Anschluss

[7] Nazi Germany's agents cultivated pro-unification tendencies in Austria, and sought to undermine the Austrian government, which was controlled by the Austrofascist Fatherland Front, which opposed unification.

In early 1938, under increasing pressure from pro-unification activists, Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg announced that there would be a referendum on a possible union with Germany versus maintaining Austria's sovereignty to be held on 13 March.

[16] Erich Ludendorff wrote to the Federal Foreign Office on 14 October 1918 about the possibility of conducting an Anschluss with the German areas of Austria-Hungary as its dissolution removed the problem of the country's numerous ethnic groups.

[21][22] Hugo Preuss, the drafter of the German Weimar Constitution, criticized efforts to prevent an Anschluss; he saw the prohibition as a contradiction of the Wilsonian principle of self-determination of peoples.

Even Otto Bauer, leader of the Social Democratic party had to admit that both the bourgeoisie and the peasantry wanted 'an independent Austria fully capable of a national life of its own'.

German Minister of Foreign Affairs Gustav Stresemann opposed it, as he saw it as an attempt to re-form the Austro-Hungarian Empire and offered to form a customs union with Austria.

In vehemently attacking the man's arguments he made an impression on the other party members with his oratorical skills and, according to Hitler, the "professor" left the hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat.

[34][non-primary source needed] The First Austrian Republic was dominated from the late 1920s by the Christian Social Party (CS), whose economic policies were based on the papal encyclical Rerum novarum.

After receiving Hitler's personal assurance that Germany would not seek territorial concessions from Italy, Mussolini entered into a client relationship with Berlin that began with the formation of the Berlin–Rome Axis in 1937.

[36] 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.

[40] The British historian Ian Kershaw wrote: [A]bove all, it was Hermann Göring, at this time close to the pinnacle of his power, who far more than Hitler, throughout 1937 made the running and pushed the hardest for an early and radical solution to the 'Austrian Question'.

Infuriated, on 11 March, Adolf Hitler threatened invasion of Austria, and demanded Chancellor von Schuschnigg's resignation and the appointment of the Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart as his replacement.

Hitler's plan was for Seyss-Inquart to call immediately for German troops to rush to Austria's aid, restoring order and giving the invasion an air of legitimacy.

Realizing that neither France nor Britain was willing to offer assistance, Schuschnigg resigned on the evening of 11 March, but President Wilhelm Miklas refused to appoint Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor.

Before the first German soldier crossed the border, Heinrich Himmler and a few Schutzstaffel (SS) officers landed in Vienna to arrest prominent representatives of the First Republic, such as Richard Schmitz, Leopold Figl, Friedrich Hillegeist, and Franz Olah.

During the few weeks between the Anschluss and the plebiscite, authorities rounded up Social Democrats, Communists, other potential political dissenters, and Austrian Jews, and imprisoned them or sent them to concentration camps.

[78] British historian Donny Gluckstein notes that Austrian socialists reacted with "disgust" to Renner's endorsement of Anschluss, provoking a split in the SPÖ.

[79] The relevance of Innitzer's endorsement is also disputed — he was reportedly "despised" by Austrian workers,[80] and the Anschluss sparked Catholic protests in Austria under the slogan "Our Führer is Christ" (rather than Hitler).

[citation needed] Henceforth, Austria was recognized as a separate country, although it remained divided into occupation zones and controlled by the Allied Commission until 1955, when the Austrian State Treaty restored its sovereignty.

[103] After breaking off the negotiations regarding the position of the Catholic Church in Austria, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer (a political figure of the CS) was intimidated into supporting the Anschluss after being assaulted.

[citation needed] Karl Renner, the most famous Social Democrat of the First Republic, announced his support for the Anschluss and appealed to all Austrians to vote in favour of it on 10 April.

[110] And next day in Geneva, the Mexican Delegate to the International Office of Labor, Isidro Fabela, voiced an energetic protest, stronger than that expressed by European countries,[111] denouncing the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany.

The unification of Germany brought about by Otto von Bismarck created that Prussian-dominated entity in 1871, with Austria, Prussia's rival for dominance of the German states, explicitly excluded.

After the Anschluss, Hitler targeted Czechoslovakia, provoking an international crisis which led to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, giving Nazi Germany control of the industrial Sudetenland, which had a predominantly ethnic German population.

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).

They declare that they wish to see re-established a free and independent Austria and thereby to open the way for the Austrian people themselves, as well as those neighbouring States which will be faced with similar problems, to find that political and economic security which is the only basis for lasting peace.

The state treaty, alongside the subsequent Austrian declaration of permanent neutrality, marked important milestones for the solidification of Austria's independent national identity during the course of the following decades.

One of those occasions arose in 1965, when Taras Borodajkewycz, a professor of economic history, made anti-Semitic remarks following the death of Ernst Kirchweger, a concentration camp survivor killed by a right-wing protester during riots.

Bernhard made the historic elimination of references to Hitler's reception in Vienna emblematic of Austrian attempts to claim its history and culture under questionable criteria.

Although reports issued shortly thereafter credited Austria for initiating large-scale investigations, there has been one case where criticism of Austrian authorities arose recently: The Center put 92-year-old Croatian Milivoj Asner on its 2005 top ten list.