Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Österreich oder so


Even though he became an ultra-German dictator, Adolf Hitler was not originally from Germany; he was from Austria!

Attending high school in Linz and pursuing an art career in Vienna, Hitler spent many of his early years in Austria. (FYI, Hitler was rejected from art school in Vienna.) Maybe to deal with his rejection (we'll never know), Hitler joined the Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeitpartei (also known as the Nazi party). When WWI came around, Hitler fought for the Germans, not the Austrians.

Hitler probably liked Germany more because Nazism was more popular there than in Austria. Before Austria was annexed by Germany, Austria too was a dictatorship, but its chancellor, Engelbert Dolfuss, outlawed the National Socialist political parties (including the Austrian Nazis). However, Nazi attacks and influence only continued to grow, and when Dolfuss changed the Republic of Austria to a fascist state, he was assassinated by Nazis (who were fascists in Germany, curiously enough). Finally, on March 13, 1938, Austria was officially consolidated into the German state.

Aryanization and genocide also came with Austria being absorbed into the Third Reich. The Ebensee Concentration Camp in the Salzkammergut region of Austria was renowned for its high death rates. The site of the camp has now been memorialized, and has a museum where people can learn about the atrocities that took place.

In response to the terrible things that happened during WWII, Austria enacted a permanent neutrality act on October 26, 1955, now celebrated as the Austrian National Day. While the US' national day (the Fourth of July) celebrates American war, the Austrian National Day celebrates the vow not to get into wars in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#Early_years
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/roadwar/anschluss/revision/1/
http://countrystudies.us/austria/41.htm
https://ww2db.com/country/Austria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria_in_the_time_of_National_Socialism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebensee_concentration_camp#Post-war_commemoration
http://www.austria.org/national-day/

Image: Hitler's speech in Vienna's Heldenplatz
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/images/highres_30014481.jpg

No comments:

Post a Comment