Is Austria Germany?

[Lutiferre]

I've always considered Austria as a part of Germany, even though its a sovereign state(s), but never really questioned the idea.

So, tell me what you think folks. Is Austria Germany?

[Marulus]

I would say: What else?

[Vincent]

I have no opinion on this. The Austrians I've meet didn't like the idea about Austria being Germany and them being Germans. They defended their Austrian identity. That's at least the experience I had in Vienna.

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Vincent

I have no opinion on this. The Austrians I've meet didn't like the idea about Austria being Germany and them being Germans. They defended their Austrian identity. That's at least the experience I had in Vienna.

That is understandable. I would compare that to the example that in Denmark, Germans are very stigmatized, being German is stigmatized. Our word for German can even be used as a curse word, and the worst thing a Swede can call a Dane is "halvtysker" (half German).

But history must have something to say about this. The similarity/identicalness between Germany and Austria can hardly be a coincidence.

[NatVox]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre

But history must have something to say about this.

History undoubtedly has much to say about it.

The similarity/identicalness between Germany and Austria can hardly be a coincidence.

The languages are so similar that they almost sound the same.

Apart from that, there seems to be clear differences between a Baltic.. erh, Prussian... uh, East German and an Austrian. The difference between the Austrian and the South German (e.g. a Bavarian) is not such. But yet again, there must be something to be said about the difference between the East German that we mentioned first, and the South German.

And, how does the North German relates to all?

[Gnist]

Deutschland I associate historically with Otto von Bismarck's unifying effort of Deutsche; a result of Prussian magnitude among other things.

Österreich I associate historically with the Hapsburgian monarchy.

From that point of view, they are two nations, not one.

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Gnist

Deutschland I associate historically with Otto von Bismarck's unifying effort of Deutsche; a result of Prussian magnitude among other things.

Österreich I associate historically with the Hapsburgian monarchy.

From that point of view, they are two nations, not one.

I dont think the rulers of Austria in a specific time period can sum up their cultural identity nor national history. This circumstance would not make Austrians non-German, in the case that there indeed is good otherwise reason to consider them German, and their nation German.

Germany is relatively heterogeneous, and that Austrians have a separate history doesnt necessarily make them non-German. Almost any region has a separate history, has had a nation on its own, and been ruled by others then they are now.

[M.R.]

I would say 'yes' but it's not really an easy answer.

You have to define what 'Germany' is in the first place, the way I see it (as non-German), Germans from north are quite different people from Germans from south and I would say that Bavarians have more in common with Austrians than with northern Germans. And in a same way northern Germans have probably more in common with Danes than with Bavarians or Austrians. So it's really hard to say what Germany is, historicaly it's, as it was said already, result of unification under Bismarck, but there are of course other things that are important beside history like langauge, culture, descent...

Anyway, as I pointed out already, I'm not a German and it's not really my problem, I'd say that it would be the best if Austrians decide in which state they want to live.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre

That is understandable. I would compare that to the example that in Denmark, Germans are very stigmatized, being German is stigmatized. Our word for German can even be used as a curse word, and the worst thing a Swede can call a Dane is "halvtysker" (half German).

But history must have something to say about this. The similarity/identicalness between Germany and Austria can hardly be a coincidence.

Interesting. Is it due to the Second World War or to the Schleswig-Holstein controversy?

Originally Posted by Gnist

Deutschland I associate historically with Otto von Bismarck's unifying effort of Deutsche; a result of Prussian magnitude among other things.

Österreich I associate historically with the Hapsburgian monarchy.

From that point of view, they are two nations, not one.

Austria, ruled by Hapsburgs (hence the "Hapsburg Monarchy"), was for centuries part of the of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich), called also Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Then in 1815, the German Empire having been abolished nine years earlier, it became part of the German Union (Deutscher Bund), whereas the notion of the empire became restricted only to the "Austrian Empire", now only one among the many constituent parts of the Deutscher Bund. Austria was thrown out of the Bund in 1866, by Prussia, following Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prussian war which happened in the same year. After that date the Hapsburgs became more focused on the non-German lands they ruled (Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania), lands that were never part neither of the Holy Roman Empire, nor of Deustcher Bund. Thus Austro-Hungarian Monarchy came into being (1867), while the rest of the former German Union was united in a new Bismarck's, Prussia-centered German Empire. It was called little German solution (kleindeutsche Loesung), while the grossdeutsche Loesung would have been a German Empire including Austria as well.

After the First World War and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Austrian part of the former imperial parliament voted unification with Germany, but the winners of the First World War did not allow it to happen because they thought it would strengthen Germany too much. The rest of the story with Hitler's Anschluss, the subsequent war and the second (imposed by the victorious Allies) Austrian Republic is all too well known.

Historically, culturally and spiritually it seems to me that Austria is German (what else, as I already asked a rhetorical asked question?) The new identity forged by the post-war Austrian state is another matter.

[Aptrgangr]

Austrians are Germans, they are of the same tribe like the Bavarians (Bajuvarian) with exceptions in the very west, those are of Alamanni origin, and there is a significant Slavic minority too.
The fact they themselves do not consider themselves as German in many, if not most cases, has to do with serious brainwashing and re-education.
Both, in the FRG and the Republic Austria the ruling classes do their best to make alternative history and one political view obligatory. In Austria e.g. all documents and movies showing the re-union in 1938 was frenetically celebrated were destroyed, one copy showing Hitler being acclaimed in Vienna survived that action. But actually Austrians themselves wanted to join the "Deutsches Reich" after the Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918, the Entente powers did not allow this, today's claim Austria was annexed and the first vitim of Hitlers imperialist policy is ridiculous. I have a banknote originating from 1918/19, it states "Deutsch-Österreich" - German-Austria, to make sure it is not valid in countries of the former Imperium Austriacum.To go back further in history, in 1848 there were attempts to found a German national state including Austria, it failed because of the dynasties, the ruling Princes, and not because people would not have wanted it.
I have family in Austria, anytime anyone of them or one of their friends claim they were not Germans I reply they were indeed Balcanics - due to a an unknown reason they do not like this... in fact denying the own heritage caused an identity crisis.

[M.R.]

Ah.. Balkan again. I heard that too, 'with Vienna, Balkan starts'.

Another proof how 'Balkan' doesn't really mean anything, or, even better, it can mean pretty much anything.

[NatVox]

Originally Posted by Aptrgangr

Austrians are Germans, they are of the same tribe like the Bavarians (Bajuvarian) with exceptions in the very west, those are of Alamanni origin, and there is a significant Slavic minority too.

Of course the trick of the question is to wonder about Austria alone, and not Bavaria.

Both, in the FRG and the Republic Austria the ruling classes do their best to make alternative history and one political view obligatory. In Austria e.g. all documents and movies showing the re-union in 1938 was frenetically celebrated were destroyed, one copy showing Hitler being acclaimed in Vienna survived that action. But actually Austrians themselves wanted to join the "Deutsches Reich" after the Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918, the Entente powers did not allow this, today's claim Austria was annexed and the first vitim of Hitlers imperialist policy is ridiculous. I have a banknote originating from 1918/19, it states "Deutsch-Österreich" - German-Austria, to make sure it is not valid in countries of the former Imperium Austriacum.

Perhaps it is also worth mentioning here that the Austrian Chancelor Dolfuß was assassinated by Austrian members of the Nazi party, after a previous attempt to assassinate him also by Nazi party members, which is seen as a prelude to the Anschluss.

But to be perfectly fair, I think that there are sufficient elements to consider Austria a part of Germany if we base German unity upon the idea of the union of German states. Howver, the one big question against it, in my opinion, comes from the Nazi camp when these try to define Germany in terms of race, around the Nordic Germanic element. There, the myth that is said to build the nation in fact opens a breech in the German identity, an element of distruction through disengagement.

[Agrippa]

Even the Social Democrats wanted a union with Germany after WWI and Dollfuss spoke about "Austrians being the better Germans", just to make clear about what Austrian identity we speak about before WW2. Mainly the Communists had an idea of a "non-German Austria".

The Habsburgs were themselves a German aristocratic line and saw themselves as such until they lost first the title of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (because of Napoleon) and secondly their participation in the German Union ("smaller German solution" of Bismarck), to point to some dates of importance.

The question of Austria is never one of being "Austrian or German", but being either, like Bavarians and the like. However, the identity after WW2 was a different and if talking about many people of today in Austria, they have a complex if dealing with "Germans", first because they no longer belong to that "big brother" officially and secondly because they wanted not being associated with Germans after WW2 for obvious reasons ("first victim" etc.).

But before WW2 most Austrians which were against a union with Germany were simply against the current system and policy of Germany of that time, but it was no principal question. That it became just after WW2 and the following re-education and propaganda, which was not just "anti-Ns." in Austria, like in Germany, but also "anti-German", with a particular emphasis of an own independent identity and "not being German". The only pre-re-education base for this was the antipathy of Austrians and Southern Germans against the Prussians, the "Piefke". But then again this never applied to the same degree for Bavarians.

Inside of Austria are differences too, there is even an Allemanic part, namely Vorarlberg, which was originally closer to the Swiss-German than the Bavarian-Austrian South-Eastern flank. So after all things are more complicated, but the main reason for todays Austrians having a problem with their German ethnicity lies in the history of WW2 and the time afterwards and doesnt predate it in any case, since in the monarchy, todays Austrians were always just the Germans, as there were other ethnicities in the Habsburgian empire (Czechs, Slovenians etc.).

There, the myth that is said to build the nation in fact opens a breech in the German identity

Rather not actually. It was all about the post WW order, which was a question of power (the allies had it) and goals. The reason Austrians had no big problem with "being no longer German" was that they had too much problems while being part of Germany, namely the war, the destruction, the bombs, the hunger, the dead soldiers and civilians - high losses, and of course the stigma of "being German" which was nothing to be proud about in the Allied propaganda. So they were not alienated because of the Ns. "racial standards", but because of the reality and policy of post WW2 Europe.

[Marulus]

Could it be said that Freedom Party, I mean the old Freedom party while Joerg Haider was its president, implicitly if not explicitly, stood for Germandom, that is, for the reverting of Austria to its roots? Were its voters that part of Austrians who did not bode well with the post-war ideology of the rejection of Germandom?

[NatVox]

Originally Posted by Agrippa

Even the Social Democrats wanted a union with Germany after WWI and Dollfuss spoke about "Austrians being the better Germans", just to make clear about what Austrian identity we speak about before WW2. Mainly the Communists had an idea of a "non-German Austria".