Germany Casual Discussion Das Gasthaus

[TR_123456]

 

[Captain_Azeri_76]

Die Linke ist nicht tragbar - sie wurde komplett von der PKK-nahen kurdischen und armenischen Diaspora unterwandert. Wenn man bedenkt wer für die Linke in den einzelnen Gemeinden angetreten ist, wirkt das wie ein Führungskatalog aus den Kandilbergen....

 

[Huelague]

Paris für Raketensysteme an die NATO-Ostflanke

Der französische Präsident Emmanuel Macron nähert sich Polen an und ebnet einer gemeinsamen EU-Position den Weg. Putin dürfe man nicht nachgeben, heißt es aus Paris.

www.faz.net

 

[Huelague]

Luxemburgs Minister Asselborn wirft Türkei Basar- Mentalität vor. "Man wisse wie Basare in der Türkei funktionierten."

 

[Huelague]

Luxemburgs Minister Asselborn wirft Türkei Basar- Mentalität vor. "Man wisse wie Basare in der Türkei funktionierten."

Hier lässt jemand unverhohlen seine Maske fallen und stellt seine anti-türkischen resentments zur Schau. Der ‚stereotyp‘ eines Türken. Ein mieser schlitzohriger Teppichverkäufer im Basar.

 

[TR_123456]

Hier lässt jemand unverhohlen seine Maske fallen und stellt seine anti-türkischen resentments zur Schau. Der ‚stereotyp‘ eines Türken. Ein mieser schlitzohriger Teppichverkäufer im Basar.

Unmacht verursacht solche aussagen.

 

[Huelague]

Unmacht verursacht solche aussagen.

Eine Entschuldigung für Tief sitzenden Rassismus?

 

[TR_123456]

Eine Entschuldigung für Tief sitzenden Rassismus?

Keine entschuldigung,rassismus ist ein fakt.
Er kann nicht damit umgehen, dass es keinen anderen Weg gibt, uns zu „verletzen“.
Aber wer nimmt ihn überhaupt ernst?

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

Oh, now I am emotional, sorry for that in advance.

Well, we are passed this red line already for four or so months. I am glad, that somebody from german speaking countries finally realizes this awful situation. No, this is not a game. Russia is really trying to build an alternative world dominance model and has allied with another wanna-be world dominator, China. Yes, the foundations of international relations, laid after 1945, are seriously shattered. Where have you been so far, in Alaska or smth?

When we talk about the larger picture and the larger geopolitical, geoeconomic and military power shifts around the world, then the new world order isn't that simple to define... it is, to put it simply, complex. The changing tides of international realities we currently see aren't easy to sum up in a few sentences, but I'll give a few thoughts of mine here.
I'll start with China because this is my main area of interest, though it only is a small part of the larger picture.
What I see is a China that tries to refocus the global institutions towards its favour, on the cost of the american primacy in most of them. However it doesn't want to completely dominate the world militarily the way the US does, but rather keep its sphere of Influence confined to the western pacific, lets say everything west of Hawaii and east of the Urals, Caspian Sea and Caucasus. Make an eastern counterpart to America's western Hemisphere, dominate its countries mainly economically and maintain an overwhelming military superiority against most neighbours.
It also doesn't want to see the US be a destitute and poor country, run by pluto- and kleptocrats that suck the economic basis dry, as is currently happening. It favours a market to which it can sell its still substantial economic exports and for that to happen the people need to have enough disposable income, which isn't fueled by out-of-control debt spending. The US should however be far weaker than China in overall economic power and by and large subservient.
Its "eastern hemisphere" wouldn't be controlled the way the US controls theirs, that is via coups and the support for pro-american regimes, but rather through economic means that make them "the indispensable economic partner" for these countries, to quote Kevin Rudd.
But frankly, I think that Beijing has made grievous strategic errors and painful blunders that have more gravity than the CCP leadership realises. From the various confrontations in the South China Sea, to the repeated incursions into Taiwanese airspace, to the Indian border skirmishes and to the always lingering potential for conflict with Vietnam, these things tend to be remembered by the people of the receiving countries, regardless of how beneficial and strong the trade and economic growth has been and continues to be.

Oh, I would kiss this man for this revelation! The question in the first place, is how this could happen at all? Second question, what Austrians are going to do about it? Explain that Austria has nothing to do with it, similarly to the days of Anschluss Österreichs, on 13 March 1938? Let me add a freely selected illustration about this sad and tragic day as a reminder:


Sorry, could not reference it correctly, so another one with reference:

NAZI Anschluss popular reaction

histclo.com

Here we also need more background info to understand these things better. Down below I'll try to summarize a bit.

what is this love relationship between Austria and Russia ?, one of the biggest Russian supporter on Twitter is an Austrian (Geroman)

To be honest, I don't frequent Twitter or Social Media in general... most of my news I get from DH, and I'm not a particularly active member in that regard. So why Geroman is a Russia supporter I don't know. Maybe he's a troll, maybe he genuinely believes that. Twitter isn't really full of thoughtful and well rounded people, is it?

Aside from historic connections and mutual enemies of the past, it is rising nationalism since the last 2 -3 decades.

Just look at any Western countries nationalistic groups (not necessarily Neo-Nazis as always propagated by the liberal press) just nationalists with a strong backing in Austria - they all are kind off aligned with each others agenda - the UK Brexit move was purely nationalistic driven, and Putin is a nationalist through and through. So is China's Xi and India's Modi IMO.

There are presently Western democracies contra authoritarian regimes - and within the Western-democracies there are two major factions - the liberals in favor of globalization and thus integration of foreigners (multi-cultural society) - and the nationalistic groups who are in total defiance of this.

It was obvious that during Dumb Trump's tenure - the relationship between the USA and Russia was better then ever. So with N-Korea, the UK and even with China.
Dumb Trump never really condemned the Chinese political system - he simply wanted equal terms in regards to economic issues with China in order to pacify his nationalistic voters political agenda (make US strong again). Later after his trade war didn't bring the results he wanted he brought up this China want's to conquer rule the world etc. etc. - simply forwarding statements that appease nationalists and frighten liberals.

So this is going to be an extensive post that goes into the pre and post WW2 history of Austria, why Austrian politics tend to be conservative and right-leaning and how the modern Austrian identity has been formed.

Why is Austria so right leaning and conservative? It "always" has been, moreso conservative under Habsburg rule and more right-leaning during the First republic, the Ständestaat and then especially under the NS regime. After the first world war, when Austria-Hungary imploded and the various post-war states came into being, there was a real existential fear permeating the country, as it wasn't considered large and industrious enough to survive as a sovereign state. The humiliation of Saint Germain and the possibility of a communist take-over were, coupled with the hunger and poverty experienced by a war-starved populace, and the desire to be "Deutschösterreich" (Germanaustria) instead of just Austria, a driving fear that did much to nurture the desire to "reunite" with Germany. When the entente denied this, and Austria was left to fend for itself, there grew a strong sense of resentment towards the victorious powers and the relationship with the successor states of AH was bad, to put it lightly. Austria had no friends left and was plagued by severe economic strains, notably the hyperinflation happening on a scale similar to Weimar Germany. The soldiers that had come home were traumatized, disillusioned and facing nothing but a bleak future, which turned them bitter and supportive of right-leaning, militarist governments.

The twenties then however were good for Austria and its economy, not so much for the political divergence between the nationalist, conservative parties and the socialist and left leaning parties, both of which formed their paramilitary units, the "Heimwehr"(Homeguard) and "Republikanischer Schutzbund"(Republican Protection League) respectively. Until the 1929 crash, these two extremes could be considered to have coexisted peacefully, with the nationalists enjoying more support among the rural populace and the socialist-leaning parties being favoured in the cities, primarily Vienna. However, once the crash came and the economic growth disappeared, the people turned more extreme the then chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß used the opportunity to basically dissolve the parliament and rule with dictatorial powers. He ended the first republic and built the "Ständestaat" in its stead, with an austro-fascist political system modelled on Mussolini's Italy. Of note here is that the NSDAP and communist party were banned virtually simultaneously across Austria once Dollfuß was in power.

Even a small civil war ensued in 1934, about a year after Dollfuß dissolved the parliament, though only about ~1000 people died during the fighting. A couple of months later, Austrian Nazis tried to putsch Dollfuß, when around 150 SS members disguised as police officers and soldiers breached the Chancellery and wounded Dollfuß, who'd succumb a couple of hours later. In his place, Kurt Schuschnigg became the new leader, and he'd remain there until the Anschluss.

A few words regarding the Anschluss and how receptive Austria was towards it... when you look at the footage from 1938, with the german troops crossing the border and being welcomed by flag-waving peasants, or Hitler holding his speech at the Heldenplatz and the mass euphoria that some 200.000 people brought to life there, then you always have to remember that this was filmed as propaganda and nothing else, it was meant to portray the message that Hitler was nothing but a beloved saviour for the Austrian people who was welcomed and even needed there. If you still today think that this was the only reaction Austria had to the event, then you can see just how effective 80+ years old propaganda can be.

This is however not the whole truth, as both the Gestapo established in the same year and Bruno Kreisky(Austria's chancellor during the 70s and early 80s) said during his chancellorship. And Kreisky, born in 1911 as a viennese Jew who fled to Sweden before the war, ought to know and recollect this better than most. Only approximately 1/3rd of Austrians were active supporters of the regime, another third was more or less neutral, seeing Hitler as being the same as Schuschnigg only that their economic prospects were better under him, and the last third was opposed to Hitler, and the most likely to form resistance groups and offer active and passive resistance to the regime. This ranged from youths who'd been brought up on the nationalist diet of the Ständestaat and were smearing "rot-weiß-rot, bis in den Tod" (red-white-red, until death/until we're dead) onto walls and trains, to the active Partisan movement happening in southern Austria, particularly southern Carinthia.

When under Hitler's rule, it is undeniable that a huge proportion of the worst nazi criminals were austrian. The tendency to be radicalized was higher amongst Austrians than with Germans, and the idealization of Hitler was born out of the denial of joining Germany in 1919, the prohibition of the NSDAP under the Ständestaat and the effective propaganda distributed by the nazis pre- and post Anschluss. When Hitler came and the economic situation quickly became better, coupled with the ostracization and demonization of the Jews, and then the victories of the Wehrmacht once the war got going, and the fact that Hitler was an Austrian who revitalized Germany in most aspects, it is not too unreasonable to see why Austria was supporting Hitler to such a degree.

Once the war was over and it was no longer fashionable to be german, Austria had to diverge away from the german culture and embraced the Habsburg history as its new identity, and at the same time swept the fanaticism for the nazis under the rug, which in essence meant a combination of Habsburg conservatism and Hitler fascism. Austria really tried to portray itself as the "first victim" of nazi expansion, and managed this to such a degree that many Austrians themselves became convinced of the view. The reality never was addressed like in Germany, and the denazification was mostly vigilante justice(meaning a couple of nazis that got hanged from lampposts), as many, many politicians of the second republic were Nazis under Hitler and opportunists once Austria was sovereign.

This has left deep marks on the Austrian national psyche. In general, the country can this way be described as right-leaning and conservative, though socialist politics dominate the cities, Vienna is commonly referred to as "rotes Wien"(red vienna), and in Austria's second largest city Graz the communist party actually won the last elections (It happened around the same time as the fall of Kabul last year, which led to a lot of "Stalingraz" and "Leningraz" jokes haha). But the rural areas still are dominated by right-leaning and conservative points of view, some areas more than others, but that's the basic situation. There are contrasts within the country, but our politics have produced people like Haider, who even managed to be on the Time cover at one point, or Kickl who always seriously reminds me of Himmler when I see him speak. Our politicians on the left tend to be of poor quality and unmemorable, compared to the right counterparts, who are of equally poor quality but more memorable.

That Austria's elites are close to Putin can primarily be explained by the money they receive from him and his oligarchs, really the primary reason why there is so much interconnectivity between the two. Again, this is a fairly constant occurrence across Europe, where anything that can benefit Putin to undermine the democratic systems is used. A divided, weak Europe is good for him, and the right and far-right parties tend to do this most effectively.
For the average person, there is a certain acceptance of Putin and his sticking it to the west with the way he runs the country more authoritarian and uncaring for western values... especially the way he takes an oftentimes uncompromising stance towards the US. Austrians are, and this is a constant across the political spectrum, by and large opposed to the US, american governments and american foreign policy. Especially the extroversion that american culture values so much is seen as very bothersome, since Austria tends to be more reserved and quiet in a general sense. But this is fairly common across the non-american west, only that Austria tends to top the polls about anti-americanism, outside your usual suspects like Russia or Iran or Venezuela, places the americans tend to abuse.

I'm aware that this doesn't paint an adequate picture, but I didn't want to leave you folks waiting longer. If there is an interest in the matter, I can go deeper into it.

@Mailman @AlphaMike @Jagdflieger

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

Some footage of the civil war

And here a radio report from the 10th of November 1938, where a Synagogue in Vienna was burned down. I haven't found a translation anywhere, but let me know if you want one.

https://www.mediathek.at/katalogsuc...05D4B9&cHash=9e8826e510c5a7a60617ccfb01b222f9

 

[Ryder]

Some footage of the civil war

And here a radio report from the 10th of November 1938, where a Synagogue in Vienna was burned down. I haven't found a translation anywhere, but let me know if you want one.

https://www.mediathek.at/katalogsuc...05D4B9&cHash=9e8826e510c5a7a60617ccfb01b222f9

Do Austrians even consider themselves Germans?

I always saw them as Southern Germans just like Bavarians.

In Germany the South is mainly Catholic while the North is Lutheran/Protestant.

Im interested in this divide of Germany because it went for centuries until unification in 1871.

German history is really interesting while so many just focus on ww2 many people forget topics like Imperial Germany, Kingdom of Prussia, Charlemagne, Germanic tribes that conquered most of Europe like the Vandals, Goths, Franks and the Anglo Saxons, Teutonic Knights who expanded into Eastern Europe, Thirty Years War, Martin Luther and his movement

Same story in Turkish history we have centuries of history only shit people look at is 1915

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

Do Austrians even consider themselves Germans?

Well, a small minority does, mainly on the right. Usually only the neo-nazi groupings tend to be outspoken about that, though our far right political party is tends to draw them all together. That party isn't small, its one of three major parties in austrian politics, was the junior party governing together with the moderate right party in the last few years of the 2010s, and in 2016 fielded a presidential candidate who is part of a fraternity that doesn't consider Austria a sovereign state, but part of Germany, and he nearly won.

The average person considers themselves Austrian, maybe their respective austrian state first, then Austrian second, and then the majority would say European.

I always saw them as Southern Germans just like Bavarians.

Austria and Bavaria tend to understand each other best, both are quite similar in their language, customs and politics, so we mostly get along well with each other.

In Germany the South is mainly Catholic while the North is Lutheran/Protestant.

Im interested in this divide of Germany because it went for centuries until unification in 1871.

German history, like most histories, is too complex for the average person to study in its "entirety". The most important and well known events for us in our modern time are really no further back than Napoleon, the american revolution and the industrial revolution. A lot precedes those 250 years

German history is really interesting while so many just focus on ww2 many people forget topics like Imperial Germany, Kingdom of Prussia, Charlemagne, Germanic tribes that conquered most of Europe like the Vandals, Goths, Franks and the Anglo Saxons, Teutonic Knights who expanded into Eastern Europe, Thirty Years War, Martin Luther and his movement

Same story in Turkish history we have centuries of history only shit people look at is 1915

That's a constant across the world though, not limited to Turkey or Germany. France is either made fun of for WW2 or Napoleon is glorified, Poland's either the partitions or WW2, or India is only the british raj, Mexico is cartel warfare, and Australia is a big, dusty prison. Countless examples for all countries

 

[Jagdflieger]

Do Austrians even consider themselves Germans?

That is a good question, but before getting a possible answer onto this, one needs to understand as to where the term German derives from. Since it is a Latin term incorporated into the English language causing as such a lot of confusion.
In order to have a simple differentiation for the Romans to separate conquered Gallia (mostly Celtic people) to the unconquered North-Eastern part inhabited by Celtic tribes and others - the Romans choose to call it Germania. (meaning; foreign collective people)
One of the more powerful tribes were the Teutonen - later becoming Teutsch = Deutsche/Deutschland, Another one were the Allemannen more a threat towards Gallia and the reason as to why even today's French/France refer to Deutschland as Allemagne.

Who where these people living in Germania? nobody really knows since there was a constant movement of tribes from the east moving into Germania, intermixing with existing tribes. After the Roman empire had kind of vanished - the tribal movements started to slow down and the population became more settled and started to develop a more unified common language = Teutsch. The common men's language in the Holy Roman Empire saturated with different dialects.
The Hungarian invasion around 900 A.D. brought a strengthening of Teutsch speaking tribes/fiefs and Kingdoms uniting from the north to southern part.

In 1871 or actually after Napoleons defeat a rising nationalism amongst Teutsch speaking people started to arise. Acknowledging the fact that the previous loose federation of the Holy Roman Empire of Teutscher Nationen would be needed to compete with e.g. France, Russia, England, Sweden etc. The Holy Roman Empire of Teutscher Nationen last lead and almost unified under Habsburg control was "deliberately" dismantled in 1648 by the above mentioned nations.

Well anyway in 1871 a chap named Bismarck had managed to do just that by defeating France via the Kingdom of Prussia in Alliance with the kingdoms of Wuertemberg, Bavaria and Saxony. After paying off the next in line Emperor - King Ludwig of Bavaria (the caste guy) the Prussian King was declared to be Emperor of Das Teutsche Reich, later changed into Das Deutsche Kaiserreich.

Austria aka Habsburg after 1648 had decided to stay on their own and expanding into the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Sharing the same language with German states with some added dialects.
In order to get a more unified Deutschland the program was instituted already around 1835 but strongly from 1871 onward - what is Deutsch? and what makes a Deutscher so superior to others. More or less history was altered to a large extend to give the impression that since Roman times there was always a Deutschland aka Germania.
A guy like Hitler was absolutely fascinated by this "new history" and added on his own Aryan history of the Germanen. So from 1934 onward everyone was aware that the Deutsche all came from India (Indo-Germanic) and that even the Japanese were kind of related to us.

So back to the question of Austrians being Germans - certainly not in a political view and aside from a forced annexation for 7 years - they have never been part of Deutschland - are they related? Sure, they share the same dialectic and ancestral groups as today's Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and parts of Belgium and the Netherlands.

 

[Ryder]

That is a good question, but before getting a possible answer onto this, one needs to understand as to where the term German derives from. Since it is a Latin term incorporated into the English language causing as such a lot of confusion.
In order to have a simple differentiation for the Romans to separate conquered Gallia (mostly Celtic people) to the unconquered North-Eastern part inhabited by Celtic tribes and others - the Romans choose to call it Germania. (meaning; foreign collective people)
One of the more powerful tribes were the Teutonen - later becoming Teutsch = Deutsche/Deutschland, Another one were the Allemannen more a threat towards Gallia and the reason as to why even today's French/France refer to Deutschland as Allemagne.

Who where these people living in Germania? nobody really knows since there was a constant movement of tribes from the east moving into Germania, intermixing with existing tribes. After the Roman empire had kind of vanished - the tribal movements started to slow down and the population became more settled and started to develop a more unified common language = Teutsch. The common men's language in the Holy Roman Empire saturated with different dialects.
The Hungarian invasion around 900 A.D. brought a strengthening of Teutsch speaking tribes/fiefs and Kingdoms uniting from the north to southern part.

In 1871 or actually after Napoleons defeat a rising nationalism amongst Teutsch speaking people started to arise. Acknowledging the fact that the previous loose federation of the Holy Roman Empire of Teutscher Nationen would be needed to compete with e.g. France, Russia, England, Sweden etc. The Holy Roman Empire of Teutscher Nationen last lead and almost unified under Habsburg control was "deliberately" dismantled in 1648 by the above mentioned nations.

Well anyway in 1871 a chap named Bismarck had managed to do just that by defeating France via the Kingdom of Prussia in Alliance with the kingdoms of Wuertemberg, Bavaria and Saxony. After paying off the next in line Emperor - King Ludwig of Bavaria (the caste guy) the Prussian King was declared to be Emperor of Das Teutsche Reich, later changed into Das Deutsche Kaiserreich.

Austria aka Habsburg after 1648 had decided to stay on their own and expanding into the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Sharing the same language with some added dialects.
In order to get a more unified Deutschland the program was instituted already around 1835 but strongly from 1871 onward - what is Deutsch? and what makes a Deutscher so superior to others. More or less history was altered to a large extend to give the impression that since Roman times there was always a Deutschland aka Germania.
A guy like Hitler was absolutely fascinated by this "new history" and added on his own Aryan history of the Germanen. So from 1934 onward everyone was aware that the Deutsche all came from India (Indo-Germanic) and that even the Japanese were kind of related to us.

So back to the question of Austrians being Germans - certainly not in a political view and aside from a forced annexation for 7 years - they have never been part of Deutschland - are they related? Sure, they share the same dialectic and ancestral groups as today's Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and parts of Belgium and the Netherlands.

Bismarck wanted a united Germany under Prussian domination hence why he kicked the Austrians out of the German confederation.

Austria and Prussia basically fought for centuries for the control of Germany itself. One was Catholic and the other was Protestant.

 

[Gary]

When we talk about the larger picture and the larger geopolitical, geoeconomic and military power shifts around the world, then the new world order isn't that simple to define... it is, to put it simply, complex. The changing tides of international realities we currently see aren't easy to sum up in a few sentences, but I'll give a few thoughts of mine here.
I'll start with China because this is my main area of interest, though it only is a small part of the larger picture.
What I see is a China that tries to refocus the global institutions towards its favour, on the cost of the american primacy in most of them. However it doesn't want to completely dominate the world militarily the way the US does, but rather keep its sphere of Influence confined to the western pacific, lets say everything west of Hawaii and east of the Urals, Caspian Sea and Caucasus. Make an eastern counterpart to America's western Hemisphere, dominate its countries mainly economically and maintain an overwhelming military superiority against most neighbours.
It also doesn't want to see the US be a destitute and poor country, run by pluto- and kleptocrats that suck the economic basis dry, as is currently happening. It favours a market to which it can sell its still substantial economic exports and for that to happen the people need to have enough disposable income, which isn't fueled by out-of-control debt spending. The US should however be far weaker than China in overall economic power and by and large subservient.
Its "eastern hemisphere" wouldn't be controlled the way the US controls theirs, that is via coups and the support for pro-american regimes, but rather through economic means that make them "the indispensable economic partner" for these countries, to quote Kevin Rudd.
But frankly, I think that Beijing has made grievous strategic errors and painful blunders that have more gravity than the CCP leadership realises. From the various confrontations in the South China Sea, to the repeated incursions into Taiwanese airspace, to the Indian border skirmishes and to the always lingering potential for conflict with Vietnam, these things tend to be remembered by the people of the receiving countries, regardless of how beneficial and strong the trade and economic growth has been and continues to be.

Here we also need more background info to understand these things better. Down below I'll try to summarize a bit.

To be honest, I don't frequent Twitter or Social Media in general... most of my news I get from DH, and I'm not a particularly active member in that regard. So why Geroman is a Russia supporter I don't know. Maybe he's a troll, maybe he genuinely believes that. Twitter isn't really full of thoughtful and well rounded people, is it?


So this is going to be an extensive post that goes into the pre and post WW2 history of Austria, why Austrian politics tend to be conservative and right-leaning and how the modern Austrian identity has been formed.

Why is Austria so right leaning and conservative? It "always" has been, moreso conservative under Habsburg rule and more right-leaning during the First republic, the Ständestaat and then especially under the NS regime. After the first world war, when Austria-Hungary imploded and the various post-war states came into being, there was a real existential fear permeating the country, as it wasn't considered large and industrious enough to survive as a sovereign state. The humiliation of Saint Germain and the possibility of a communist take-over were, coupled with the hunger and poverty experienced by a war-starved populace, and the desire to be "Deutschösterreich" (Germanaustria) instead of just Austria, a driving fear that did much to nurture the desire to "reunite" with Germany. When the entente denied this, and Austria was left to fend for itself, there grew a strong sense of resentment towards the victorious powers and the relationship with the successor states of AH was bad, to put it lightly. Austria had no friends left and was plagued by severe economic strains, notably the hyperinflation happening on a scale similar to Weimar Germany. The soldiers that had come home were traumatized, disillusioned and facing nothing but a bleak future, which turned them bitter and supportive of right-leaning, militarist governments.

The twenties then however were good for Austria and its economy, not so much for the political divergence between the nationalist, conservative parties and the socialist and left leaning parties, both of which formed their paramilitary units, the "Heimwehr"(Homeguard) and "Republikanischer Schutzbund"(Republican Protection League) respectively. Until the 1929 crash, these two extremes could be considered to have coexisted peacefully, with the nationalists enjoying more support among the rural populace and the socialist-leaning parties being favoured in the cities, primarily Vienna. However, once the crash came and the economic growth disappeared, the people turned more extreme the then chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß used the opportunity to basically dissolve the parliament and rule with dictatorial powers. He ended the first republic and built the "Ständestaat" in its stead, with an austro-fascist political system modelled on Mussolini's Italy. Of note here is that the NSDAP and communist party were banned virtually simultaneously across Austria once Dollfuß was in power.

Even a small civil war ensued in 1934, about a year after Dollfuß dissolved the parliament, though only about ~1000 people died during the fighting. A couple of months later, Austrian Nazis tried to putsch Dollfuß, when around 150 SS members disguised as police officers and soldiers breached the Chancellery and wounded Dollfuß, who'd succumb a couple of hours later. In his place, Kurt Schuschnigg became the new leader, and he'd remain there until the Anschluss.

A few words regarding the Anschluss and how receptive Austria was towards it... when you look at the footage from 1938, with the german troops crossing the border and being welcomed by flag-waving peasants, or Hitler holding his speech at the Heldenplatz and the mass euphoria that some 200.000 people brought to life there, then you always have to remember that this was filmed as propaganda and nothing else, it was meant to portray the message that Hitler was nothing but a beloved saviour for the Austrian people who was welcomed and even needed there. If you still today think that this was the only reaction Austria had to the event, then you can see just how effective 80+ years old propaganda can be.

This is however not the whole truth, as both the Gestapo established in the same year and Bruno Kreisky(Austria's chancellor during the 70s and early 80s) said during his chancellorship. And Kreisky, born in 1911 as a viennese Jew who fled to Sweden before the war, ought to know and recollect this better than most. Only approximately 1/3rd of Austrians were active supporters of the regime, another third was more or less neutral, seeing Hitler as being the same as Schuschnigg only that their economic prospects were better under him, and the last third was opposed to Hitler, and the most likely to form resistance groups and offer active and passive resistance to the regime. This ranged from youths who'd been brought up on the nationalist diet of the Ständestaat and were smearing "rot-weiß-rot, bis in den Tod" (red-white-red, until death/until we're dead) onto walls and trains, to the active Partisan movement happening in southern Austria, particularly southern Carinthia.

When under Hitler's rule, it is undeniable that a huge proportion of the worst nazi criminals were austrian. The tendency to be radicalized was higher amongst Austrians than with Germans, and the idealization of Hitler was born out of the denial of joining Germany in 1919, the prohibition of the NSDAP under the Ständestaat and the effective propaganda distributed by the nazis pre- and post Anschluss. When Hitler came and the economic situation quickly became better, coupled with the ostracization and demonization of the Jews, and then the victories of the Wehrmacht once the war got going, and the fact that Hitler was an Austrian who revitalized Germany in most aspects, it is not too unreasonable to see why Austria was supporting Hitler to such a degree.

Once the war was over and it was no longer fashionable to be german, Austria had to diverge away from the german culture and embraced the Habsburg history as its new identity, and at the same time swept the fanaticism for the nazis under the rug, which in essence meant a combination of Habsburg conservatism and Hitler fascism. Austria really tried to portray itself as the "first victim" of nazi expansion, and managed this to such a degree that many Austrians themselves became convinced of the view. The reality never was addressed like in Germany, and the denazification was mostly vigilante justice(meaning a couple of nazis that got hanged from lampposts), as many, many politicians of the second republic were Nazis under Hitler and opportunists once Austria was sovereign.

This has left deep marks on the Austrian national psyche. In general, the country can this way be described as right-leaning and conservative, though socialist politics dominate the cities, Vienna is commonly referred to as "rotes Wien"(red vienna), and in Austria's second largest city Graz the communist party actually won the last elections (It happened around the same time as the fall of Kabul last year, which led to a lot of "Stalingraz" and "Leningraz" jokes haha). But the rural areas still are dominated by right-leaning and conservative points of view, some areas more than others, but that's the basic situation. There are contrasts within the country, but our politics have produced people like Haider, who even managed to be on the time cover at one point, or Kickl who always seriously reminds me of Himmler when I see him speak. Our politicians on the left tend to be of poor quality and unmemorable, compared to the right counterparts, who are of equally poor quality but more memorable.

That Austria's elites are close to Putin can primarily be explained by the money they receive from him and his oligarchs, really the primary reason why there is so much interconnectivity between the two. Again, this is a fairly constant occurrence across Europe, where anything that can benefit Putin to undermine the democratic systems is used. A divided, weak Europe is good for him, and the right and far-right parties tend to do this most effectively.
For the average person, there is a certain acceptance of Putin and his sticking it to the west with the way he runs the country more authoritarian and uncaring for western values... especially the way he takes an oftentimes uncompromising stance towards the US. Austrians are, and this is a constant across the political spectrum, by and large opposed to the US, american governments and american foreign policy. Especially the extroversion that american culture values so much is seen as very bothersome, since Austria tends to be more reserved and quiet in a general sense. But this is fairly common across the non-american west, only that Austria tends to top the polls about anti-americanism, outside your usual suspects like Russia or Iran or Venezuela, places the americans tend to abuse.

I'm aware that this doesn't paint an adequate picture, but I didn't want to leave you folks waiting longer. If there is an interest in the matter, I can go deeper into it.

@Mailman @AlphaMike @Jagdflieger

Very informative thank u.

 

[Jagdflieger]

Bismarck wanted a united Germany under Prussian domination hence why he kicked the Austrians out of the German confederation.

Deutscher Bund - and Austria, nothing to do with Prussian domination - since that was already a given issue since 1762. The 7 weeks war of 1866 had already ex-pulsed Austria from a foreseeable Deutsches Reich.Bismarck did not want Austria due to the foreseeable complication of it's Eastern territories and therefore with Russia. And he was absolutely correct - 1914.

Austria and Prussia basically fought for centuries for the control of Germany itself. One was Catholic and the other was Protestant.

Centuries? the Kingdom of Prussia wasn't even taken serious before 1762. Getting into a war with Austria 1740 due to annexing the resource rich province of Silesia. And upon getting into war with the Kingdom of Saxony - which Austria used to form an alliance with France, Sweden and Russia (7 years war) to gain back Silesia. If not for the death of Russia's Empress Elisabeth I, the Kingdom of Prussia might very well have been wiped off the map.

That Protestantism had a huge positive influence in regards to socioeconomic development within the Holy Roman Empire and the Deutscher Bund, and therefore in opposition to Habsburg is understood.

 

[Ryder]

Deutscher Bund - and Austria, nothing to do with Prussian domination - since that was already a given issue since 1762. The 7 weeks war of 1866 had already ex-pulsed Austria from a foreseeable Deutsches Reich.Bismarck did not want Austria due to the foreseeable complication of it's Eastern territories and therefore with Russia. And he was absolutely correct - 1914.

Centuries? the Kingdom of Prussia wasn't even taken serious before 1762. Getting into a war with Austria 1740 due to annexing the resource rich province of Silesia. And upon getting into war with the Kingdom of Saxony - which Austria used to form an alliance with France, Sweden and Russia (7 years war) to gain back Silesia. If not for the death of Russia's Empress Elisabeth I, the Kingdom of Prussia might very well have been wiped off the map.

That Protestantism had a huge positive influence in regards to socioeconomic development within the Holy Roman Empire and the Deutscher Bund, and therefore in opposition to Hapsburg is understood.

Not centuries then but their struggle went for a century.

 

[Nilgiri]

When we talk about the larger picture and the larger geopolitical, geoeconomic and military power shifts around the world, then the new world order isn't that simple to define... it is, to put it simply, complex. The changing tides of international realities we currently see aren't easy to sum up in a few sentences, but I'll give a few thoughts of mine here.
I'll start with China because this is my main area of interest, though it only is a small part of the larger picture.
What I see is a China that tries to refocus the global institutions towards its favour, on the cost of the american primacy in most of them. However it doesn't want to completely dominate the world militarily the way the US does, but rather keep its sphere of Influence confined to the western pacific, lets say everything west of Hawaii and east of the Urals, Caspian Sea and Caucasus. Make an eastern counterpart to America's western Hemisphere, dominate its countries mainly economically and maintain an overwhelming military superiority against most neighbours.
It also doesn't want to see the US be a destitute and poor country, run by pluto- and kleptocrats that suck the economic basis dry, as is currently happening. It favours a market to which it can sell its still substantial economic exports and for that to happen the people need to have enough disposable income, which isn't fueled by out-of-control debt spending. The US should however be far weaker than China in overall economic power and by and large subservient.
Its "eastern hemisphere" wouldn't be controlled the way the US controls theirs, that is via coups and the support for pro-american regimes, but rather through economic means that make them "the indispensable economic partner" for these countries, to quote Kevin Rudd.
But frankly, I think that Beijing has made grievous strategic errors and painful blunders that have more gravity than the CCP leadership realises. From the various confrontations in the South China Sea, to the repeated incursions into Taiwanese airspace, to the Indian border skirmishes and to the always lingering potential for conflict with Vietnam, these things tend to be remembered by the people of the receiving countries, regardless of how beneficial and strong the trade and economic growth has been and continues to be.

Here we also need more background info to understand these things better. Down below I'll try to summarize a bit.

To be honest, I don't frequent Twitter or Social Media in general... most of my news I get from DH, and I'm not a particularly active member in that regard. So why Geroman is a Russia supporter I don't know. Maybe he's a troll, maybe he genuinely believes that. Twitter isn't really full of thoughtful and well rounded people, is it?


So this is going to be an extensive post that goes into the pre and post WW2 history of Austria, why Austrian politics tend to be conservative and right-leaning and how the modern Austrian identity has been formed.

Why is Austria so right leaning and conservative? It "always" has been, moreso conservative under Habsburg rule and more right-leaning during the First republic, the Ständestaat and then especially under the NS regime. After the first world war, when Austria-Hungary imploded and the various post-war states came into being, there was a real existential fear permeating the country, as it wasn't considered large and industrious enough to survive as a sovereign state. The humiliation of Saint Germain and the possibility of a communist take-over were, coupled with the hunger and poverty experienced by a war-starved populace, and the desire to be "Deutschösterreich" (Germanaustria) instead of just Austria, a driving fear that did much to nurture the desire to "reunite" with Germany. When the entente denied this, and Austria was left to fend for itself, there grew a strong sense of resentment towards the victorious powers and the relationship with the successor states of AH was bad, to put it lightly. Austria had no friends left and was plagued by severe economic strains, notably the hyperinflation happening on a scale similar to Weimar Germany. The soldiers that had come home were traumatized, disillusioned and facing nothing but a bleak future, which turned them bitter and supportive of right-leaning, militarist governments.

The twenties then however were good for Austria and its economy, not so much for the political divergence between the nationalist, conservative parties and the socialist and left leaning parties, both of which formed their paramilitary units, the "Heimwehr"(Homeguard) and "Republikanischer Schutzbund"(Republican Protection League) respectively. Until the 1929 crash, these two extremes could be considered to have coexisted peacefully, with the nationalists enjoying more support among the rural populace and the socialist-leaning parties being favoured in the cities, primarily Vienna. However, once the crash came and the economic growth disappeared, the people turned more extreme the then chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß used the opportunity to basically dissolve the parliament and rule with dictatorial powers. He ended the first republic and built the "Ständestaat" in its stead, with an austro-fascist political system modelled on Mussolini's Italy. Of note here is that the NSDAP and communist party were banned virtually simultaneously across Austria once Dollfuß was in power.

Even a small civil war ensued in 1934, about a year after Dollfuß dissolved the parliament, though only about ~1000 people died during the fighting. A couple of months later, Austrian Nazis tried to putsch Dollfuß, when around 150 SS members disguised as police officers and soldiers breached the Chancellery and wounded Dollfuß, who'd succumb a couple of hours later. In his place, Kurt Schuschnigg became the new leader, and he'd remain there until the Anschluss.

A few words regarding the Anschluss and how receptive Austria was towards it... when you look at the footage from 1938, with the german troops crossing the border and being welcomed by flag-waving peasants, or Hitler holding his speech at the Heldenplatz and the mass euphoria that some 200.000 people brought to life there, then you always have to remember that this was filmed as propaganda and nothing else, it was meant to portray the message that Hitler was nothing but a beloved saviour for the Austrian people who was welcomed and even needed there. If you still today think that this was the only reaction Austria had to the event, then you can see just how effective 80+ years old propaganda can be.

This is however not the whole truth, as both the Gestapo established in the same year and Bruno Kreisky(Austria's chancellor during the 70s and early 80s) said during his chancellorship. And Kreisky, born in 1911 as a viennese Jew who fled to Sweden before the war, ought to know and recollect this better than most. Only approximately 1/3rd of Austrians were active supporters of the regime, another third was more or less neutral, seeing Hitler as being the same as Schuschnigg only that their economic prospects were better under him, and the last third was opposed to Hitler, and the most likely to form resistance groups and offer active and passive resistance to the regime. This ranged from youths who'd been brought up on the nationalist diet of the Ständestaat and were smearing "rot-weiß-rot, bis in den Tod" (red-white-red, until death/until we're dead) onto walls and trains, to the active Partisan movement happening in southern Austria, particularly southern Carinthia.

When under Hitler's rule, it is undeniable that a huge proportion of the worst nazi criminals were austrian. The tendency to be radicalized was higher amongst Austrians than with Germans, and the idealization of Hitler was born out of the denial of joining Germany in 1919, the prohibition of the NSDAP under the Ständestaat and the effective propaganda distributed by the nazis pre- and post Anschluss. When Hitler came and the economic situation quickly became better, coupled with the ostracization and demonization of the Jews, and then the victories of the Wehrmacht once the war got going, and the fact that Hitler was an Austrian who revitalized Germany in most aspects, it is not too unreasonable to see why Austria was supporting Hitler to such a degree.

Once the war was over and it was no longer fashionable to be german, Austria had to diverge away from the german culture and embraced the Habsburg history as its new identity, and at the same time swept the fanaticism for the nazis under the rug, which in essence meant a combination of Habsburg conservatism and Hitler fascism. Austria really tried to portray itself as the "first victim" of nazi expansion, and managed this to such a degree that many Austrians themselves became convinced of the view. The reality never was addressed like in Germany, and the denazification was mostly vigilante justice(meaning a couple of nazis that got hanged from lampposts), as many, many politicians of the second republic were Nazis under Hitler and opportunists once Austria was sovereign.

This has left deep marks on the Austrian national psyche. In general, the country can this way be described as right-leaning and conservative, though socialist politics dominate the cities, Vienna is commonly referred to as "rotes Wien"(red vienna), and in Austria's second largest city Graz the communist party actually won the last elections (It happened around the same time as the fall of Kabul last year, which led to a lot of "Stalingraz" and "Leningraz" jokes haha). But the rural areas still are dominated by right-leaning and conservative points of view, some areas more than others, but that's the basic situation. There are contrasts within the country, but our politics have produced people like Haider, who even managed to be on the time cover at one point, or Kickl who always seriously reminds me of Himmler when I see him speak. Our politicians on the left tend to be of poor quality and unmemorable, compared to the right counterparts, who are of equally poor quality but more memorable.

That Austria's elites are close to Putin can primarily be explained by the money they receive from him and his oligarchs, really the primary reason why there is so much interconnectivity between the two. Again, this is a fairly constant occurrence across Europe, where anything that can benefit Putin to undermine the democratic systems is used. A divided, weak Europe is good for him, and the right and far-right parties tend to do this most effectively.
For the average person, there is a certain acceptance of Putin and his sticking it to the west with the way he runs the country more authoritarian and uncaring for western values... especially the way he takes an oftentimes uncompromising stance towards the US. Austrians are, and this is a constant across the political spectrum, by and large opposed to the US, american governments and american foreign policy. Especially the extroversion that american culture values so much is seen as very bothersome, since Austria tends to be more reserved and quiet in a general sense. But this is fairly common across the non-american west, only that Austria tends to top the polls about anti-americanism, outside your usual suspects like Russia or Iran or Venezuela, places the americans tend to abuse.

I'm aware that this doesn't paint an adequate picture, but I didn't want to leave you folks waiting longer. If there is an interest in the matter, I can go deeper into it.

@Mailman @AlphaMike @Jagdflieger

A great read and thanks.

@Joe Shearer may like to read it and the larger discussion here too.

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

Very informative thank u.

A great read and thanks.

@Joe Shearer may like to read it and the larger discussion here too.

If there is any interest I could go into the matter a bit deeper, just let me know

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

German history is really interesting while so many just focus on ww2 many people forget topics like Imperial Germany, Kingdom of Prussia, Charlemagne, Germanic tribes that conquered most of Europe like the Vandals, Goths, Franks and the Anglo Saxons, Teutonic Knights who expanded into Eastern Europe, Thirty Years War, Martin Luther and his movement

That is a good question, but before getting a possible answer onto this, one needs to understand as to where the term German derives from. Since it is a Latin term incorporated into the English language causing as such a lot of confusion.
In order to have a simple differentiation for the Romans to separate conquered Gallia (mostly Celtic people) to the unconquered North-Eastern part inhabited by Celtic tribes and others - the Romans choose to call it Germania. (meaning; foreign collective people)
One of the more powerful tribes were the Teutonen - later becoming Teutsch = Deutsche/Deutschland, Another one were the Allemannen more a threat towards Gallia and the reason as to why even today's French/France refer to Deutschland as Allemagne.

Who where these people living in Germania? nobody really knows since there was a constant movement of tribes from the east moving into Germania, intermixing with existing tribes. After the Roman empire had kind of vanished - the tribal movements started to slow down and the population became more settled and started to develop a more unified common language = Teutsch. The common men's language in the Holy Roman Empire saturated with different dialects.
The Hungarian invasion around 900 A.D. brought a strengthening of Teutsch speaking tribes/fiefs and Kingdoms uniting from the north to southern part.

In 1871 or actually after Napoleons defeat a rising nationalism amongst Teutsch speaking people started to arise. Acknowledging the fact that the previous loose federation of the Holy Roman Empire of Teutscher Nationen would be needed to compete with e.g. France, Russia, England, Sweden etc. The Holy Roman Empire of Teutscher Nationen last lead and almost unified under Habsburg control was "deliberately" dismantled in 1648 by the above mentioned nations.

Well anyway in 1871 a chap named Bismarck had managed to do just that by defeating France via the Kingdom of Prussia in Alliance with the kingdoms of Wuertemberg, Bavaria and Saxony. After paying off the next in line Emperor - King Ludwig of Bavaria (the caste guy) the Prussian King was declared to be Emperor of Das Teutsche Reich, later changed into Das Deutsche Kaiserreich.

Austria aka Habsburg after 1648 had decided to stay on their own and expanding into the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Sharing the same language with German states with some added dialects.
In order to get a more unified Deutschland the program was instituted already around 1835 but strongly from 1871 onward - what is Deutsch? and what makes a Deutscher so superior to others. More or less history was altered to a large extend to give the impression that since Roman times there was always a Deutschland aka Germania.
A guy like Hitler was absolutely fascinated by this "new history" and added on his own Aryan history of the Germanen. So from 1934 onward everyone was aware that the Deutsche all came from India (Indo-Germanic) and that even the Japanese were kind of related to us.

So back to the question of Austrians being Germans - certainly not in a political view and aside from a forced annexation for 7 years - they have never been part of Deutschland - are they related? Sure, they share the same dialectic and ancestral groups as today's Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and parts of Belgium and the Netherlands.

When you go back that far and to the various german tribes north of the Danube during roman times, then I don't think that Austria could really be considered part of Germany.

Most of modern-day austrian territory was part of the Province Noricum, with smaller parts being in Pannonia interior and Raetia. Before and during that, proto-celtic and celtic tribes were the dominant inhabitants, with the famous Hallstatt culture being the best known relic of that time.

The german tribe upon which Austria builds itself and its german history are the "Bajuwaren" or Bavarians, which settled themselves in modern day Bavaria and Austria. An anecdote here should be made for Bavaria, which in Germany is officially called the "Freistaat Bayern" or "Free state of Bavaria", and it has a greater degree of autonomy within Germany. Bavarians are also more likely to consider themselves as such, with them being Germans coming second.

In the many centuries since, Austria had very noticeable influence from its slavic neighbours, Hungary and also Venice. It doesn't identify itself with say the Hanseatic league history of northern Germany and neither would North Germans associate themselves much with Roman history or alpine culture. The turkish-austrian history also factors into this, though our history was usually bloody.

The most famous example is probably the "Kipferl", the austrian and original croissant, invented during the second siege of Vienna to ridicule the crescent of Islam(according to popular legend at least, there are some historical inaccuracies), but also the coffee itself, and Vienna's coffee house culture hails from the coffee originally captured from Turkish troops. A popular term to refer to corn fields in Austrian slang is "Türkn"(with a heavy dialect you'd say "Tiakn"), which apparently stems from turkish soldiers hiding away in said corn fields during the various austro-turkish conflicts, and would be used by soldiers once those returned to their farms. These are admittedly not flattering influences, but they still factor heavily into the cultural and historical identity of Vienna and Austria. The southern provinces of Austria experienced turkish raids that were quite devastating to the demographical situation of the day, both in people killed and taken as slaves.

But further back than that, one small latin remnant in continuous use today is the word "Servus" (alternatively "Servas", "Seavas", "Sers", "Seas" and various other forms of the original), which is best translated as "At your service" or "I serve you" into English. This word is probably the main form of friendly greeting in Austria.