The Austrofascism of Austria between 1934–1938 focused on the history of Austria and opposed the absorption of Austria into Nazi Germany (according to the philosophy Austrians were "superior Germans"). [49] For the Wehrmacht, the invasion was the first big test of its machinery. [96], This view of the events of 1938 has deep roots in the 10 years of Allied occupation and the struggle to regain Austrian sovereignty: the "victim theory" played an essential role in the negotiations for the Austrian State Treaty with the Soviets, and by pointing to the Moscow Declaration, Austrian politicians heavily relied on it to achieve a solution for Austria different from the division of Germany into separate Eastern and Western states. [53] Hitler had originally intended to leave Austria as a puppet state with Seyss-Inquart as head of a pro-Nazi government. Throughout World War Two, 950,000 Austrians fought for Nazi Germany's armed forces. [72], The Anschluss was given immediate effect by legislative act on 13 March, subject to ratification by a plebiscite. ... they faced an escalation of oppression ... Austria's Jews, numbering over 200,000 (perhaps as many as 214,000) were a particular object of this outburst. repression and barbaric racial policies, of which the Jews were the principal The statist corporatism which is often referred to as Austrofascism and described as a form of clerical fascism, bore a stronger resemblance to Italian Fascism rather than German National Socialism. It also helped if the claim involved real estate. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. Cardinal Theodor Innitzer (a political figure of the CS) declared as early as 12 March: "The Viennese Catholics should thank the Lord for the bloodless way this great political change has occurred, and they should pray for a great future for Austria. The Austrian resistance was small, though it was by no means negligible. anti-Semitic political heritage in which the pronounced Jewish presence in key troops soon followed. associated Jews with many developments in Austrian society that were opposed by for change far more than it did widespread support for Hitler and Nazism. Tirol despite his aggressive policies elsewhere to bring all German populations About one-third of Austria's Jewish The public was rarely forced to confront the legacy of Nazi Germany. SOURCE: Area Handbook of the US Library of Congress. At the end of World War II, a Provisional Austrian Government under Karl Renner was set up by conservatives, Social Democrats and Communists on 27 April 1945 (when Vienna had already been occupied by the Red Army). An international outcry against the FPO followed ... A year after the Historikerkommission was set up, Austria hit the international headlines again, when, in 2000, a new coalition government under Wolfgang Schüssel (of the People's Party) brought Jörg Haider's FPO into the corridors of power. The catalyst for the Vergangenheitsbewältigung (struggle to come to terms with the past) was the Waldheim affair. After the plebiscite, the church Though the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, continued to make proposals for setting up a central European federation comprising the former Habsburg lands and even southern Germany, the European Advisory Commission in London assumed that Austria would return to sovereignty within the borders of 1937. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators. Thus, a The loudest verbal protest was voiced by the government of Mexico. Its 2001 report offered the following characterization: Given the extensive participation of numerous Austrians, including at the highest levels, in the implementation of the Final Solution and other Nazi crimes, Austria should have been a leader in the prosecution of Holocaust perpetrators over the course of the past four decades, as has been the case in Germany. They regard the annexation imposed on Austria by Germany on 15 March 1938, as null and void. When Germany permitted residents of Austria to vote[clarification needed] on 5 March 1933, three special trains, boats and trucks brought such masses to Passau that the SS staged a ceremonial welcome. Nonetheless, the early successes were spectacular. It was agreed that redress for the loss of rental property (59,000 Vienna flats) should be paid out of the Austrian National Fund. United States forces began entering Austria on April 30, and French and British But the post-war Austrian state extended this legal argument to arrive at a morally dubious and historically untenable denial of liability for what went on in Austria during Nazi rule, for all of Austrian society. Austria became the province of Ostmark, and Seyss-Inquart was appointed governor. The Viennese events during Kristallnacht—a short but devastating period of pogroms against Jewish people and property throughout Germany on November 9–10, 1938—proved that anti-Semitism was more virulent and violent in Austria than in most other German areas. when the course of the war increasingly turned against Germany, did popular The idea of grouping all Germans into one nation-state had been the subject of debate in the 19th century from the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 until the break-up of the German Confederation in 1866. the country's conservative, rural, and Catholic population. Immediately after the invasion, the Nazis arrested many leaders of the anti-Nazi Austrian political parties and a great number of political opponents, particularly communists and socialists. economy or cause the loss of economically valuable assets. For instance, in the village of Innervillgraten, a majority of 95% voted for Austria's independence. Nevertheless, the positive vote reflected the Austrians' desire When the fighting ceased, more than 65,000 Austrian Jews had perished, many of them in extermination camps. At the same time, however, the declaration also On 11 Mar 1938, Germany gave Austria an ultimatum: surrender or face an invasion. [73] However, in the plebiscite on 10 April, 73.3% of votes in Innervillgraten were in favor of the Anschluss, which was still the lowest number of all Austrian municipalities. of the Roman Catholic hierarchy for annexation. Second, it is to showcase Whilst infiltrating the German Workers' Party (DAP), Hitler became involved in a heated political argument with a visitor, a Professor Baumann, who proposed that Bavaria should break away from Prussia and found a new South German nation with Austria. The remaining Austrian Nazis continued terrorist attacks against Austrian governmental institutions, causing a death toll of more than 800 between 1934 and 1938. John A. Leopold, "Seyss-Inquart and the Austrian Anschluss,", Giles MacDonogh, 1938: Hitler's Gamble, p.35, CBS World Roundup Broadcast 13 March 1938 Columbia Broadcasting System retrieved from, Nazis Take Austria, The History Place, retrieved from. An important agreement was reached in Washington in January 2001, in the closing days of the Clinton administration, in which the Austrian government agreed to pay into a General Settlement Fund, which would be used for settling outstanding claims. ww2dbaseIn additions to the Jews, Austrian Catholics also suffered. The Historikerkommission, however, gave up the idea of providing a balance sheet showing how these figures tallied against what had been taken.