Word: austria
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...actually made an abortive attempt to seize Austria in 1934, when some 150 SS men dressed in Austrian army uniforms burst into the Chancellery in Vienna and shot down Conservative Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. That was supposed to be the start of a Nazi coup, but Justice Minister Kurt von Schuschnigg rallied the police and had the assassins arrested. Italy, which had guaranteed Austrian independence, mobilized four divisions on the frontier. Hitler backed down. By 1938, however, he had built a threatening army and had won the support of Italy's Mussolini (they had signed a secret protocol in 1936 creating...
...Nazis to be amnestied, the ban on the party to be lifted, Nazis to be appointed to head the Police and War ministries and an economic merger of the two nations. When Schuschnigg balked, Hitler shouted, "Fulfill my demands within three days, or I will order the march into Austria...
...persuasion, refused to accept the deal. When Hitler heard that, he ordered the Wehrmacht to mobilize, as publicly as possible. Schuschnigg tried to defend his regime by announcing a plebiscite in four days, on March 13, to decide whether Austrians wanted "a free, independent, social, Christian and united Austria." Hitler, apoplectic, ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Austria on March 12 unless Schuschnigg called off the plebiscite. Once again Schuschnigg surrendered, but Hitler kept increasing his demands. Now he insisted that Schuschnigg resign and be replaced by Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Schuschnigg again surrendered, and resigned, but President Miklas refused...
...which "the provisional Austrian government" asked Germany to send troops to restore order. On March 12 the Wehrmacht came streaming across the border -- not only unopposed but warmly welcomed by thousands of Austrians who genuinely wanted union with Germany. Next day, Seyss-Inquart issued a decree that announced, "Austria is a province of the German Reich." Hitler returned in triumph to the Vienna where he had once lived as a virtual derelict. Papen described him as being "in a state of ecstasy...
Each triumph filled Hitler with ever greater confidence in his invincibility, in his political instincts and in the irresolution of his antagonists. Having easily conquered Austria, he decided in the spring of 1938 to attack Czechoslovakia. Like Poland, Czechoslovakia had been carved out of the Habsburg Empire by the mapmakers at Versailles, and its boundaries included an awkward mixture of roughly 6.5 million Czechs, 3.3 million Germans, 2.5 million Slovaks and about 800,000 Hungarians and Poles. Unlike Poland, it was a genuine democracy with a large and well-equipped army; it also had signed a treaty that pledged France...