Austria at the Time of National Socialism

Austria in the time of National Socialism describes the period of Austrian history from March 12, 1938 when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany (the event is commonly known as Anschluss) until the end of World War II in 1945.

The origins of National Socialism in Austria have been disputed and continues to be debated. Professor Andrew Gladding Whiteside regarded the emergence of an Austrian variant of National Socialism as the product of the German-Czech conflict of the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire and rejected the view that it was a precursor of German Nazism.

In 1918, at the end of World War I, with the breakup of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire, and with the abolition of the Habsburg monarchy, there were three major political groups competing with one another in the young republic of Austria: the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAP), Christian Social Party (CS), and the nationalist Great German Union (Großdeutsche Vereinigung), which became the Greater German People's Party (Großdeutsche Volkspartei, or GVP) in 1920. At the time, smaller parties such as the Communist Party of Austria (Kommunistische Partei Österreichs, or KPÖ) and the Austrian National Socialists (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, or DNSAP) were neither present in the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) nor the Nationalrat (National Council).

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