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91-449: This Austria -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Liechtenstein -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article relating to the law of Europe or of a European country is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Austria – in Europe  (green & dark grey) – in

182-604: A duchy in 1156, and was made an Archduchy in 1453. Being the heartland of the Habsburg monarchy since the late 13th century, Austria was a major imperial power in Central Europe for centuries and from the 16th century, Vienna was also serving as the Holy Roman Empire's administrative capital. Before the dissolution of the empire two years later, in 1804, Austria established its own empire , which became

273-459: A great power and one of the largest states in Europe. The empire's defeat in wars and the loss of territories in the 1860s paved the way for the establishment of Austria-Hungary in 1867. After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph declared war on Serbia , which ultimately escalated into World War I . The empire's defeat and subsequent collapse led to

364-524: A comprehensive 2018 study by historian Kurt Bauer, between 350 and 370 people lost their lives in the fighting – about 130 of them uninvolved civilians and 110 each among the government forces and members of the Protection League. The largest number of deaths – about 200 to 220 – were in Vienna. On 11 November 1933, all of Austria had been placed under martial law, during which the death penalty

455-637: A council housing estate, to be shelled with light artillery, endangering the lives of civilians and destroying many flats before the socialist fighters surrendered. The fighting ended in Vienna and Upper Austria by 13 February, but continued in Styrian cities, especially in Bruck an der Mur and Judenburg , until 14 February. By 15 February 1934, the Austrian Civil War had ended. The police, Army and Heimwehr divisions that supported them had defeated

546-423: A decade of Allied occupation , the country regained its sovereignty and declared its perpetual neutrality in 1955. Austria is a federal parliamentary republic and representative democracy with a popularly elected president as head of state and a chancellor as head of government and chief executive. Austria has the 13th highest nominal GDP per capita with high standards of living. The country has been

637-800: A member of the United Nations since 1955 and of the European Union since 1995. It hosts the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and is a founding member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Interpol . It also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted

728-633: A pretext by the government to ban the Social Democratic Party and its affiliated trade unions altogether. In May, the conservatives replaced the democratic constitution by a corporatist constitution modelled along the lines of Benito Mussolini 's fascist Italy , for which the socialists coined the term Austrofascism . The Patriotic Front , into which the Heimwehr and the Christian Social Party were merged, became

819-581: A problem with their national identity and prompted the Social Democratic Leader Otto Bauer to state that it was "the conflict between our Austrian and German character". The Austro-Hungarian Empire caused ethnic tension between the German Austrians and the other ethnic groups. Many Austrians, especially those involved with the pan-German movements, desired a reinforcement of an ethnic German identity and hoped that

910-720: A referendum which confirmed the union with Germany in April 1938. Parliamentary elections were held in Germany (including recently annexed Austria) on 10 April 1938. They were the final elections to the Reichstag during Nazi rule, and they took the form of a single-question referendum asking whether voters approved of a single Nazi-party list for the 813-member Reichstag, as well as the recent annexation of Austria (the Anschluss ). Jews, Roma and Sinti were not allowed to vote. Turnout in

1001-521: A result, ruling Austria-Hungary became increasingly difficult in an age of emerging nationalist movements, requiring considerable reliance on an expanded secret police. Yet, the government of Austria tried its best to be accommodating in some respects: for example, the Reichsgesetzblatt , publishing the laws and ordinances of Cisleithania , was issued in eight languages; and all national groups were entitled to schools in their own language and to

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1092-614: A single one. ... In the city's central districts, everything went on as quietly and regularly as usual, while in the suburbs the battle raged, and we foolishly believed the official reports that everything was already settled and done with. The Dollfuss government published a statement on 1 March 1934 reporting that 193 civilians had been killed and 493 wounded in the fighting, while among the police and Army there were 104 dead and 309 wounded. Analyses by later researchers vary widely, going as high as British journalist George Eric Rowe Gedye 's estimate of 2,000 dead and 5,000 wounded. According to

1183-676: A vehement opponent of the Nazis, the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, an honorary citizen of hundreds of places in Austria and partly envisaged by Schuschnigg as a monarchical option, was in Belgium at the time. He spoke out against the Anschluss and was then wanted by the Nazi regime and his property would have been expropriated and he would have been shot immediately if he were caught. In 1938,

1274-510: A year, henceforth every emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a Habsburg, with only one exception. The Habsburgs began also to accumulate territory far from the hereditary lands. In 1477, Archduke Maximilian , only son of Emperor Frederick III , married the heiress Maria of Burgundy , thus acquiring most of the Netherlands for the family. In 1496, his son Philip the Fair married Joanna

1365-593: Is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. At the time, the Danube basin of Austria ( Upper and Lower Austria ) was the easternmost extent of Bavaria. The area that is now Austria was settled in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, having been the core of the Hallstatt culture by the 6th century BC . The city of Hallstatt , in fact, has the oldest archaeological evidence of

1456-484: Is an integral part of the German reich" (Article 2). The Treaty of Saint Germain and the Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbade union between Austria and Germany. The treaties also forced German-Austria to rename itself as "Republic of Austria" which consequently led to the first Austrian Republic . Over three million German-speaking Austrians found themselves living outside the new Austrian Republic as minorities in

1547-553: Is now Austria's National Day , a public holiday. The status of Tyrol was a lingering problem between Austria and Italy . To this day, there are 20 different squares in Austrian cities called "Südtiroler Platz" (South Tyrolean Square) in memory of the supposed loss of the Austrian territories. Terrorist acts by the South Tyrolean independence movement have been documented in the 1950s and 1960s. A great degree of autonomy

1638-601: The Austrofascists imposed a new constitution ("Maiverfassung") which cemented Dollfuss's power, but on 25 July he was assassinated in an Austrian Nazi coup attempt . His successor Kurt Schuschnigg acknowledged the fact that Austria was a "German state" and he also believed that Austrians were "better Germans" but he wished that Austria would remain independent. He announced a referendum on 9 March 1938, to be held on 13 March, concerning Austria's independence from Germany. On 12 March 1938, Austrian Nazis took over

1729-965: The Battle of Königgrätz , Austria had to leave the German Confederation and no longer took part in German politics. After the defeated Hungarian Revolution of 1848 , the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 , the Ausgleich , provided for a dual sovereignty, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary , under Franz Joseph I . The Austrian-Hungarian rule of this diverse empire included various groups, including Germans , Hungarians , Croats, Czechs, Poles , Rusyns , Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes, and Ukrainians, as well as large Italian and Romanian communities. As

1820-761: The Empire of Austria was founded. From 1792 to 1801, the Austrians had suffered 754,700 casualties. In 1814, Austria was part of the Allied forces that invaded France and brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars . It emerged from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as one of the continent's four dominant powers and a recognised great power . The same year, the German Confederation ( Deutscher Bund )

1911-648: The European Union  (green)  –  [ Legend ] Austria , formally the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country in Central Europe , lying in the Eastern Alps . It is a federation of nine states , one of which is the capital, Vienna , the most populous city and state. Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to

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2002-527: The Federal Constitutional Law of 1920, which had been terminated by dictator Dollfuss on 1 May 1934, was declared valid again. The total number of Austrian military deaths from 1939 to 1945 was 260,000. The total number of Jewish Austrian Holocaust victims was 65,000. About 140,000 Jewish Austrians had fled from the country in 1938–39. Thousands of Austrians had taken part in serious Nazi crimes (hundreds of thousands of people died in

2093-931: The First Austrian Republic between the forces of the authoritarian right-wing government of Engelbert Dollfuss and the Republican Protection League ( Republikanischer Schutzbund ), the banned paramilitary arm of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria . The fighting started when League members fired on the Austrian police who were attempting to enter the Social Democrats' party headquarters in Linz to search for weapons. It spread from there to Vienna and other industrial centres in eastern and central Austria. The superior numbers and firepower of

2184-471: The Franks , conquered the area in 788, encouraged colonisation, and introduced Christianity. As part of Eastern Francia , the core areas that now encompass Austria were bequeathed to the house of Babenberg . The area was known as the marchia Orientalis and was given to Leopold of Babenberg in 976. The first record showing the name Austria is from 996, where it is written as Ostarrîchi , referring to

2275-645: The German Empire of 1848 , the crown of the newly formed empire was offered to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . In 1864, Austria and Prussia fought together against Denmark and secured the independence from Denmark of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein . As they could not agree on how the two duchies should be administered, though, they fought the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. Defeated by Prussia in

2366-671: The House of Habsburg . Charles VI was willing to offer concrete advantages in territory and authority in exchange for recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 . Therefore, his daughter Maria Theresa was recognized as his heir. With the rise of Prussia , the Austria–Prussia rivalry began in Germany. Austria participated, together with Prussia and Russia, in the first and the third of the three Partitions of Poland in 1772 and 1795 respectively. From that time, Austria became

2457-559: The July Revolt , the Vienna Palace of Justice was stormed and set on fire. After police guardrooms were also attacked, the police president, Johannes Schober , gave orders to disperse the demonstrators with armed force. People who were trying to flee as well as some who were not involved in the demonstration were caught in the police fire. The result was 89 dead, including four policemen, and 1,000 wounded. The problems facing

2548-554: The Long War of 1593 to 1606. The Turks made incursions into Styria nearly 20 times, of which some are cited as "burning, pillaging, and taking thousands of slaves". In late September 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent launched the first siege of Vienna , which unsuccessfully ended, according to Ottoman historians, with the snowfalls of an early beginning winter. During the long reign of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor following

2639-832: The Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp alone), a fact which was officially acknowledged by Chancellor Franz Vranitzky in 1992. Allied-occupied Austria was after World War II divided into military occupation zones. Austria was governed by the Allied Commission for Austria . As stipulated in the Moscow Declaration of 1943 a subtle difference was seen in the treatment of Austria by the Allies. The Austrian government, consisting of Social Democrats, Conservatives, and Communists resided in Vienna , which

2730-639: The National Council , each of the three presidents of parliament tactically resigned from their positions to cast a ballot, which left nobody to preside over the meeting. Even though the bylaws could have resolved the situation, Dollfuss used the opportunity to declare that Parliament had ceased to function and then blocked all attempts to reconvene it. Police forces barricaded the parliament building to prevent members from entering. The SDAPÖ thus lost its primary platform for political action. The Christian Socialists, facing pressure and violence not only from

2821-677: The Romans in the late 1st century BC. Christianization in the region began in the 4th and 5th centuries, during the late Roman period , followed by the arrival of numerous Germanic tribes during the Migration Period . Austria, as a unified state, emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium , first as a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire , it then developed into

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2912-544: The dissolution of Austria-Hungary in October 1918, the Republic of Austria formed as a parliamentary democracy . Two major factions dominated politics in the new country: socialists (politically represented by the Social Democratic Workers' Party ) and conservatives (represented by the Christian Social Party ). The socialists had their strongholds in the working-class districts of the cities, while

3003-538: The euro currency in 1999. The native name for Austria, Österreich , derives from the Old High German Ostarrîchi , which meant "eastern realm" and which first appeared in the "Ostarrîchi document" of 996. This word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local (Bavarian) dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976. The word "Austria"

3094-461: The 1936 socialist trial  [ de ] of 28 people accused of violating the ban on the SDAPÖ, Bruno Kreisky (who was himself on trial) alluded to the issue: It is also possible that in a difficult moment, the government will have to call on the broad masses of the people to defend the borders. But only a democratic Austria will respond to such a summons. Only free citizens will fight against

3185-650: The Americans, planned for the supposed "Alpine Fortress Operation" of a national redoubt, that was largely to have taken place on Austrian soil in the mountains of the Eastern Alps . However, it never materialised because of the rapid collapse of the Reich. Karl Renner and Adolf Schärf (Socialist Party of Austria [Social Democrats and Revolutionary Socialists]), Leopold Kunschak (Austria's People's Party [former Christian Social People's Party]), and Johann Koplenig (Communist Party of Austria) declared Austria's secession from

3276-614: The Austrian police and Federal Army quickly put an end to the uprising. The overall death toll is estimated at 350. The socialists' defeat led to arrests, executions and the banning of the Social Democratic Party. In May 1934, Austria's democratic constitution was replaced by the Austrofascist constitution of the Federal State of Austria , with the Fatherland Front as the only legal party. Timeline After

3367-623: The Celts in Europe. The Celtic Kingdom of Noricum that included most of modern Austria and parts of modern Slovenia was conquered by the Roman Empire in 16 BC and made a province called Noricum which lasted until the year of 476. The regions of today's Austria which were not located within the province of Noricum were divided between the Roman provinces of Pannonia , which encompassed parts of eastern Austria, and Raetia , which encompassed

3458-638: The First Republic worsened in the following years. The Great Depression resulted in high unemployment, and after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Nazi sympathisers who wanted unification of Austria with Germany threatened the Austrian state from within. On 4 March 1933, Engelbert Dollfuss , the Christian Social chancellor, suspended the Austrian Parliament . In a close vote on railway workers' wages in

3549-446: The German Austrians from Germany, many Austrian pan-Germans idolised him and wore blue cornflowers, known to be the favourite flower of German Emperor William I , in their buttonholes, along with cockades in the German national colours (black, red, and yellow), although they were both temporarily banned in Austrian schools, as a way to show discontent towards the multi-ethnic empire. Austria's exclusion from Germany caused many Austrians

3640-493: The Heimwehr then set about the destruction of the last remnants of the Social Democratic and Marxist-oriented workers' movement. On 24 January 1934, the order went out to search party buildings and members' homes for weapons belonging to the Protection League. The leaders of the SDAPÖ did not respond to the step-by-step disempowerment and disarming of their movement. Their cornerstone policy allowed them to fight only if

3731-399: The Mad , the heiress of Castile and Aragon , thus acquiring Spain and its Italian, African, Asian , and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács , Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans came under Austrian rule. Ottoman expansion into Hungary led to frequent conflicts between the two empires, particularly evident in

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3822-458: The Nazis renamed Austria the " Ostmark ", a name which it had until 1942, when it was renamed the "Alpine and Danubian Gaue" (Alpen-und Donau-Reichsgaue). Though Austrians made up only 8% of the population of the Third Reich, some of the most prominent Nazis were native Austrians, including Adolf Hitler , Ernst Kaltenbrunner , Arthur Seyss-Inquart , Franz Stangl , Alois Brunner , Friedrich Rainer , and Odilo Globocnik , as were over 13% of

3913-459: The Protection League, were executed. Carrying out the death sentences was controversial even among those in the government who were responsible for it. Heimwehr leader Ernst Starhemberg saw it as a shameful act of revenge and without sense, while Emil Fey , also a leader in the Heimwehr, insisted on the executions. Pleas for clemency from Cardinal Theodor Innitzer and the Holy See were ignored. The detention camp at Wöllersdorf , which opened in

4004-411: The Provisional National Assembly for German Austria ( Provisorische Nationalversammlung für Deutschösterreich ). On 30 October the assembly founded the Republic of German-Austria by appointing a government, called Staatsrat . This new government was invited by the Emperor to take part in the decision on the planned armistice with Italy but refrained from this business. This left the responsibility for

4095-518: The SDAPÖ. Austria, or even just Vienna, was far from being in a state of complete turmoil. The daily newspapers of the time had only short reports on the revolts. Stefan Zweig , a contemporary observer who was inclined towards the SDAPÖ, wrote: I was in Vienna during those historic February days and saw nothing of the decisive events that played out in Vienna and knew nothing, not the slightest bit, while they were happening. Cannons were fired, houses occupied, hundreds of corpses carried away – I saw not

4186-420: The Social Democrats and the Conservatives, had paramilitary armies; the Social Democrats' Republikanischer Schutzbund was now declared illegal, but was still operative as the 12–15 February 1934 Austrian Civil War broke out. In February 1934, several members of the Schutzbund were executed, the Social Democratic party was outlawed, and many of its members were imprisoned or emigrated. On 1 May 1934,

4277-407: The Third Reich by the Declaration of Independence on 27 April 1945 and set up a provisional government in Vienna under state Chancellor Renner the same day, with the approval of the victorious Red Army and backed by Joseph Stalin . (The date is officially named the birthday of the second republic.) At the end of April, most of western and southern Austria were still under Nazi rule. On 1 May 1945,

4368-436: The areas of present-day Vorarlberg and Tyrol . Present-day Petronell- Carnuntum in eastern Austria was an important army camp turned capital city in what became known as the Pannonia Superior . Carnuntum was home to 50,000 people for nearly 400 years. After the fall of the Roman Empire , the area was first invaded by the Germanic Rugii which made this region part of their " Rugiland ". In 487, most of modern Austria

4459-427: The birthplace of classical music and played host to different composers including Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Ludwig van Beethoven , and Franz Schubert . Austria later became engaged in a war with Revolutionary France , which was highly unsuccessful in the beginning, with successive defeats at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte , meaning the end of the old Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Two years earlier,

4550-423: The conservatives built on support from the rural population and most of the upper class. The conservatives also maintained close ties to the Catholic Church . In the late 1920s the polarised political situation in Austria was exacerbated by paramilitary units such as the Home Guard ( Heimwehr ) on the right and the Republican Protection League ( Republikanischer Schutzbund ) of the Social Democrats (SDAPÖ) on

4641-682: The currency, and improve Austria's general economic condition. The loan meant that Austria passed from an independent state to the control exercised by the League of Nations. In 1925, the Austrian schilling was introduced, replacing the Krone at a rate of 10,000:1. Later, it was nicknamed the "Alpine dollar" due to its stability. From 1925 to 1929 the economy enjoyed a short high before nearly crashing after Black Tuesday . The First Austrian Republic lasted until 1933, when Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss , using what he called "self-switch-off of Parliament" , established an autocratic regime tending towards Italian fascism . The two big parties at this time,

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4732-406: The decision of party leadership had been intercepted by the authorities and never reached him. The fighting spread to other cities and towns in Austria. In Vienna, members of the Protection League barricaded themselves in city council housing estates ( Gemeindebauten ), which served as symbols and strongholds for the socialist movement in Austria. Police and paramilitaries took up positions outside

4823-458: The election was officially 99.5%, with 98.9% voting "yes". In the case of Austria, Adolf Hitler's native soil, 99.71% of an electorate of 4,484,475 officially went to the ballots, with a positive tally of 99.73 percent. Although most Austrians favored the Anschluss , in certain parts of Austria, the German soldiers were not always welcomed with flowers and joy, especially in Vienna, which had Austria's largest Jewish population. Nevertheless, despite

4914-496: The empire would collapse, which would allow an annexation of Austria by Germany . A lot of Austrian pan-German nationalists protested passionately against minister-president Kasimir Count Badeni 's language decree of 1897, which made German and Czech co-official languages in Bohemia and required new government officials to be fluent in both languages. This meant in practice that the civil service would almost exclusively hire Czechs because most middle-class Czechs spoke German but not

5005-495: The end of the war, on 3 November 1918, solely to the emperor and his government. On 11 November, the emperor, advised by ministers of the old and the new governments, declared he would not take part in state business any more; on 12 November, German-Austria, by law, declared itself to be a democratic republic and part of the new German republic. The constitution, renaming the Staatsrat as Bundesregierung (federal government) and Nationalversammlung as Nationalrat (national council)

5096-440: The fall of 1933 for opponents of the regime – initially mostly communists and National Socialists – also held Social Democrats after February 1934. The leadership of the SDAPÖ under Otto Bauer (the leading theoretician of Austromarxism ), Julius Deutsch and others fled to Czechoslovakia on 13 February, a move that the representatives of the government exploited as propaganda. The incidents of February 1934 were taken as

5187-447: The fortified complexes, and the parties exchanged small arms fire. Fighting also occurred in industrial towns including Steyr , Sankt Pölten , Weiz , Eggenberg (Graz) , Kapfenberg , Bruck an der Mur , Graz , Ebensee , and Wörgl . A decisive moment in the conflict came when the Austrian armed forces , which had remained a comparatively independent institution, entered on the side of the government. Dollfuss ordered Karl-Marx-Hof ,

5278-409: The gagging of Austria. In detention centres and prisons of the Second Republic, Social Democrats and National Socialists come into contact with one another. For both, Austrofascism was the enemy. The common ground was to affect the political assessments of former National Socialists after World War II . With a greater passage of time it became clear that Austria's ability to resist National Socialism

5369-442: The government, while German troops occupied the country, which prevented Schuschnigg's referendum from taking place. On 13 March 1938, the Anschluss ( lit.   ' joining ' or ' connection ' ) of Austria was officially declared. Two days later, Austrian-born Adolf Hitler announced what he called the "reunification" of his home country with the "rest of the German Reich " on Vienna's Heldenplatz . He established

5460-426: The hands of Rudolph I of Germany in 1278. Thereafter, until World War I, Austria's history was largely that of its ruling dynasty, the Habsburgs . In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria. In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund . Although Albert himself only reigned for

5551-447: The insurgents also did not come about. The Army, police and gendarmerie all remained loyal to the state. In large parts of the country, ( Lower Austria , Carinthia , Salzburg, Tyrol , Vorarlberg and Burgenland) complete calm prevailed. Leading Social Democrats in Carinthia and Vorarlberg distanced themselves at the outset from the uprising. The mayor of Klagenfurt and the deputy governor of Carinthia announced their resignations from

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5642-415: The left but also from Nazis infiltrating from Germany, were able to rule by decree on the basis of a 1917 emergency law. They began to suspend civil liberties and imprison members of the Social Democratic Party. In the wake of armed conflicts, the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) was banned on 26 May 1933, as was the SDAPÖ's Republican Protection League on the 31st. Dollfuss, the Fatherland Front and

5733-520: The left. By the start of the civil war the Heimwehr were openly fascist and opposed democracy, while the Republican Protection League saw itself as a protector of the Austrian Republic holding the Austromarxist position on the dictatorship of the proletariat that was pro-democracy as part of the Social Democrats' party program. The still small Austrian Nazi Party had its SA and SS , which were also organized as paramilitary units. Political antagonisms in Austria escalated in 1927 when members of

5824-453: The members of the SS and 40% of the staff at the Nazi extermination camps . In the Reichsgau , besides the main camp KZ-Mauthausen , there were numerous sub-camps in all provinces where Jews and other prisoners were killed, tortured and exploited. At this time, because the territory was outside the operational radius of Allied aircraft, the armaments industry was greatly expanded through the forced labor of concentration camp prisoners, this

5915-401: The newly formed or enlarged states of Czechoslovakia , Yugoslavia , Hungary , and Italy. These included the provinces of South Tyrol , and German Bohemia . The status of German Bohemia and Sudetenland later played a role in World War II. The border between Austria and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was settled with the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920 and allocated the major part of

6006-413: The northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The landlocked country occupies an area of 83,879 km (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of around 9 million. The area of today's Austria has been inhabited since at least the Paleolithic period . Around 400 BC, it was inhabited by the Celts and then annexed by

6097-406: The only legal political party in the resulting authoritarian regime, the Federal State of Austria . The government found itself isolated domestically because the Social Democrats – above all due to the death sentences that had been carried out – turned away from the state and either called for open resistance using such means as leaflets or went into a kind of inner emigration. In his speech during

6188-528: The other way around. The support of ultramontane Catholic politicians and clergy for this reform triggered the launch of the Away from Rome movement, which was initiated by supporters of Schönerer and called on "German" Christians to leave the Roman Catholic Church. As the Second Constitutional Era began in the Ottoman Empire , Austria-Hungary took the opportunity to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip

6279-482: The party were banned, the unions dissolved or the government of " Red Vienna " suppressed. In the early morning hours of 12 February 1934, when police went to search for weapons at the Linz party headquarters of the Social Democrats in the Hotel Schiff , the members of the Protection League, under their local commander Richard Bernaschek, opened fire. A coded telegram to him from the SDAPÖ's leaders that warned him urgently against any action and instructed him to await

6370-450: The poorly networked Protection League relatively easily. Between 10,000 and 20,000 workers stood against a superior force of almost 60,000 men from the gendarmerie and police, the Army and home defence forces. Besides the imbalance in numbers and the Austrian Army's use of artillery, the major reason for the uprising's collapse was likely the failure of the call for a general strike to be heeded. The hoped-for solidarity of law enforcement with

6461-452: The predominantly German-speaking South Tyrol . The desire for the annexation of Austria to Germany was a popular opinion shared by all social circles in both Austria and Germany. On 12 November, German-Austria was declared a republic, and named Social Democrat Karl Renner as provisional chancellor. On the same day it drafted a provisional constitution that stated that "German-Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German-Austria

6552-449: The proclamation of the Republic of German-Austria in 1918 and the First Austrian Republic in 1919. During the interwar period , anti-parliamentarian sentiments culminated in the formation of an Austrofascist dictatorship under Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934. A year before the outbreak of World War II , Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler , and it became a sub-national division . After its liberation in 1945 and

6643-559: The propaganda and the manipulation and rigging which surrounded the ballot box result, there was massive genuine support for Hitler for fulfilling the Anschluss , since many Germans from both Austria and Germany saw it as completing the long overdue unification of all Germans into one state. On 13 March 1938, Austria was annexed by the Third Reich and ceased to exist as an independent country (the Anschluss ). The Aryanisation of

6734-629: The right-wing Front Fighters' Union ( Frontkämpfervereinigung ) in Schattendorf ( Burgenland ) shot and killed two people, including a child, during a demonstration by the Republic Protection League. In the trial of the Schattendorf case, the jury acquitted the alleged perpetrators. On 15 July 1927, the day after the verdict, the SDAPÖ's leadership was not able to control the demonstrations of an outraged crowd. During

6825-587: The successful defence of Vienna against the Turks in 1683, under the command of the King of Poland John III Sobieski , the Great Turkish War resulted in most of Hungary being controlled by Austria. This arrangement was formalized in the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor relinquished many of the gains the empire made in the previous years. He enjoyed the imminent extinction of

6916-684: The territory of the Babenberg March. In 1156, the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy. In 1192, the Babenbergs also acquired the Duchy of Styria . With the death of Frederick II in 1246, the line of the Babenbergs was extinguished. As a result, Ottokar II of Bohemia effectively assumed control of the duchies of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia . His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at

7007-592: The territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Crownland of Carinthia to Austria. This set the border on the Karavanke mountain range, with many Slovenes remaining in Austria. After the war, inflation began to devalue the Krone, which was still Austria's currency. In the autumn of 1922, Austria was granted an international loan supervised by the League of Nations . The purpose of the loan was to avert bankruptcy, stabilise

7098-433: The use of their mother tongue at state offices. Many Austrians of all different social circles such as Georg Ritter von Schönerer promoted strong pan-Germanism in the hope of reinforcing an ethnic German identity and the annexation of Austria to Germany. Some Austrians such as Karl Lueger also used pan-Germanism as a form of populism to further their own political goals. Although Bismarck's policies excluded Austria and

7189-792: The wealth of Jewish Austrians started immediately in mid-March, with a so-called "wild" (i.e. extra-legal) phase, but it was soon structured legally and bureaucratically so the assets which Jewish citizens possessed could be stripped from them. At that time, Adolf Eichmann , who grew up in Austria, was transferred to Vienna and ordered to persecute the Jews. During the November pogrom in 1938 ("Reichskristallnacht"), Jews and Jewish institutions such as synagogues were subjected to violent attacks in Vienna, Klagenfurt, Linz, Graz, Salzburg, Innsbruck and several cities in Lower Austria. Otto von Habsburg ,

7280-420: Was able to send the Allies information about armaments factories where V-1 flying bombs , V-2 rockets , Tiger tanks , and aircraft ( Messerschmitt Bf 109 , Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet , etc.) were manufactured, information which was important to the success of Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra , both of which were preliminary missions before the launch of Operation Overlord . This resistance group, which

7371-719: Was conquered by Odoacer , a barbarian soldier and statesman from the Middle Danube , which incorporated most of today's Austria in his Kingdom of Italy . By 493, it was conquered by the Germanic Ostrogoths which created their own kingdom, the Ostrogothic Kingdom . Following the Kingdom's fall the area was invaded by the Alemanni , Baiuvarii , Slavs , and Avars . Charlemagne , King of

7462-561: Was decidedly weakened by the Austrian Civil War and its consequences. By later estimates, only about a third of the Austrian population supported the dictatorial state. After the Second World War, when Austria reemerged on the political landscape as a sovereign nation, politics again fell under the domination of the Social Democrats and the conservatives, the latter in the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). To avoid repeating

7553-580: Was especially the case with regard to the manufacture of fighter planes, tanks and missiles. Most of the resistance groups were soon crushed by the Gestapo . While the plans of the group around Karl Burian to blow up the Gestapo's headquarters in Vienna were uncovered, the important group around the later executed priest Heinrich Maier managed to contact the Allies . This so-called Maier-Messner group

7644-459: Was founded under the presidency of Austria. Because of unsolved social, political, and national conflicts, the German lands were shaken by the 1848 revolutions aiming to create a unified Germany. The various different possibilities for a united Germany were: a Greater Germany , or a Greater Austria or just the German Confederation without Austria at all. As Austria was not willing to relinquish its German-speaking territories to what would become

7735-604: Was granted to Tyrol by the Italian national government. Austrian Civil War Fatherland Front victory [REDACTED] SDAPÖ [REDACTED] First Austrian Republic The Austrian Civil War ( German : Österreichischer Bürgerkrieg ) of 12–15 February 1934, also known as the February Uprising ( Februaraufstand ) or the February Fights ( Februarkämpfe ), was a series of clashes in

7826-619: Was in contact with the American secret service ( OSS ), soon provided information about mass executions and concentration camps such as Auschwitz . The group's aim was to cause Nazi Germany to lose the war as quickly as possible and re-establish an independent Austria. Vienna fell on 13 April 1945, during the Soviet Vienna offensive , just before the total collapse of the Third Reich. The invading Allied powers, in particular

7917-536: Was passed on 10 November 1920. The Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 (for Hungary the Treaty of Trianon of 1920) confirmed and consolidated the new order of Central Europe which to a great extent had been established in November 1918, creating new states and altering others. The German-speaking parts of Austria which had been part of Austria-Hungary were reduced to a rump state named the Republic of German-Austria (German: Republik Deutschösterreich ), though excluding

8008-486: Was reintroduced for certain crimes. An emergency decree of 12 February 1934 extended the list to rebellion, so that Protection League members who had been taken prisoner while armed (estimated at 10,000) could be sentenced to death. The defendants were tried within three days in abbreviated procedures by summary courts consisting of four professional judges. The summary courts condemned 24 people to death, of whom 15 were pardoned. Nine men, some of them prominent members of

8099-596: Was responsible for directing the nationalized industries under the directorship of Minister Peter Krauland (party ÖVP). On 15 May 1955, after talks which lasted for years and were influenced by the Cold War Austria regained full independence by concluding the Austrian State Treaty with the allies of World War II. On 26 October 1955, all occupation troops had left and Austria declared its permanent neutrality by an act of parliament. This day

8190-528: Was surrounded by the Soviet zone. This Austrian government was recognised by the allies of World War II in October 1945 despite concerns that Karl Renner could be Stalin's puppet. On 26 July 1946 the Austrian Parliament passed its first nationalization law and approximately 70 mining and manufacturing companies were seized by the Austrian state. The Ministry of Property Protection and Economic Planning ( Ministerium für Vermögenssicherung und Wirtschaftsplanung )

8281-606: Was used by leading Austrian politicians and generals to persuade the emperor to declare war on Serbia, thereby risking and prompting the outbreak of World War I, which eventually led to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Over one million Austro-Hungarian soldiers died in World War I. On 21 October 1918, the elected German members of the Reichsrat (parliament of Imperial Austria) met in Vienna as

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