Austrians under Hitler

Abstract

Within three months of the Anschluss Hitler had not only incorporated Austria administratively and juridically within the German State and in the Nazi power structure; he had also set out to remove all sense of an Austrian identity or an Austrian ‘mission’. By doing this, he produced exactly the opposite result. Karl Renner wrote: ‘In just three months Austria was liquidated as a State and a nation, but therewith the people’s sympathies for the German Reich were also extinguished — apart from a few ideologists and academics remote from the real world and certain non-political writers and artists who wanted their dealy bread and did not look to see who provided it… Three months were enough to heal the hearts of real Austrians and to enable them to see clearly …’¹⁷⁴