The origins of today's small country of Austria can be traced back to the distant past. As early as prehistoric times, people have been living here. Austria's central location in Central Europe has allowed it to experience all historical developments. A powerful empire emerged from a frontier state, a multi-ethnic state that fell apart with the end of the First World War. In 1918, the small Austrian Communist Party and national talent struggled to find their destination in the European environment. The Second World War and all the tragic events connected with it gave birth to a country that felt secure in its own existence and firmly occupied its place in Europe.
From prehistoric times to frontier states
As early as the Paleolithic Age between 80,000 and 10,000 BC, the Danube region was already inhabited. The "Dancing Girl" and the "Venus of Wellendorf" unearthed in the Krems area are important first-hand witnesses of early culture. In 1991, the mummy of a Stone Age man was discovered in the glacier area of ??the J?tztal Alps, which shocked the world. During the Early Iron Age (800 to 400 BC), the Kirten people living in Austria were already engaged in the salt and iron trade across Europe. Around the birth of Christ, the Roman Empire occupied most of present-day Austria. As frontier states, the provinces of La Etzien, Noliku and Banoni were established. The Romans established many camps, and the Bennoni camp, located east of Vienna, was the largest city built by the Romans in Austria. In the 2nd century AD, Christianity began to spread. The Great Migration led to the decline of the Roman Empire. With the end of the Roman Empire, the Latin way of life and culture died from the region. From the 6th century onwards, the Bavarians began to settle here one after another, and met the Slavs and Avars advancing from the east. The establishment of church organizations in this land dates back to the 4th century AD. The Frankish ruler Charlemagne (747-814) established the "Carolingian vassal state" between the Enns, Lapp and Drau rivers on what is now Austria. However, after the failure of the war with the Magyars, this eastern vassal state also disintegrated in 907. It was not until 955 that Emperor Otto the Great defeated the Magyars and regained this land. In 976, the area between Enns and the Trysen river was granted to Leirpold von Babenberg, a member of a prominent Bavarian family.
The rule of the Babenberg royal family
The new ruler of this border country of counts initially established the center of their rule in Melk. In 1156, Duke Henry II Jasomirgott (Conscience of Heaven and Earth) finally chose Vienna as his capital. The Babenberg rulers continued to expand their territories north of the Danube east and south. Before the turn of the millennium, in 996 , the pre-Alpine region was already referred to in one document as Austria ("Ostarrichi").
In 1156, the ruler of Babenberg received a gift from Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and the border count country was promoted to a duke country, which meant that it could have greater independence from the imperial power. . In 1192, the ruler of Babenberg, Leopold V, won the duchy of Styria through marriage. In 1246, when the heirless Duke Frederick II was killed in the Battle of Leta against the Hungarians, his fiefdom became the subject of power politics among neighboring states. The Austrian nobles eventually sided with King Ottokar II Premisil of Bohemia, who secured his inheritance by marrying the sister of the last Babenberg ruler. Ottokar II quickly succeeded in restoring order in the country, recaptured Styria, and brought Kaiten under his rule through the Treaty of Succession. However, the newly elected king of the Roman Empire, Rudolf von Habsburg, believed that the Bohemian king was not subject to imperial decree and was therefore unwilling to recognize his power. As a result, war conflicts broke out. Ottokar was killed at the Battle of Dornkrut in 1278. In 1282, Rudolf created his two sons dukes of Austria and Styria, thus laying the foundation for the expansion of the Habsburg royal family.
600 years of Habsburg rule
From the end of the 13th century to the middle of the 15th century, the Habsburg rulers successively acquired the ducal vassal of Cainten (1335), the count vassal of Tyrol and the border vassal state of Windy (1365), expanded their territory. The loss of territory in Switzerland was compensated by the purchase of fiefdoms in the present-day federal state of Vorarlberg. Her founder, the brilliant Rudolf IV, not only established the University of Vienna but was also able to strengthen his family's position for generations by forging documents of "Privilegium maius." Rudolf's heir, the industrious Duke Albrecht V, married the daughter of Emperor Sigismund and became King of Bohemia and Hungary. After the death of his father-in-law, Albrecht became the first Habsburg ruler to be elected King of Roman Germany again. He died young during a campaign against the Turks in 1439. Emperor Friedrich V (Emperor Friedrich III) from the Tyrolean line succeeded him in Austria and the Empire. Through his alliance politics, he laid the foundation for the powerful Habsburg Empire. He arranged for his son Maximilian to marry Mary, the heiress of Burgundy. Maximilian also ensured the inheritance rights of his grandsons Ferdinand and Karl in Bohemia, Hungary and Spain through clever marriage politics. Thereafter, the Habsburg dynasty was divided into two lines, the Austrian-German line and the Spanish-Dutch line. In 1526, after the death of Louis II, the last Jagello ruler, at the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and Hungary were united with Austria.
The Ottoman Empire, which has been advancing into Europe since the 14th century, has increasingly threatened the continent. After occupying Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans continued to advance westward and posed a continuous danger to the Habsburg fiefdom. The Ottoman army twice reached the gates of Vienna before being stopped (in 1529 and 1683, the Turks besieged Vienna twice). After bloody battles, the Ottomans were driven away. Hungary was recaptured. The reason why Austria was able to prosper and develop into a powerful empire should first of all be attributed to the genius commander Prince Eugen von Savoy who assisted three emperors (Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI). He not only showed superior military genius, but also had outstanding statesmanship. In 1700, the Spanish Habsburg family died out. In a European war, the "War of the Spanish Succession", although the Austrian royal family (Casa d?Austria) was unable to regain Spanish territory, it retained its rule in Italy and the Netherlands. In 1740, Emperor Charles VI died, and the paternal line of Habsburg rulers became extinct. Since the State Edict issued as a royal decree in 1713 ensured the indivisibility of the territory and made female inheritance possible, Maria Theresa, the daughter of Charles VI, took over the governance of the fief. The female ruler who married Franz Stefan from Rotling faced a group of enemies who were eyeing the Habsburg territory. First, King Friedrich II of Prussia unscrupulously sought to occupy this territory. After two difficult wars (the Silesian War of 1740-48 and the Seven Years' War of 1756-63), Maria Theresa was able to retain her territory, and only the rich province of Silesia was ceded to Prussia.
This female ruler with an important historical position fundamentally began to reform the territory. Her husband was elected Emperor of Roman Germany in 1745 as Francis I, but he lived in her shadow all his life. Her son Joseph II continued along her path of reform, outlawing serfdom, promulgating toleration, and decrees transferring monastery and church property to secular purposes, decisively promoting the formation of the central system that she had always insisted on. Although the French revolutionary ideas spread timidly in Austria, it caused a serious threat to the Austrian autocracy.
Emperor Francis II, grandson of Maria Theresa and nephew of the executed French Queen Marie Antoinette, joined the alliance against revolutionary France, resulting in Austria having to engulf the resistance against Napoleon Bonaparte A disastrous defeat in the battle. In 1804, after Napoleon was crowned Emperor of France, Emperor Franz responded by establishing the title of Emperor of Austria. The formation of the Rhine League under the patronage of France led to the disintegration of the Roman German Empire in 1806. Francis II took off the imperial crown. Napoleon later launched a series of campaigns that resulted in devastating defeats for Austria (Napoleon captured Vienna twice). However, the victory achieved by Archduke Charles against the great Corsican at the Battle of Aspern proved that Napoleon was not invincible. The Congress of Vienna, chaired by the Austrian Chancellor Clemens Wenzel, Margrave Lothar von Metternich, known as the "European coachman", restored the old system in Europe in 1815.
Bourgeois revolutionary ideas spread from France to Austria in the spring of 1848. Liberals demanded a constitution and a free press. The hated Metternich system of a police state was wiped out. However, in October of the same year, the uprising was suppressed and the conservatives achieved a total victory. The young emperor Franz Joseph I established a new autocratic system. His questionable policy of neutrality in the Crimean War (1854-1856) left Austria dangerously isolated in Europe. Therefore, Austria could only deal alone with Sardinia, which was allied with France and supported the Italian independence movement. After the defeats of Magenta and Solferino in 1859, Austria had to abandon Lombardy, and had to compromise on domestic politics with the emperor's October Declaration and the February State Decree on the formation of a parliamentary system. strong demand. Political development in half of the Austrian Empire ("Cisleithanien") was marked by the establishment of mass parties (Social Democrats and Christian Socialists) and the demand for basic rights of citizens. In 1907, the first universal and direct elections to the Imperial Diet were held. Until the outbreak of World War I, a complex system of European alliances maintained a long period of peace, during which the Austro-Hungarian Empire formed a Triple Alliance with the German Empire and Italy. However, growing nationalism in this multi-ethnic country has caused many serious conflicts. The legitimate demands of the working class for humane working conditions and higher wages also urgently need to be addressed. The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 only constituted the trigger for the outbreak of the First World War. The great powers of Europe pitted themselves against each other in a meaningless four-year war. With the entry of the United States into the war, the war took a turn for the better. The defeat of the central European powers (Austro-Hungary, the German Empire and Turkey allied with them) caused the hitherto European order to fall apart. The Dual Dynasty also broke up into many nation-states, and the Austrian Republic emerged from the remaining land.
The Austrian Republic - Unpopular Democracy in the Interwar Period
The Making of a State
In 1918, in the final days of the war, When the fate of defeat was irreversible, US President Woodroffe Wilson's statement on the right of national self-determination was regarded as a life-saving straw. Emperor Karl's national declaration, although well-intentioned, came too late. The various ethnic groups in the dual dynasty preferred to take the path of national independence. On October 21, 1918, 232 German-speaking members of the Imperial Parliament (including 102 German Nationalists, 72 Christian Socialists, 42 Social Democrats, and 16 other parties) gathered in a country villa in Lower Austria. Discussing the future fate of German-speaking Austria. On October 30, the Provisional National Assembly elected a 22-member National Assembly. Karl Reiner, a social democrat who was appointed to head the office of the National Assembly, submitted a draft constitution for the transitional period. Regarding the form of the future country, all parties have almost unanimous views. The German National Party and the Social Democratic Party have always been in favor of a democratic peace system.
Attitudes among Christian Socialists to determine the direction of the Republic led the theologian and politician Ignaz Seiper to publish a series of articles on the subject. On November 12, the Provisional National Assembly held a meeting in the parliament building next to Vienna's Ringstrasse and declared German-speaking Austria a democratic republic. This country—according to its self-assessment—seems to have little vitality. Therefore, it also declared its unity with the democratic Weimar Communist Party. The newly elected national parliament faces a lot of almost incompetent tasks: establishing a democratic constitution, adjusting relations with neighbors, preparing to participate in the World Peace Conference, re-adjusting the social structure, and the most urgent thing is to let the whole people survive the crisis. This first winter. The domestic political situation was turbulent, and a steady stream of soldiers returning from the front could not find jobs. In order to ensure a stable situation, hometown guards were established in the villages, workers' committees appeared in the factories, and soldiers' committees were elected in the military camps. The new country's border areas were unstable, with SHS-states (states of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) to the south demanding the recovery of the Cainten region, and to the north to ensure territorial security for Bohemia and Melende-speaking areas, without Armed force is hopeless. On February 16, 1919, elections for the Constituent National Assembly were held, and women gained the right to vote for the first time. The Social Democratic Party became the largest party with 40.76 votes and 72 seats, the Christian Socialist Party won 35.93 votes and 69 seats, the German middle class alliance won 26 seats, and other parties accounted for 3 seats.
Solving popular hunger is one of the most serious problems facing the new government. The agricultural areas of the former dynasties were concentrated in the countries established after the division of the empire. They all initially imposed a blockade on the newly formed Austria. Only by accepting large loans was Austria able to survive the first few years of famine. And high-value loans have become a terrible burden on the national budget. Important progress has been made in the social realm. The Provisional and Constituent National Assembly decided to introduce an eight-hour maximum working day, the Enterprise Commission Law, unemployment benefits, paid holidays for employees and reform of the health service. The outcome of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference disappointed Austria. Austria lost South Tyrol. Kainten retained most of its territory only thanks to popular vote. German-speaking western Hungary, with the exception of Jodenburg, was later annexed to Austria. The country's name had to be changed from German-speaking Austria to Austria, with the consequent ban on the alliance with the Weimar *** adopted in 1918. The young French Republic always called the Treaty of Saint-Germain a national treaty, because the Austrian French Republic had never fought a war and therefore could not conclude a peace treaty. The Federal Constitution adopted in 1920 and the supplementary provisions of 1925 and 1929 are still valid today, but it is the result of a compromise: both parties and federal states have put forward their own views, and those responsible for the legal theoretical basis and conceptual system It was later the internationally renowned jurist Hans Kelsen. After the First World War, Austria's diplomatic space was initially extremely limited. Considering the current situation, Austria's relations with its new neighbors have been very fruitful. A treaty of friendship and trade was concluded with Hungary; the Czechoslovak Republic re-supplied Austria with raw materials and in 1921 secured an extremely important loan. Italy fully developed - first after the Fascists came to power - and became a protectorate of Austria, except that the question of South Tyrol was not allowed to be mentioned. Relations with the Weimar Communist Party were happy and irreproachable, and the State Office left the unpleasant question of alliances to private promoter organizations. In the face of catastrophic inflation, Austria's longer-term economic reconstruction was only possible with loans from the League of Nations. A loan of up to 6.5 billion gold coins prevented the collapse of the Austrian state. As soon as these loans were announced, the currency exchange rate immediately improved.
Especially because Britain decided to pursue a policy of appeasement that included tolerance of German imperial expansion. As a result, Germany successfully occupied the Rhine region without causing any international consequences. The Berlin Olympics in 1936 re-established Germany's reputation as an "ordinary" country. Taking these new developments into consideration, Ambassador von Papen called for an agreement between Austria and the German Empire, which was eventually signed in July 1936. Although this "Gentlemen's Agreement" guaranteed Austria's independence, it also formally recognized the Austrian National Socialist Party's right to unlimited territory for political activities. Schuschnigg was in a dilemma, and the National Socialist Party's rampant activities in the country reached a new climax. It was Ambassador von Papen who came forward again and proposed that Schuschnigg and Hitler have a private meeting in the Obersalz Mountains. The result of this meeting was disastrous. Hitler put the Austrian under the heaviest pressure, and the compromise with the National Socialist Party led to a cabinet reshuffle on February 16, 1938. The National Socialist Party for the first time unexpectedly You cannot join the government. Schuschnigg sought support from the outlawed Social Democratic Party, but it was too late.
In the German Empire, compared with the policy of economic penetration, Hermann G?ring, the minister in charge of armaments, first stepped up the implementation of the strategic plan to "annex" Austria. This was because the strengthened German Empire lacked both labor and foreign exchange. They hoped to solve these two problems in the fastest way by annexing Austria by force. No firm protest could be expected from either Western European countries or Italy. Schuschnigg's last-minute resistance strategy of holding a plebiscite accelerated the German invasion even more. In March 1938, fascist Germany implemented the annexation of Austria through the use of forged documents and massive propaganda, but Austria, which felt that it was too weak morally and strategically, did not take military action in response. There was little international response, with only Mexico, the Soviet Union, Chile and China protesting. Relying on the power of the Austrian National Socialist Party, the transfer of power went very smoothly. Austria's leading elite hitherto were imprisoned and sent to concentration camps. In the following months, the Austrian Jews suffered unprecedented horrific torture, suffered psychological humiliation, physical ravage, property robbed, and deportations. In order to give this entire atrocity a so-called legitimate legal basis, on March 3, the merger law was passed at the Council of Ministers directed by others, and on April 10, a referendum was held across Germany. The citizens' vote was abused and an act of violence was legitimized through lurid propaganda.
Dark Years of Reflection
In Austria, the rule of the National Socialist Party was quickly established, and its system achieved a perfection that was almost unusual even in the German Empire. . The terrorist organizations established by the SS and the Security Service were enthusiastically supported by the homegrown, hitherto illegal National Socialist Party. The first was the wholesale elimination of anti-government elements through the use of controlled and limited violence, and the unprecedented persecution of the Jewish population, all of which reached a level even worse than that of the Third Reich. Austrian Jews were deprived of any basis for survival; by the beginning of the war, as many as 250 anti-Semitic decrees had been issued. With the implementation of the so-called "Eminent Persons Transport Plan", Austria's political elite had been sent to concentration camps on April 1, 1938. In the following months, approximately 130,000 Austrians fled their homeland, mostly seeking a safe exile in Western countries. Once they fell under the so-called Nuremberg Decrees, almost all their property was first looted. For Austria, expelling these citizens would mean a loss of spiritual wealth that would have repercussions for decades. After the end of World War II, almost no exiles wanted to return to the country that drove them away. Soon after the "merger", resistance emerged among various political factions. Communists and royalists, former Social Democrats and members of the Home Guard were unwilling to accept the new government.
However, a national resistance organization was never formed, so it was easy for those in power to expose and brutally persecute opponents. Because of the unbridgeable gulf between the various political factions, it was impossible to produce an effective and acceptable government-in-exile abroad. Various resistance groups have expressed different political opinions, some of which are almost utopian. Since the Allies declared the re-establishment of a sovereign Austrian state as the purpose of the war, the Moscow Declaration of 1943 brought a directional definition.
In the final months of the war, when resistance fighters began to be able to connect with American communications units from Tyrol, more effective resistance actions emerged. Although it was impossible for the Austrians to receive military assistance, they could pass on the latest news about the war situation to the Allies. In the autumn of 1944, the "Provisional National Council of Austria" (POEN) was proclaimed, and factions from different political directions united for the first time. The armed resistance movement, which had escaped being hunted after the attempted assassination of Hitler on July 20, 1944, also maintained ties with these political factions. It was the representatives of the armed resistance who first engaged the advancing Soviet troops and provided them with the Germans' plans for the advance. Despite this, the battle around Vienna was still in full swing until April 13, 1945. For Austria, the outcome of Nazi rule and World War II was very depressing: during this period, 2,700 Austrians were executed, 16,000 were murdered in concentration camps, 16,000 died in prisons, 67 More than 10,000 Austrian Jews were sent to extermination camps, and barely 2,000 survived the war's end. In addition, 247,000 Austrians serving in the armies of the Third Reich were either killed or missing, and 24,000 civilians died from bombs.
A re-independent country
The basis for the Allies' plans for the postwar period was a comprehensive and complete victory over Hitler's Germany. Austria was occupied by four Allied armies and divided into four occupation zones. In the capital Vienna, the occupied areas were divided into urban areas, and the inner cities were managed in turn. In May 1945, before the war officially ended, Austrian political parties had been established one after another. They and the federal states were the initiators of the declaration of independence. The Soviets established a government in eastern Austria led by former Chancellor Karl Reiner. After a period of hesitation determined by the situation, the Western Allies also?