich zu einem triumphalen Einzug, wie ihn wohl noch kein Staatsmann erlebte. Hunderttausende umsäumten viele Stunden vor der Ankunft der Wagenkolonne des Führers die Strassen und ihre Jubelrufe klangen dem Einiger aller Deutschen wie ein Orkan entgegen. 15.3.1938 [Herausgabedatum] Scherl Bilderdienst, Berlin Information added by Wikimedia users.Deutsch: In der Mariahilfer Straße, Blickrichtung von etwas nach der Zieglergasse Richtung Andreasgasse / Stadteinwärts
context_page_description: Austrians are a Germanic nation and ethnic group, native to modern Austria and South Tyrol that share a common Austrian culture, Austrian descent, and Austrian history. The English term Austrians was applied to the population of Habsburg Austria from the 17th or 18th century. Subsequently, during the 19th century, it referred to the citizens of the Empire of Austria, and from 1867 until 1918 to the citizens of Cisleithania. In the closest sense, the term Austria originally referred to the historical March of Austria, corresponding roughly to the Vienna Basin in what is today Lower Austria.
  Historically, Austrians were regarded as ethnic Germans and viewed themselves as such. Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 which resulted in Prussia expelling Austria from the Confederation. Thus, when Germany was founded as a nation-state in 1871, Austria was not a part of it. In 1867, Austria was reformed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
context_section_description: The last year of World War I saw the collapse of Habsburg authority throughout an increasingly greater part of its empire. On October 16, 1918, emperor Karl I invited the nations of Austria to create national councils, with the aim to instigate a restructuring of the state under Habsburg rule. The nations followed the invitation (the Czechs had founded their national council already before the invitation) but ignored the will of the emperor to keep them in a restructured Austrian state. Their goal was total independence. 
  On October 21, the German members of the Austrian parliament, elected in 1911, met in Vienna to found the Provisional National Assembly of German Austria ("Provisorische Nationalversammlung für Deutschösterreich"). On October 30, 1918 they installed the first German Austrian government, leaving the question "monarchy or republic" open. (German nationalists and social democrats favoured the republic, the Christian Socialists wanted to keep the monarchy.) This government in the first days of November took over the duties of the last imperial-royal government in a peaceful way. Initially the new state adopted the name "German Austria", reflecting the republic being the German part of the old Austria and showing the popular desire to unite with the new German republic. On November 12, 1918, the provisional national assembly voted for the republic and for unification with Germany with a large majority. 
  The creation of the Czecho-Slovak and South Slav states, the dissolution of the real union with Hungary, and the post-war treaties imposed by the victorious Allies combined to see the newly established Austrian republic both with the boundaries it has today, and a largely homogeneous German-speaking population. In the Treaty of Saint-Germain, in September 1919 the union with Germany was prohibited, and the new republic's name "Deutschösterreich" was prohibited by the treaty; instead the term "Republic of Austria" was used. The westernmost province Vorarlberg's wish to unite with Switzerland was also ignored. On October 21, 1919, the state changed its name accordingly. Many German Austrian communities were left scattered throughout the other new states, especially in Czechoslovakia, where more than 3 million German Bohemians had not been allowed to become part of the new Austrian state, as well as in the southern part of Tyrol which now found itself part of Italy. In total, more than 3.5 million German-speaking Austrians were forced to remain outside the Austrian state.
  The collapse of the empire caused an apparent struggle for some German Austrians between an "Austrian" and a "German" character. The idea of unifying Austria with Germany was motivated both by a sense of a common German national identity, and also by a fear that the new state, stripped of its one-time imperial possessions, and surrounded by potentially hostile nation-states, would not be economically viable. An Austrian identity emerged to some degree during the First Republic, and although Austria was still considered part of the "German nation" by most, Austrian patriotism was encouraged by the anti-Nazi/anti-Socialist clerico-authoritarianist state ideology known as Austrofascism from 1934-38. The Engelbert Dollfuss/Kurt von Schuschnigg government accepted that Austria was a "German state" and believed Austrians were "better Germans", but strongly opposed the annexing of Austria to the Third Reich.
  By March 1938, with Nazi governments in control of both Berlin and Vienna, the country was annexed to Germany (Anschluss) as Ostmark. In 1942 the name was changed to the "Alpen-und Donau-Reichsgaue" ("Alpine and Danubian Gaue"), thus eradicating any links with a special Austrian past. Some of the most prominent Nazis were native Austrians, including Adolf Hitler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Franz Stangl, Otto Skorzeny, and Odilo Globocnik, as were 40% of the staff at Nazi extermination camps.
  During the war, Austrians' infatuation with Germany faded as Austrian-born Hitler's series of victories ended. When social democrat Adolf Schä
caption: Austrians greeting the Nazis during the Anschluss in Vienna
exif: {}