why was hitler so obsessed with germany and their nation when he was from austria.

Question

I get austria means east of germany right? but im still a bit confused I thought the ethnicity was different.

In: Other

Answer 1

As others have said, borders and identity are not always the same thing. Modern Germany as we know it only exists since 1989, and we still have an “insurmountable” border between East and West Germany. (see each election result and map)

My grandmother (mother’s side) is originally from Silesia (nowadays it is Poland) and her family fled to Germany after WW2 because of the forced population transfer. One of her siblings died of tetanus during the “transfer”. Since my grandmother was born after they got to Germany, they quickly became Germans and identified as Germans. But my grandfather’s mother was racist and called my mother and her sibling the z-word, a racial slur. I think the English used “gypsy” and nowadays Romani People. So I never had contact with my grandfather’s family. My grandmother speaks Silesian German and visited her mother’s house once.

So borders can shift, identity can shift, and I think Hitler saw himself as German. His family moved to Germany when he was 3 years old, before moving back to Austria later, and he spoke a “Bavarian dialect” rather than an “Austrian” one. “Funny” that he was brown-haired and brown-eyed, disabled/sick and short and obsessed with tall blond blue-eyed Germans or as he called them “Ayan” people. Basically he was a very sick, twisted and strange man.