How Did the Anschluss Actually Happen? | Why Austria Fell to Germany in 1938

How did Germany annex Austria?
In 1938 the German army faced no resistance when it invaded Austria. Within two days the 'Anschluss' or 'Joining' of the two countries had been decreed and many newly minted Germans believed they could look forward to a prosperous future. But it had taken two decades of social chaos in Austria - plus a coercive pressure campaign by Berlin - to bring most Austrians into line. The ease of the Anschluss of March 13th, 1938, was due to both the virulence of a Germany readying to march to war and the ineptitude of the Austrian regime.

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Sources Consulted:

Miller, Stuart T. Mastering Modern European History. London: Macmillan Education LTD, 1990.

Pauley, Bruce. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the 20th Century. 4th ed. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2015.

[osypphz]

It's almost like a trope throughout history. H1lter was from Austria, Napoleon from Corsica, Stalin from Georgia and so on..

[colindaniels]

I'll quote History Matters:

"Austria wanted to be part of Germany, just not THAT Germany."

[NathanS__]

Saying Austria was separate from Germany for centuries is just plain incorrect. At best you can date Austria's separation to the rest of Germany to 1866 when Prussia broke the German Confederation, which the Austrian Emperor was President.

Protestant Prussia purposely pushed catholic Austria away so Prussia could unite Germany and then the Habsburgs tried to stay independent from the Hohenzollern Germany so the Habsburgs would remain an imperial power.
The idea that Austrians are not German at all is a post WWII idea.

[marcelbork]

How did it "happen"? Two German divisons crossed unopposed the "border" and marched straight to Vienna, being greeted and welcomed all the way through with cheers and flowers. That was it.

[mypropmp]

Bold and respectable decision for you to use the swastika despite YouTube’s censoring spree! Please, continue the amazing work!

[colindaniels]

Yes Mussolini was against the German takeover of Austria, mainly because he had his own designs on it.

He went along with it for 2 reasons:

1. He had no desire to piss off Hitler.

2. He saw Germany as the leading power in Europe at that point

[nicolasmarazuela]

Austria was forced to left the German Federation in 1866. At this point Austria wasn't even seperated a century from "Germany".

[TheMexxodus]

Amazingly Schuschnigg was arrested after the Anschluss and imprisoned in a concentration camp. And survived. He was liberated by the Americans in 1945. After the Second World War he went to the United States, became a professor of constitutional law at the University of St. Louis and acquired American nationality. In 1968 he returned to Austria, but did not enter politics again. Kurt Schuschnigg died in November 1977, four weeks before his 80th birthday.

[davidbraccini]

The reason why Mussolini approved the annexation of Austria, besides the alliance after the Ethiopian war, was because Hitler promised that he would renounce all claims to south Tyrol and even relocate all of its inhabitants who didn’t want to stay in Italy. Even after the eight of September 1943 and the subsequent german occupation of Italy Germany kept its promise and still never formally annexed South Tyrol.

[shelbynamels]

There is a video on here that recounts the months of early '38 to the conclusion of the Anschluss. Hitler had von Schussnig come to the Berghof and both subtly and overtly pressured him into agreeing to it.
Austrian politics between the wars was a bloodsport, very much unlike the laid-back, easy going stereotype most of the world has of Austrians. Contrasted with the stability during the reign of the Emperor, the years following 1918 were very tumultuous. Political leaders were assassinated, and political factions fought in the streets.
A lot of Hitler's appeal was in the fact that the population in both Germany and Austria were fed up with the unrest and political violence and longed for a stable government.

[Abrar_Rahman_Nafim]

Austria Painter Conquering His Own Country 💀

[FulmenTheFinn]

0:15 Austria had NOT been separate from Germany for hundreds of years. Until 1866 the German Confederation, which included the German-speaking parts of Austria, and then some (most notably Bohemia and Moravia), was essentially synonymous with Germany. Hence why you have things like the German Civil War being another name for the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Vienna had been the de facto capital of Germany for centuries, with the HRE becoming synonymous with the concept of Germany in the Middle Ages. To quote Wikipedia:

"From 1250 onward, the association between "Germans" and the whole Empire became stronger. [...] At the same time, the replacement of Latin with German in official documents entrenched the German character of the empire at large. In 1474 the term "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" appeared, becoming more common after 1512. However, even after 1560, only 1 in 9 official documents mention "Germany", and most omitted the rest as well and simply called it "the Empire". In 1544 the Cosmographia (Sebastian Münster) was published, which used "Germany" (Teütschland) as synonymous with the empire as a whole. Johann Jacob Moser also used "German" as a synonym for "Imperial". This conflated definition of "German" even included non-German speakers.[39]"

During the 1848 nationalist revolutions throughout the German Confederation, the German nationalists naturally wanted to make the Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph I, the Emperor of Germany. He turned it down, only for them to then offer it to the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who also turned it down. The latter saw Austria as the leader of Germany, and did not want a Germany separate of Austria.

"Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria had made it clear in November 1848 that he would not accept the title of "Emperor of the Germans" from the Frankfurt National Assembly because the Frankfurt Constitution would have required German-speaking Austria to have a separate constitution, government and administration from the rest of the Empire.[59] On 28 March 1849, the Assembly elected Frederick William IV as Emperor of the Germans, but he refused the crown. In a letter to a confidant, he wrote: "I can call God to witness that I do not want it, for the simple reason that Austria will then be separated from Germany.""

Austria being something separate from Germany only really came about as an idea c. 1866-1871, and even then it was flimsy at best for the next nearly 100 years, as witnessed by the Austrian desire to join Germany in the aftermath of WW1 and during the interbellum before WW2. I'd even make the case that the first widely spread Austrian identity separate from that of Germany only became a thing when the first post-WW2 generations began reaching adulthood in the 1960s and 1970s.

[dirufanboy]

Austria: I really didn't want to, but then I saw that little moustache and I just couldn't resist.

[Reichsritter]

what? they had been separate since 1866, that's 72 years not "hundreds of years "

[colindaniels]

I'm a bit surprised that you didn't mention the Stresa Front.

For those who may not know, the Stresa Front was a treaty/agreement between Italy, France, and the UK signed in 1933/1934.

It was an agreement between the three aforementioned countries to protect/guarantee Austrian independence as they knew Hitler had his eye on the place.

Sadly, the Stresa Front went down the toilet in 1935 when Italy invaded Ethiopia.

[glitchy]

Using the double headed eagle as the official coat of arms was a chad move, it's just so iconic!

[colindaniels]

Also, if History Matters is right, the only country to publicly condemn Anschluss was Mexico.

But given where Mexico was in relation to Germany and the fact that it was Mexico, it was pretty much ignored

[oliverschulte]

Mistake right in the beginning of the video: Austria was not separate from Germany since hundreds of years. Austria was one of the various German states who first formed the Holy Roman Empire until year 1806 and then the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866. It was only in 1866 that Austria was forced by Prussia to go separate ways. The German Federation ended in a war between its states with Prussia and its Northern allies winning and forcing the others under their rule, then calling the whole new thing "Germany". But Austria was explicitly excluded. It is a bit like as if the US Union had excluded Texas from the US after the Civil War in 1865. Back to the mistake in the video: Austria got kicked out of Germany in 1866, wanted to rejoin in 1919 (after WW1) and finally was semi-voluntarily joining Nazi-Germany in 1938.

[semsemeini]

My family were Austrian nationalists. Supporters of the Habsburgs. Fortunately they fled before March 12th, 1938.

[Julian-tfrb]

Not all Austrians wanted the Anschluß. My grandparents were just those type of Austrians. My Grandfather was more loyal to the old Austro-Hungarian union. When WW1 ended and the A-H empire ceased to be, he took his family and got out.