WWII Military History of Austria
The 1st democratic Austrian Republic lasted until 1933 when the chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß established an autocratic regime based along the lines of Italian Fascism to try to prevent the Austrian Nazis from forming an alliance with Germany. Unfortunately, he was murdered by Austrian Nazis on the 25th July 1934.
His successor, Kurt Schuschnigg, attempted to continue Austria's autonomy, but after an overthrow of Austria’s state organizations by the Austrian Nazi party on March 11, 1938, the German Wehrmacht occupied and annexed Austria the following day, under the orders of Adolf Hitler, termed the "Anschluss Österreichs."
This was a continuation of Hitler’s plans to unite the German speaking nations, which was preceded by his replacing troops in the Rhineland and the Saar region, against the terms of the Versailles Treaty. After the Austrian Anschluss Hitler occupied first the German Sudetenland and then the whole of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 finally spurred the Allies on to declare war on Germany.
For the duration of the Second World War, Austria was effectively a part of Hitler's Third Reich, however, after the war, the Allies declared it to be a liberated nation, as the Austrians claimed to have been coerced into joining the Third Reich.
A preliminary Second Austrian Republic was set up on 19th December 1945 and was declared a permanently neutral state by the federal parliament.
Austria did not fully regain independence until it concluded a state treaty with the Soviet Union on 5th May 1955.
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