The Anschluss: Austria's Annexation by Nazi Germany

In March 1938, German troops crossed the border into Austria, met not by resistance but by cheering crowds. This episode explores the Anschluss — the annexation that erased Austria as a sovereign state and set the stage for World War II. We trace the roots of pan-German sentiment in Austria, from the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain that forbade unification, through the rise of the Austrian Nazi Party and the failed coup of 1934 that killed Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. We discuss the role of Kurt Schuschnigg, who succeeded Dollfuss and tried to preserve Austrian independence, but was finally bullied into resignation by Hitler at Berchtesgaden. We cover the failed referendum Schuschnigg called at the last minute, designed to show Austrian desire for independence, and the German ultimatum that forced its cancellation. The episode describes the invasion itself — Operation Otto — and the subsequent annexation law that made Austria a province of the Greater German Reich. We also touch on the persecution of Jews that followed immediately, and the legacy of the Anschluss in Austrian identity, which only fully confronted the past with the Waldheim affair decades later. A somber episode about a nation's loss of self and the complicity of many of its people. #Anschluss #Austria #NaziGermany #Hitler #Schuschnigg #Dollfuss #Berchtesgaden #OperationOtto #Vienna #TreatyOfSaintGermain #PanGermanism #1938 #WWII #AustrianNaziParty #WaldheimAffair #Holocaust #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo