Yes they are Germans. Well, Germanised Czechs sort of.
Who are Germanized
Czechs, what are you on about?
Austria was formed as "Ostmark" when it was split of Bavaria by Friedrich I. Barbarossa. If Bavaria is German by ethnicity than so is Austria.
Yes. That is what I was thinking, if a Bavarian is a German then so must an Austrian be. Many towns have switched between Austrian and Bavarian rule too due to treaties.
Prior to the late 19th century, Austrians were Germans (or, at least, German Austrians were. The Austrian state was pretty multiethnic, but parts of it were majority German). There was no German state to define 'German-ness' as a matter of citizenship until 1871, while the Austrian state was a dynastic entity, rather than an ethnic one. During the moves for German unification in the 19th century, there was disagreement between supporters of "Grossdeutshland" ("Big Germany") and "Kleindeustchland" ("Little Germany"), which basically meant Germany with or without Austria. The debate wasn't about whether Austrian Germans were really Germans, so much as it was about the political structure of the new state. Supporters of a Kleindeutschland wanted to avoid the state being dominated by the Hapsburg monarchy.
So although Hitler was born in Austria as a German-speaking Austrian did the people of both Austria and Germany see him as a German? I've read that it was only politically the German Question why Austria is now not part of Germany politically (it is forbid after the war and so was the annexation in which Hitler carried out) and if history had turned out different and people would be questioning Prussians Germanness (Prussians at least the Old Prussians were Baltic people who were Germanized anyways but you know what I mean!
) and not Austrians. The Austrian Empire included more than just ethnic Germans you are right it consisted of Germans, Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians, Ukrainians, Croats, Slovaks, Serbs, Slovenes and numerous smaller ethnic groups.
Was Bismarck pan-German or not, did he believe in the Pan-Germanism belief? Since after all, he unified the
German Empire.
The creation of a German state in 1871, and later of a rump Austrian republic in 1918, paved the way for the construction of a unique Austrian identity seperate from a German one, but some Austrians in the 1930s definitely still thought of themselves as part of a greater Germany - Hitler being an obvious example.
The Austrofascism period also opposed the annexing of Austria to the German Reich and called Austrians "the better Germans". Austria simply was an independent primarily ethnic German state.
How many thought like this, and how popular Anschluss was at the time, I don't know; and I'm not sure how you could get a convincing answer without inventing a time machine. The plebiscite held under the Nazis was almost certainly fraudulent (99.7% voted in favour of Anschluss), but I don't know what the true figure would have been.
Only "Aryans" were allowed to vote so this excluded the Socialists and Jews for example and of course it was rigged and the propaganda towards it was really intense:
Nevertheless, the vast majority did approve of it and considered it the unification of the German people according to:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA6QBObI6Po]Adolf Hitler announces the "Anschluss" - YouTube[/ame]
^ Thousands listen to him declare the
Anschluss.
Just my opinion:
Yes, a German of Austrian origin, much like you can be a German of Bavarian or Saxon origin. This means of course at the same time that he was both German and Austrian.
So would you say that you can correctly call Hitler a German by birth?
After the Beer Hall Putsch:
The court explained why it rejected the deportation of Hitler under the terms of the 'Protection of the Republic act': 'Hitler is a German-Austrian. He considered himself to be a German. In the opinion of the court, the meaning and the terms of section 9, para II of the Law for the Protection of the Republic cannot apply to a man who thinks and feels as German as Hitler, who voluntarily served for four and a half years in the German army at war, who attained high military honours through outstanding bravery in the face of the enemy, was founded, suffered other damage to his health, and was released from the military into the control of the district Command Munch I.
Yes and yes. A specific Austrian national identity only developed after 1945. This does not mean that there was no Austrian identity before that, but it was not based on the notion of nationality.
I've read that, the Austrian national identity just occurred to try and distance themselves [Austrians] away from Nazism, despite the fact Hitler's birth country is Austria.
The concept of ethnicity is of limited use in regard to Germany. Dependent on geographic location, the relative share of Germanic, Celtic, Roman, and Slavic origin changes. For example, lower Austria with its capital Vienna and Carinthia have a high admixture of Germanized Slavs, just like one could observe in many areas of Prussia. In contrast, the situation is very different in Tyrol or in Vorarlberg, Austrian states in the very West of the country.
But overall I've heard that Austria is ethnically German.
But:
Today 91,1% of the population are regarded as ethnic Austrians.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/au.html
I don't see how there is such a thing called an "ethnic Austrian".
A very sensitive issue in Austria. Of course, many people were opposed to the Anschluss, e.g. Social Democrats or Jews. However, it think that in 1938, most Austrians welcomed the integration into what they perceived as their motherland. The word Heldenplatz is enough to bring up bad memories - it is the name of the place in Vienna ("Place of the Heroes") where Hitler was enthusiastically greeted by the Viennese people.
I'm sure one of the Austrian leaders admitted that the vast majority of Austrians welcomed it though, despite the negative feelings now. A lot has to do with the brainwashing and anti-Hitler anti-Nazi Germany propaganda.
It is true that the so-called Innviertel with the town of Braunau am Inn was Bavarian for a long time, that is before 1779 and from 1810-16. So it became Austrian more than 70 years before Hitler's birth (1889). Like bodhi already said, Austria is historically anyway a part of Bavaria - the Eastern March, in which settlement was directed (much like people from Northern Germany settled in the areas East of the Elbe). Also, the Alpine regions of Austria (with the exception of the state of Vorarlberg) were settled from Bavarians from the North in the early middle ages, assimilating most of the local Celtic-Roman population.
So if Austria is historically a part of Bavaria, it also must have been a part of Germany. It started as that but eventually became an independent German Dutchy within the Holy Roman Empire, correct?
Are you aware that Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart (1756-91), is also located directly at the German border, was never a part of Austria before or during Mozart's lifetime, and became a part of Austria only much later (1805/1816)? Just to put things into perspective.
Salzburg has a funny old history, it has even had independence for a short period of time, it has been under Bavarian rule and Austrian rule too, it is German through and through though. Mozart's father was born in Bavaria too.
Wiki has even created a page
Mozart's nationality it is really complex.
It's obvious Mozart considered himself German though:
"... I believe I am capable of bringing honor to any court—and if Germany, my beloved Fatherland, of which, as you know, I am proud, will not take me up—well, let France or England, in God's name become the richer by another talented German—and that to the disgrace of the German nation!"
Austria was definitely considered a part of Germany until at least the mid-19th century; then, history led into different directions, with the fateful moments of 1866 and 1871. Still after WWI, the common identity was strong, and normally would have led to German-Austria joining Germany after WWI. There many referenda held in Austrian states were all strongly in favor of joining Germany. This attitude was consensus and not limited to one end of the political spectrum. For example, Social Democrats were strongly in favor of joining Germany. The westernmost state of Austria, Vorarlberg, however, wanted to join Switzerland, with which they share a common culture and language.
Yes that is what I thought, although Hitler wasn't a German citizen by birth he was however one of them German-speaking Austrians who considered himself to be a German (ethnic German he was - Volksdeutsche - I think is the correct term) and desperately wanted Austria to be part of Germany.
Of course, this wish was not limited to the area which we today describe as Austria, but was also present in the other areas settled by Austrian-Germans, e.g. the region in Bohemia that became to be known as the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.
Yes the Sudeten Germans, I think a high percentage of them joined the Nazi party as well after the annexing.
Certainly people were aware in the 1920s, 1930s, and the 1940s. They are even aware of it in 2013. I think it would be a cheap excuse from a German to say he was not a German, and a cheap excuse from an Austrian to say he was not an Austrian.
"Germans" say he was Austrian, "Austrians" say he was German and then you have the nut case conspiracy theorists say he was neither but was a Jew himself (of course this is not true), I consider Hitler both an Austrian and German, an Austrian citizen but also an ethnic German. The Jew thing is just propaganda.
The same way you can be English and British, an ethnic English but also a British citizen.
Today's Austrians don't consider themselves Germans anymore since 1945. They have developed their own national identity and their own state and would today not be willing to join Germany. Nevertheless, there is a strong feeling of a common identity and culture, especially between the Austrobavarian-speaking regions. In the extreme West of Austria, the identities are little bit different again; Tyrol is very much proud of her own traditions, and Vienna is far; Vorarlberg is very close to the Alemannic-German-speaking regions of neighboring Switzerland and Germany.
The same can be said for Bavaria, once upon a time in the 20th century there was a movement for an independent Bavaria but now in 2013 most Bavarians are accepting that Bavaria is part of Germany.
Why not? However, I would say that there is a big difference between the movements of the Großdeutschen (those in favor of a Greater Germany including Prussia and Austria, as opposed to the Kleindeutschen) and the Alldeutschen (those in favor of Pan-Germanism, including all Germans, with a strong nationalist, anti-semitic and anti-Slavic stance).
How do you work out Pan-Germanism is anti-Slavic, both Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism are within their own territories.
Today, only a small minority of Austrians still considers themselves German. There are some movements within the right political spectrum that support this view, for example within the right-wing party FPÖ. Also, some right-wing student corporations see it that way. The societal consensus is otherwise though.
After years and years of propaganda, I can't say that I'm surprised that the vast majority of Austrians don't see themselves as Germans.
Just terms to describe the historical people within Austria that described themselves as Germans. I am not aware of the precise use in English; I would say that Austrian Germans is more common for the time before WWI as a description of the Germans living in the realm of the House of Austria. German Austrian is probably more limited to describe the people of German-Austria, which became prevalent only after WWI with the birth of the small rump-state we today call Austria.
In
Mein Kampf, Hitler uses the words "German-Austrians" and "Austrian-Germans" that is all.
