Anschluss

The German word for "joining together" or "union," Anschluss describes the March 1938 political union of Austria with Germany that resulted when Adolf Hitler unilaterally annexed Austria to the Third Reich. Anschluss was originally an initiative of an Austrian political party, the Social Democrats, who agitated for it from 1919 (after the Austrian government rejected it) through 1933, at which point Hitler's sudden elevation to power made the prospect of Anschluss look more like a German conquest of Austria, and even the Social Democrats withdrew their support for it. However, in July 1934, Austrian and German Nazis collaborated in an attempted coup d'état, which would have brought Anschluss. When the coup collapsed, a stern right-wing government ascended in Austria. Through authoritarian measures, lingering agitation for Anschluss was suppressed. However, in February 1938, Hitler invited Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to a meeting at Berchtesgaden, Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat. There Hitler intimidated Schuschnigg into giving the Austrian Nazis a free hand. Returning to Austria, Schuschnigg repudiated his concessions to Hitler and determined to hold a plebiscite on national independence on March 13. Hitler, however, bullied Schuschnigg into canceling the plebiscite and resigning, with a final order to the Austrian army to refrain from resisting the Germans. When Austrian president Wilhelm Miklas then defiantly refused to appoint the Austrian Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart to replace Schuschnigg as chancellor, Hitler's minister Hermann Göring ordered Seyss-Inquart to send a telegram requesting German military aid. This Seyss-Inquart refused to do. Undaunted, however, Göring arranged to have the telegram sent by a German agent stationed in Vienna. Thus armed with a fabricated request for "aid," Hitler invaded Austria on March 12. As Schuschnigg had ordered, no resistance was offered. Indeed, Austrians turned out to greet the German troops, which moved Hitler to annex Austria on the following day, March 13. In a gesture to legitimate the Anschluss, a thoroughly controlled plebiscite was held on April 10, which returned a 99.7 percent approval of the annexation. Anschluss was the first in a series of aggressive expansions that preceded and ultimately triggered World War II in Europe. As for Schuschnigg, he was imprisoned almost immediately after resigning and was not released until the war ended in May 1945.