The HOAXBUSTERS, #25, Mar 9, 2025, TMOGV Chap 16: Anschluss - The Unification of Austria and Germany

Holotruther
Published on Mar 9, 2025
THE MYTH OF GERMAN VILLAINY, Chapter #16: Beginning with his 25 Points speech of 1920, one of Hitler’s overriding goals was the unification of all Germans into a single nation-state. Hitler was an Austrian, but always called himself a German, and he considered Austria to be part of Germany. The giant multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire had been dismembered after WWI by the Paris Peace Conference, and Austria was left as a small rump state of 6.8 million mostly ethnic Germans. As part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria had been an integral part of a relatively self-sufficient economic system, but now, having been carved out of that giant empire and made into a tiny independent state, Austria was no longer an economically viable entity. She had been cut off from sources of raw materials, which had been available to her from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and also from markets for export. Austria was a German-speaking, German state, and it would have been only logical for Austria to combine with Germany after the Austro-Hungarian Empire no longer existed. Moreover, there was strong support for that in both Austria and Germany, but the Treaty of Versailles specifically forbade it. WWI had been fought primarily to reduce the size and power of Germany, and the Treaty of Versailles was designed to prevent Germany from ever becoming a superpower again. For that reason, the victors of the war were steadfastly opposed to the union of Austria with Germany. As it became more and more clear Austria was not an economically viable state, popular support for union with Germany steadily increased. By the early 1930s, popular support for union among both German and Austrian populations was overwhelming. It was estimated at least 80% of Austrians favored unification with Germany, and nearly as high a percentage of Germans also favored it. As a preliminary measure, an attempt was made in 1931 to create a customs union between Austria and Germany to permit free trade and unrestricted travel between the two countries, but the agreement was blocked by outside forces, notably France and Czechoslovakia, who saw it as an attempt to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles. With a 25% unemployment rate and a starving population, Austria was desperate to find a means of increasing trade and productivity, but all such attempts were blocked. Union with Germany would have solved all of Austria’s problems, and it would also have partially fulfilled the aspirations of the National Socialists for a single German state.

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