page_title: Burgenland
section_title: Ninth state of Austria
hierarchical_section_title: Burgenland / History / Ninth state of Austria
caption_attribution_description: English: Krensdorf, war memorial on the church Magyar: Tormafalu, világháborús emléktáblák a templom oldalán
context_page_description: Burgenland; is the easternmost and least populous state of Austria. It consists of two statutory cities and seven rural districts, with a total of 171 municipalities. It is 166 km long from north to south but much narrower from west to east. The region is part of the Centrope Project.
context_section_description: With the help of Italian diplomatic mediation in the Venice Protocol, the crisis was almost resolved in the autumn of 1921, when Hungary committed to disarm the sharpshooters by 6 November 1921. This was in exchange for a plebiscite on the unification of certain territories, including Ödenburg (Sopron), the designated capital of Burgenland, and eight surrounding villages. The vote took place from 14 to 16 December, and resulted in a clear (but doubted by Austria) vote of the people who inhabited the Sopron district to be part of Hungary. Consequently, the territory was incorporated into Austria, except for the Sopron district which was united with Hungary.
  In contrast to all the other present Austrian states, which had been part of Cisleithania, Burgenland did not constitute a specific Kronland, and when it was formed it did not have its own regional political and administrative institutions such as a Landtag (representative assembly) and Statthalter (imperial governor).
  On 18 July 1922, the first elections for the parliament of Burgenland took place. Various interim arrangements were required due to the changeover from Hungarian to Austrian jurisdiction. The parliament decided in 1925 on Eisenstadt as the capital of Burgenland, and moved from the various provisional estates throughout the country to the newly built Landhaus in 1929.
  The first Austrian census in 1923 registered 285,600 people in Burgenland. The ethnic composition of the province had changed slightly: the percentage of Germans increased compared to 1910 (227,869 people, 80%) while the percentage of Hungarians rapidly declined (14,931 people, 5%). This was due mainly to the emigration of the Hungarian civil servants and intellectuals after the territory was ceded to Austria.
  In 1923, emigration to the United States of America, which started in the late 19th century, reached its climax; in some places up to a quarter of the population went overseas.
  After the Nazi German Anschluss of Austria, the administrative unit of Burgenland was dissolved. Northern and central Burgenland joined the district of Niederdonau (Lower Danube) while southern Burgenland joined Steiermark (Styria). The Jews of Burgenland were forced to emigrate in the immediate aftermath of the Anschluss.
  The policy of Germanization also affected other minorities, especially Burgenland Croats and Hungarians. Minority schools were closed and the use of their native language discouraged.
  In 1944, the Nazis began to build the Südostwall (South-east wall) with the help of mostly Jewish forced labor and collaborating inhabitants. This proved to be utterly useless when Soviet troops crossed the Hungarian–Austrian border during and invaded Austria. In the last days of the Nazi regime many executions and death marches of Jewish forced laborers took place.
caption: A memorial in Krensdorf to soldiers who died in the two World Wars
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