The Anschluss on March 12, 1938, was when Austria got annexed and officially joined Germany. Adolf Hitler, the head honcho of the Nazis, had this big dream of a German empire that included all German-speaking folks—he called it ‘Greater Germany.’ When he sent in the military, there wasn’t really any pushback from other countries, so Austria just became part of the Third Reich.
A lot of people in Austria were actually on board with the idea of joining Germany, but some realized that they’d lose their independence as long as Hitler was in charge. Plus, Hitler was keen on taking over Austria because it meant more resources for him—like soldiers for his army, raw materials, and a bunch of cash and gold. The Austrian government got shut down, and the name Österreich (which is what Austria is called in German) was pretty much erased from public life. The Nazis wasted no time in pushing their beliefs onto the Austrians and locking up anyone they saw as a threat. What started as a union quickly turned into an occupation by a totalitarian regime.
A Weak League of Nations
Hitler had dreams of creating a German empire, or what he called ‘Greater Germany,’ ever since he wrote Mein Kampf in 1925. In that book, he talked about the need for Lebensraum, or living space, for Germans—basically, new territories where they could thrive. The Nazi party gained traction in the early 1930s, and by 1933, Hitler was invited to become chancellor. He quickly set up a dictatorship using tactics like the Enabling Act and shifted focus to an aggressive foreign policy aimed at reclaiming the land Germany lost after the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I. During this time, Hitler noticed how weak the League of Nations was; it didn’t take any real action when Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931.
Hitler sent mixed signals to world leaders, demanding that Germany be allowed to rearm and ignore the military restrictions from the Treaty of Versailles while also claiming he wanted to maintain world peace. The treaty specifically prohibited the unification of Germany and Austria. In 1934, Hitler insisted he had no plans to merge Austria into his newly formed Third Reich. But domestically, his intentions were clear. He repeatedly told the German people that he would undo the Treaty of Versailles, which he believed was holding Germany back. His first move was a plebiscite in the Saar region, a coal-rich area that used to belong to Germany but was under League of Nations control since WWI. In March 1935, the people voted overwhelmingly to reunite with Germany. That same year, Hitler announced conscription and ramped up rearmament. The League of Nations once again proved ineffective when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, and you can bet Hitler took note of that too.
Europe post-Treaty of Versailles was definitely a tense place.In March 1936, German troops moved into the Rhineland, a key industrial region between Germany and France that the Treaty of Versailles had said should be free of military forces. The League of Nations didn’t do anything about it, since many saw it as Germany just asserting control over its own territory, a term that the British Times used. Hitler was ready to pull back his soldiers if there was any pushback, but he ended up bluffing successfully. Then in October 1936, the Spanish Civil War kicked off, with both Italy and Germany getting involved and eager to try out their new weapons. By July 1937, China was also at war with Japan. With all this chaos happening internationally, Hitler figured it was the perfect moment to expand the Third Reich by bringing Austria—his birthplace—into the fold of Greater Germany.
Why Austria was Attractive to Hitler
The Anschluss, which means ‘joining together’, was seen by the Nazis as a key step in their goal to dominate Europe. Their plan started with uniting all German-speaking people into one nation. Austria used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled by the Habsburgs, but that fell apart after World War I. By the time between the wars, Austria had about 6.7 million people and spanned 84,000 square kilometers (or 32,400 square miles). Most Austrians spoke German, and they shared a lot of cultural, political, and historical ties with Germany.
Thanks to rearmament, Germany had nearly full employment by 1938. Hitler had delivered on his promises to the German people, but building up the military came with its own challenges. To support this military expansion, Germany needed a ton of raw materials, and they couldn’t keep buying them for much longer since their finances were about to take a hit. So, taking over areas rich in resources seemed like an easy fix. Plus, Germany had a leg up in arms compared to its enemies, but that advantage wouldn’t last forever. Bringing Austria into the fold would give Hitler immediate access to those raw materials, boost Germany’s energy and industrial output, and provide a large pool of potential soldiers. On top of that, controlling Austria would strengthen Germany’s defenses in Europe and make it easier to invade neighboring countries, especially in the Balkans and Czechoslovakia. While there were definitely some Austrians who wanted to stay independent, Hitler was ready to use force if he had to in order to achieve his unification goals.
The Failed Coup
The 1938 Anschluss was actually Hitler’s second shot at merging Germany and Austria. He had tried to do it four years earlier but failed. After coming to power in 1933 and becoming a dictator, Austrian Nazis who were sympathetic to his cause started plotting a coup in February 1934. By spring of that year, they were causing chaos for the Austrian government by blowing up train tracks, government buildings, and attacking officials, all with weapons and explosives supplied by Germany. Austria was struggling with a series of weak coalition governments since no single party could take charge. Groups like the German Brotherhood were pushing for unification with Germany and were really unhappy about the increasing power of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, who was pro-Italy and anti-Germany. In June 1934, he banned the Nazi party and any other parties besides his own. On July 25, Dollfuss was seriously injured during a Nazi attack in his office, carried out by SS stormtroopers disguised as Austrian military and police. He bled to death a few hours later because his attackers wouldn’t let him get medical help. This assassination became known as the Dollfuss Affair.
When the Anschluss happened, the reaction from world powers was pretty low-key; most governments just expressed some dissatisfaction with how Hitler was going about things.In August, Austria got a new Chancellor named Kurt von Schuschnigg (1897-1977). He was the one who, with help from the Austrian military, made sure that the German-backed coup didn’t succeed. The Italian fascist leader, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), also played a part in stopping the takeover since he had his own plans for Austria and wasn’t keen on Germany taking control. After Dollfuss was assassinated, Mussolini moved four divisions of troops to the border between Italy and Austria, ready to back up a treaty they had that promised mutual protection against outside threats.
Dollfuss had worked hard to build a relationship with Mussolini and even created a new fascist constitution in 1934, but his authoritarian rule earned him some enemies too. Then, both Italy and France publicly declared their support for Austria’s independence. To make things worse, Dollfuss’ family was actually staying with Mussolini when he got shot. They caught 13 of the coup leaders and executed them. Hitler decided to step back from all this drama and wait for a better chance to take over Austria. On March 21, 1935, he announced that Germany had no intention of interfering in Austria’s affairs or pursuing an Anschluss (union). That same month, he also rejected the Treaty of Versailles. Foreign countries were pretty confused about Germany’s foreign policy, if it could even be called that. Many leaders and diplomats, wanting to avoid another world war, were willing to give Hitler the benefit of the doubt and focus only on his more peaceful gestures.
More Affairs
The Second Attempt at a Coup
Back in Austria, Schuschnigg tried to keep Hitler at bay over the next few years by making some concessions, but he also rolled out mandatory military service in April 1936. The German-Austrian agreement on July 11, 1936, promised that Austria would stay independent, but it had to align its foreign policy with Hitler’s, and secretly, all Nazi political prisoners were to be granted amnesty. Then in October, Hitler lost Mussolini’s crucial support for Austria as Germany and Italy formed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. By November 1936, Italy, Germany, and later Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was basically a treaty to work together on empire-building and stand against communism. According to Albert Speer, who was Hitler’s main architect and later became his armaments minister, Hitler would often remember how graciously Mussolini allowed him to invade Austria, and he felt eternally grateful to the Duce for that.
In February 1938, Hitler met Schuschnigg in Germany and pushed for Nazis to take power in the Austrian government. He warned Schuschnigg that if Germany invaded, the international community wouldn’t back Austria. Still clinging to the hope that appeasement could preserve Austria’s independence, Schuschnigg agreed to appoint Austrian Nazi Arthur von Seyss-Inquart as the interior minister, which meant he’d have control over state security. Schuschnigg also decided to bring in the pro-Nazi Edmund Glaise-Horstenau as the war minister.
Schuschnigg thought he could boost his government and win over Hitler by holding a referendum about joining Germany, scheduled for March 13, 1938. He made the announcement on March 9, which caught Hitler off guard. Worried that the vote might show people weren’t in favor of unification, Hitler had to act quickly. Just like back in 1934, he instructed Austrian Nazis to stir up chaos for Schuschnigg’s government. The plan was to create enough unrest so that Germany could claim it needed to step in to restore order. On March 12, the German army launched Operation Otto, sending troops into Austria under the pretense of responding to a fake emergency call for help from a local official. They crossed the border near Linz and headed towards Vienna. Realizing they couldn’t win a fight (since Austria lacked modern military equipment) and knowing many Austrians actually supported unification, the Austrian government surrendered. Radio broadcasts encouraged people not to resist.
Pro-Nazi supporters made sure Hitler got a warm welcome with cheering crowds when he visited Linz on March 12, and the same thing happened in Vienna on March 14. Some historians think Hitler was taken aback by the enthusiastic reception, which motivated him to fully integrate Austria into Greater Germany instead of just setting up a puppet regime. However, there were secret orders hinting that he might have always intended for a full occupation, possibly even before Schuschnigg announced the vote. He had consistently threatened Schuschnigg with Germany’s military strength. Regardless of the actual plans, Hitler once again mixed careful preparation with quick reactions to his opponents’ moves. In the end, using mostly bluff and minimal violence, the Nazi leader managed to grab a huge chunk of territory.
From Union to Occupation
While a lot of people in Austria were on board with the Anschluss because Germany was doing well and Hitler seemed to be making big moves, it turned out to be a nightmare for many others. Schuschnigg had to step down, and Seyss-Inquart, who had a short stint as chancellor right before the takeover, took over as president from Wilhelm Miklas. On March 13, they officially made the unification of Germany and Austria a law. Austria was reorganized to fit into the German system, with Nazi governors called Gauleiters running things. Seyss-Inquart also became the Reich governor of Vienna and led what was now a provincial government under the Reich. Austria sent 73 representatives to the German parliament in Berlin, and Josef Bürckel was put in charge of managing the details of the annexation.
In total, there were about 100,000 German troops stationed in Austria. Starting March 14, members of the Austrian armed forces had to pledge loyalty to Hitler, and eventually, the Austrian army got absorbed into the German military. By March 17, civil servants in Austria also had to swear allegiance to Hitler. Those who opposed the union didn’t have many options besides leaving, which tens of thousands chose to do. With the German troops came darker elements like the Gestapo and the SS, who cracked down on any resistance (though not always successfully). Anyone caught speaking out against the Nazis faced arrest and could end up in concentration camps in Germany. Soon enough, Austria had its own camp at Mauthausen near Linz, where around 70,000 Austrians were deported. The Nazis wanted to create an illusion of public support, so they held a rigged vote on April 10, where an outrageous 99.08% of voters supposedly backed the Anschluss (similar results popped up in Germany too). In short, Austria as it was known was gone.
Bürckel, acting as Hitler’s personal rep, had total control over Austria, which was now called Ostmark (meaning ‘Eastern Borderland’). The name Österreich was completely dropped from public use. Just like Germany, Ostmark was under a totalitarian regime with Hitler at the top. Meanwhile, lower-ranking Nazis were busy draining Austrian banks of their foreign currency. The Austrian Federal Bank’s stash of 1,368 million Reichsmarks was happily transferred to the German Reich Bank, which only had 76 million at the time. Raw materials from Austria, like iron ore, oil, and magnesite, were shipped off to factories in Germany. Next up in the occupation was spreading Nazi propaganda and rounding up anyone seen as an enemy of the Reich, especially Jews, as defined by the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. Jews were heavily pressured to leave; wealthy ones had their assets seized, which helped cover the costs for those who couldn’t afford to leave. By the end of 1939, around 60% of the 150,000 Jewish people in Austria before the Anschluss had fled. Those who stayed faced increasingly brutal tactics from the Nazis aimed at getting rid of Jews and other ‘undesirables’, leading up to the horrific ‘Final Solution’ during the Holocaust, where millions were murdered in death camps.
Aftermath
The response from world powers to the Anschluss was pretty low-key. Most governments just expressed some disappointment with Hitler’s tactics but acknowledged that a lot of people were on board with it, thanks to the plebiscites. Meanwhile, Hitler kept pushing into other parts of Europe. In September 1938, the Munich Agreement allowed Germany to take over the Sudetenland, an industrial area in Czechoslovakia that Hitler wanted, claiming there was a German minority being mistreated there. This agreement was signed by Germany, France, Italy, and Britain, and it accepted Germany’s new borders. But peace didn’t last long. By March 1939, German troops had moved into the rest of Czechoslovakia, and in April, Mussolini took over Albania. Then in August, Germany and the USSR teamed up with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Finally, in September 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war. Just 18 months after Austria was unified, its people found themselves caught up in a world war that many thought wasn’t in their best interest.
Schuschnigg ended up in a Nazi concentration camp but survived until the Allies freed him at the end of World War II. Seyss-Inquart, who became the Nazi governor of the Netherlands, was tried at the Nuremberg Trials, found guilty of crimes against humanity, and executed. Bürckel passed away from natural causes in 1944. Hitler took his own life in his bunker in Berlin in April 1945. In 1943, the Allies officially recognized Austria as the first victim of Hitler’s expansionist plans. After the Allies won the war in 1945, Austria was taken out of the now-defunct Reich, and its independence was restored.
