Austrian nationalism

This in turn led to its opposition to unification with Protestant-majority Prussia, something that was perceived as a potential threat to the Catholic core of Austrian national identity.

[11] At this time the Bavarian government held particular interest in incorporating the regions of North Tyrol and Upper Austria into Bavaria.

The idea of uniting all ethnic Germans into one state began to be challenged with the rise of Austrian nationalism within the Christian Social Party that identified Austrians on the basis of their predominantly Catholic religious identity as opposed to the predominantly Protestant religious identity of the Prussians.

[1] However, less than 50 % of Austrians desired unification with Germany in the 1920s, and this sentiment further declined with the fall of the pan-Germanist Social Democrat government under Karl Renner.

[16] The Fatherland Front (VF) was the right-wing conservative, authoritarian, nationalist, and corporatist ruling political organisation of the Federal State of Austria.

It advocated Austrian nationalism and independence from Germany on the basis of protecting Austria's Catholic religious identity from what they considered a Protestant-dominated German state.

[4] Dollfuss accepted that Austrians were Germans but rejected the idea of Catholic Austrians submitting themselves to be taken over by a Protestant-dominated Germany, and instead claimed that Austria needed to revive itself and recognize the greatness of its history such as its Habsburg dynasty having been the leading part of the German Holy Roman Empire, and that when Austria restored itself, it would found a federal state of Germany that would recognize Germany as a Kulturnation, but would also recognize Austria as having a privileged place within such a federal state and the existence of an Austrian nation within the German Kulturnation.

The fighting started when League members fired on the Austrian police who were attempting to enter the Social Democrats' party headquarters in Linz to search for weapons.

[25] After the fall of Nazi Germany and the events from this and World War II, Austrians began to develop a more distinct national identity.