I get austria means east of germany right? but im still a bit confused I thought the ethnicity was different.
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Well you have to remember here that “Germany” as we know it only existed from 1871. Before that, there were a bunch of different states and kingdoms where the people spoke German and thought of themselves as German, but there was no “German government” per se and instead they were politically under the Kingdom of Prussia or the Duchy or the Kingdom of Bavaria or the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin or whatever. Plus, there were lots of Germans living in the various parts of the Austrian empire that weren’t Austria proper, especially the Bohemian lands (present day Czech Republic.)
At the end of the first world war, the German empire and Austrian empire were both defeated. The German empire was allowed by the allies to stay intact, but heavily punished with territorial concessions and financial penalties, while the Austrian empire was completely divided into new nations. Many Austrians at the time just thought, well, if we’re not an empire anymore, we’ll join with Germany, thanks. But the allies specifically disallowed this and mandated that Austria become it’s own republic, because the whole point was to make Germany weaker. So, in the interwar period, it wasn’t exactly strange for an Austrian to think of themselves as German. The majority of Germans in the 1930s had parents who weren’t born in Germany, and had lived through both a German Empire and a German Republic existing with quite different borders. “What should Germany be/look like” and “who is German” were all still open questions.
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