Anschluss

The Anschluss  (German: connection, or political union), also known as the Anschluss Österreichs , was the 1938 annexation of Austria into Greater Germany by the Nazi regime.

The events of March 12, 1938, marked the culmination of historical cross-national pressures to unify the German populations of Austria and Germany under one nation. However, the 1938 Anschluss, regardless of its popularity, was enacted by Germany. Earlier, Hitlerian Germany had provided support for the Austrian National Socialist Party (Austrian Nazi Party) in its bid to seize power from Austria's Austrofascist leadership. Fully devoted to remaining independent but amidst growing pressures, the chancellor of Austria, Kurt Schuschnigg, tried to hold a plebiscite.

Although he expected Austria to vote in favour of maintaining autonomy, a well-planned internal overthrow by the Austrian Nazi Party of Austria's state institutions in Vienna took place on March 11, prior to the vote. With power quickly transferred over to Germany, the Wehrmacht troops entered Austria to enforce the Anschluss. The Nazis held a plebiscite within the following month, where they received 99.73% of the vote. No fighting ever took place and the strongest voices against the annexation, particularly Fascist Italy, France and the United Kingdom (the "Stresa Front"), were powerless or, in case of Italy, appeased. The Allies were, on paper, committed to upholding the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which specifically prohibited the union of Austria and Germany.

Nevertheless, the Anschluss was among the first major steps in Adolf Hitler's long-desired creation of an empire including German-speaking lands and territories Germany had lost after World War I. Already prior to the 1938 annexation, the Rhineland was retaken and the Saar region was returned to Germany after fifteen years of occupation. After the Anschluss, the predominantly German Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia was taken, with the rest of the country becoming a protectorate to Germany in 1939. That same year, Memelland was returned from Lithuania, the final event and antecedent before the invasion of Poland, prompting World War II.

Austria ceased to exist as a fully independent nation until late 1945. A Provisional Austrian Government was set up on April 27, 1945, was legally recognized by the Allies in the following months but it was not until 1955 that Austria regained full sovereignty