German-Austrian Relations: A Complex Historical Relationship

Germany and Austria have a long and complex relationship. The two countries share a language and a history that dates back to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which encompassed both Austrians and Germans under the rule of the House of Habsburg. In the 19th century, the two nations were united under the German Confederation, but this union was short-lived due to rising tensions and competition between the two countries. Despite their shared history, Germans and Austrians have never truly meshed, and their relationship continues to be fraught with complexities.

Austria and Germany's shared history

From the late Middle Ages, "Germans" and "Austrians" were united under the Holy Roman Empire, an agglomeration of separate states, loosely joined under an Emperor, or Kaiser. The Holy Roman Empire came to an end during the Napoleonic Wars in the 1790s and 1800s, when the French Empire defeated the alliance between Prussia and Austria. In 1804, Francis II, the Holy Roman Emperor, proclaimed the Austrian Empire, as the remaining German States had become clients of Napoleon's French Empire under the Confederation of the Rhine.

After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, representatives from all over Europe met in the Congress of Vienna to rearrange the political map. One result was the uniting of the German kingdoms and the Austrian Empire as a German Confederation, the Deutsche Bund. In the years following, demands for a unified German Empire grew, along with popular frustrations, culminating in the March Revolution of 1848 across the confederation. After a further series of revolts, the movement was violently crushed, suppressing calls for German unity and democratization.

Prussia and Austria competed for political dominance within the confederation. In the succeeding Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Austria suffered a decisive defeat at the Battle of Königgrätz. Following Prussia's victory, its minister-president, Otto von Bismarck, masterminded the unification of the German allies in 1871 into a German Empire – from which Austria-Hungary was excluded. In the years that followed, relations eased back to friendship, and the two empires collaborated in multiple alliance agreements.

In the 20th century, Austria-Hungary, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria formed an alliance of Central Powers. The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 triggered World War I. After Austria declared war on Serbia, Germany broadened the conflict by promising full military support. After the Allies' triumph, Germany and Austria were held responsible for the war and were severely punished in the peace treaties that followed. Both empires were dismantled, creating a continent of new republics, often ill-prepared for self-government. Austria lost more than half of its territory, left only with the mostly German-speaking area renamed the "Republic of German-Austria". Treaties prohibited any union between Germany and Austria, but these new Austrians considered themselves part of a greater German nation, with many hoping for unification, paving the way for the Anschluss in 1938.

Many Austrians welcomed the annexation of their country into the Third Reich in 1938. After World War II, it took decades for Austrian society to start facing up to its responsibility the way Germany had done. At the end of the war, the Allied powers removed Austria from the Third Reich and divided each country into four governing zones (British, French, American, and Soviet). While the Allies saw Austria as a "liberated country", freed from Nazi oppression, Austria, too, was divided and became fully independent only with the State Treaty in 1955.

The Holy Roman Empire

The term "Holy Roman Empire" was first used in the 13th century. The concept of the empire, however, can be traced back to Charlemagne, the Carolingian king of the Franks, who took control of the Frankish dominion in 768. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as "emperor of the Romans", in what was seen as a revival of the Roman Empire.

The ancestors of Austrians were the Germanic Baiuvarii (ancient German Bavarians). In early history, the Baiuvarii established the Duchy of Bavaria, which was ruled by Francia of West Germanic Franks from 555 to 843 and included the March of Pannonia that would become Austria in c. 970. Later, Bavarian Austria came under East Francia (Kingdom of Germany) from 843 to 962. It then separated from the Duchy of Bavaria to become a sovereign state in 1156, and from 1156 to 1806, Austria and other German states under the Kingdom of Germany were parts of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Anschluss

The idea of the Anschluss (German for 'joining' or 'connection') or the unification of Austria and Germany, arose after the 1871 unification of Germany, which excluded Austria and the German Austrians from the Prussian-dominated German Empire. The proposal gained support after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, and the subsequent Treaty of Saint Germain and Treaty of Versailles, which stripped Austria of some of its territories.

In the 1920s, the proposal for unification had strong support in both Austria and Germany, particularly from Austrian citizens of the political left and centre. However, this support faded with time. After Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, the desire for unification was associated with the Nazis, for whom it was an integral part of the "Heim ins Reich" ("back home to the realm") concept.

In early 1938, Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg announced that there would be a referendum on a possible union with Germany, to be held on 13 March. Hitler threatened an invasion and pressured Schuschnigg to resign. On 11 March, the German Army crossed the border into Austria, unopposed by the Austrian military. A plebiscite was held on 10 April, in which the ballot was not secret, and threats and coercion were used to manipulate the vote, resulting in 99.7% approval for the Anschluss.

The annexation of Austria transformed the country almost overnight. Austrian and German Nazis carried out the Nazification of all aspects of Austrian life, with many Austrians participating enthusiastically. Austrians also persecuted the country's Jewish population, enacted Nazi policies, and fought in World War II, participating in the mass murder of Europe's Jews.

Post-World War II relations

Post-World War II, Austria was divided into four occupation zones, jointly occupied by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, and France. In 1943, the Allies agreed in the Declaration of Moscow that Austria would be regarded as the first victim of Nazi aggression and treated as a liberated and independent country after the war. This was a significant shift from the country's status as part of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945 under the Anschluss.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Austrian government was led by Karl Renner, who, with the support of the Soviets, declared the country's independence from Nazi Germany. Renner's cabinet included Austrian Communists, and he called for the creation of a democratic state along the lines of the First Austrian Republic. However, the Western Allies were suspicious of Renner and refused to recognize his government.

In 1945, the Allied Council of four military governors refused to recognize Renner's claim of a national government but did not prevent him from extending his influence into the Western zones. Renner appointed Karl Gruber, a vocal anti-communist, as Foreign Minister and tried to reduce Communist influence. On May 20, 1945, Renner's reformed cabinet was recognized by the Western Allies, and he received a go-ahead for the first legislative election.

The election, held on November 25, 1945, was a blow for the Communist Party of Austria, which received a little over 5% of the vote. The coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats assumed control over the cabinet and offered the position of Federal Chancellor to Christian Democrat Julius Raab. However, the Soviets vetoed Raab due to his membership in the austrofascist Fatherland Front during the 1930s. Instead, President Karl Renner, with the consent of parliament, appointed Leopold Figl, who was barely acceptable to the Soviets.

In the following years, Austria remained under the joint occupation of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union until 1955. During this period, the country's status became a controversial subject in the Cold War, particularly as the Western Allies and the Soviet Union competed for influence. In 1955, after Austrian promises of perpetual neutrality, Austria was granted full independence, and the last occupation troops left the country.

The aftermath of World War II marked a turning point in Austrian society, as the country grappled with its complicity in Nazi crimes. While the Nazi Party was promptly banned, Austria did not undergo the same thorough process of denazification as post-war Germany. For decades, factions of Austrian society promoted the view that the Anschluss was solely an imposition of rule by Nazi Germany, and many Austrians sought comfort in the myth of Austria as the first victim of the Nazis. It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that Austrians began to collectively acknowledge their collective responsibility for the crimes committed during the Nazi occupation.

Migration and funding

Austria and Germany have a long history of migration between them. From 1860 to 1974, Austria provided 4.3 million emigrants to the United States, including ethnic Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Slovenes, Romanians, Italians, Croats, and Serbs. Many Austrian Americans can trace their roots to the Habsburg territories of Austria, the Austrian Empire, or Cisleithania. During the same period, Latin America also received many Austrian emigrants.

In the first fifty years of the 19th century, many Austrians emigrated to the United States, though the number did not exceed a thousand people. The precise number of Austrians who emigrated to the USA before 1918 is unknown, as Austria was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the U.S. Census recorded the number of people from the entire empire in the same group. In this period, most emigrants were Tyroleans who lacked land or fled the Metternich regime.

The immigration of Austrians to the United States increased during the second half of the 19th century, and by 1900, 275,000 Austrians were living in the country. Many settled in New York City, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. From 1901 to 1910 alone, Austrians were one of the ten most significant immigrant groups in the United States, with more than 2.1 million Austrians immigrating during this period. Many of them, more than 35%, returned to Austria with the savings they had made.

Between 1919 and 1924, fewer than 20,000 Austrians emigrated to North America, mainly from Burgenland. However, since the late 1930s, many other Austrians migrated to the United States, most of them Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, which began with the Annexation of Austria in 1938. In 1941, around 29,000 Jewish Austrians had emigrated to the United States, most of whom were professionals.

Much later, between 1945 and 1960, around 40,000 Austrians emigrated to the United States. Since the 1960s, Austrian immigration has been very small, mainly because Austria is now a developed nation, and poverty and political oppression are scarce. According to the 1990 U.S. census, 948,558 people identified their origins in Austria.

During World War II and the post-war period, Germans and Volksdeutsche fled and were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries, including Czechoslovakia, and the former German provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and eastern parts of Brandenburg. By 1950, about 12 million Germans had fled or been expelled from east-central Europe into Allied-occupied Germany and Austria. The West German government put the total at 14.6 million, including a million ethnic Germans who had settled in territories conquered by Nazi Germany during World War II. The largest numbers came from the former eastern territories of Germany ceded to the People's Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union, and from Czechoslovakia.

Austria and Germany also have close economic ties, with Germany being Austria's most important economic partner. With an annual trade volume of more than 100 billion euros, Austria is one of Germany's most important trading partners. Numerous German companies have branch offices and production facilities in Austria.

In addition, there is extensive cooperation in the areas of research and funding between Austria and Germany. Agreements exist between the DFG (German Research Foundation) and its partner organisations, the FWF (Austrian Science Fund) and SNF (Swiss National Science Foundation), to facilitate the implementation of cross-border research projects. The type and extent of funding for the German component of a project are based on the rules for Research Groups, Priority Programmes, and Collaborative Research Centres.

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