Austria

Conflict in the First Republic

Austria's First Republic was established in November 1918, at the end of World War I, in the wake of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The empire was a long-standing multinational entity but it was on the losing side of the Great War and was, along with the German and Ottoman Empires, liquidated by the victors. Based on the theory that each nation should have a state of its own, the Republic of German Austria was created.

The majority of Austrians were and are Germanspeaking, but the victorious countries, particularly France and the United Kingdom, would not accept a large, single German state.

The entire history of the First Republic was conflictridden. In the early 1920s, Austria suffered under private armies controlled by rightand left-wing political movements. These armies, the Heimwehr (right) and the Schutzbund (left), were formed by officers and soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, who had never been properly demobilized or disarmed. In February 1934, Austria experienced civil war when fighting broke out between police and military and the left-wing Schutzbund in its strongholds of Linz and “Red Vienna.” As a consequence, the Social Democratic Party and elements of the labor movement were outlawed. This represented the consolidation of an authoritarian state, inspired by the Italian model, under Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss and the “Christian Socials.”

Anschluss with Germany

Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, and he immediately proceeded to put pressure on his neighbors, in part through allied Nazi parties. There were three forces in Austria at this time: Social Democrats and Communists on the left, traditional conservatives such as the Christian Socials on the right, and the Nazis. In July 1935, the Austrian Nazis killed Dollfuss, and afterward they continued to destabilize the country. In March 1938, Hitler marched 100,000 troops into Austria, and in April the government agreed to hold a plebiscite on the question of a union between Germany and Austria (Anschluss), despite the fact that this move [Page 537]was illegal under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Austrian leaders, including Karl Renner, who would lead Austria after World War II, recommended a “yes” vote, and 90 percent of the voters did so.

In 1999, Jörg Haider, the leader of the ultra-right Freedom Party, made an electoral breakthrough in Austria.

Nazi Rehabilitation, Restitution, and the Austrian Holocaust

There is something of a myth, perpetuated by Austrians and by the victors of World War II, that Austria was the first victim of Nazi German aggression. There is some truth to this, but many Austrians were active supporters of the German nationalism represented by the Nazi Party and its Austrian-born leader, Adolf Hitler. This tendency to absolve the Austrian people of culpability for Nazi aggression and crimes against humanity, particularly the Holocaust, has caused significant problems for the Second Republic, founded by the Austria State Treaty in 1955. Before World War II, there were 190,000 Jews in Austria, and at least 65,000 were killed in the Holocaust and many others fled as refugees. But until the 1990s, there had been little willingness in Austria to restore bank balances, real property, and artworks to their rightful owners or to provide reparations for victims of the Holocaust.

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