When and how did a separate Austrian identity take root?

Great Debates
1

I know this is a bit of a thorny topic, so I’ll try to stay as objective as I can. For almost 400 years, Austrians were the leaders of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. After the Holy Roman Empire disbanded, they tried to unite the other German states under Austrian leadership, which failed when Prussia conquered them first and left Austria out of their new German Empire in 1871. But feelings of Germanness must have lingered among some Austrians, because when their own Empire broke up in 1918, they renamed the remaining parts the “Republic of German Austria.”

Fast forward 16 years and Austria is under the dictatorship of Dolfuss, who, together with his successor Schusnigg, emphasizes the traditional cornerstone of Austrian society, the Catholic Church, in order to highlight a separate Austrian-ness, so to speak. Four years later, there is the Anschluss, which, though the vote was not at all free or fair, was nonetheless met with joy in Austria.
Then, after WW2 is over, you have Austria occupied by the Allied powers for ten years, during which there is intense de-nazification. At the end of this, in 1956, a survey shows that 49% of Austrians say they are a people of their own, compared to 46% who identified as Germans. In 1987, these numbers were 79% and 6%, respectively. By the time of another survey in1993, at least 80% said Austrians are a nation.

Based on what I’ve listed so far, which is based on my research, it seems that Austrians only adopted their own ethnic identity in the aftermath of WW2 as a way of distancing themselves from their history under the Nazis. I do not claim to be an expert though, and if I am in fact wrong, I would greatly appreciate it if someone could correct me/ tell me the real story behind Austrian national identity.:slight_smile:

Servus und danke schön

2

You read some completely different histories from what I did.

First off, Nationalism has not always been a “thing.” It wasn’t all that interesting to people to build countries made up of all the people who spoke the same language, until somewhere in the 19th Century or so.

The so-called Holy Roman Empire wasn’t an attempt to unify Germans.

The Austrian Empire wasn’t an attempt to unify Germans either. Part of why it struggled mightily to exist at all, and was for a long time also known as the Dual Monarchy, of Austro-Hungary.

The German Empire, which came into being under the guidance of the Prussians, was only SORT OF trying to unify Germans, and didn’t leave Austria out because the Austrians were against being thought of as German. The Empire was actually called the Prussian Empire, not the German Empire, emphasizing that the German speakers had been unified by force of arms, rather than by national will. The Austrians were left out, because they were at that time, too strong to be conquered in the sweep of 1870 that caught the rest of the Germans up, and the rest of Europe actively worked to make sure they stayed separate after that, to keep Prussia from getting to be too powerful.

I think you are close to correct that Austrians reacted to the disaster of Naziism, by declaring and affirming a separate national identity, but I think that’s more built of political practicality, than of any special sense of “Austrianism.”

3

Throughout most of its history the Holy Roman Empire was a loose confederation — not a country. The Holy Roman Emperor was a figurehead with limited power.

Austria, OTOH, was a significant country from the 13th century and became an Empire united under a single sovereign, beginning roughly with the successful defense of Vienna from Ottoman siege in 1529.

During those periods when Germany was united into a single country, Austria was never part of Germany IIRC, except under Hitler’s Empire. Yes, the Austrian monarch happened to be the figurehead Holy Roman Emperor for almost four centuries, but only small parts of Germany were ever incorporated into the Habsburg domains.

4

No it wasn’t. The official name of the German Empire was the Deutsches Reich; more or less the “German Realm”. (The Weimar Republic actually kept the name, as opposed to calling itself the Deutsche Republik or anything like that; the name Deutches Reich lasted in some form until the end of World War II–in fact, an odd remnant of the Reich lasted, in name at least, until the end of East Germany.) The Kingdom of Prussia was one of–and by far the largest and most important–of the states of the German Empire, and certainly took a leading role in the unification of Germany. The German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser) was also simultaneously King of Prussia, while the various other states of the German Empire retained their own kings, grand dukes, dukes, and princes.

5

The German Confederation created in 1815 was far from a unified German state, but for half a century it was the only thing that could be called “Germany”. It included a substantial part of the Austrian Empire; most, though not all, of what became the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary shortly after the end of the German Confederation, had been included in the German Confederation. Most of Prussia was part of the Confederation, but part of that kingdom was also outside of the Confederation. It was only after the unification of Germany (as the German Empire) under the leadership of Prussia in 1867-1871 that the German-speaking provinces of Austria-Hungary ceased to be thought of as being part of “Germany” (or perhaps one should say, of “the Germanies”).

6

Most of what you say is true, although if we base nationalism on “shared cultural identity” or, a “sense of differentness from those who do not share a culture” then a form of Greek nationalism has existed since the Byzantine Era, based mainly on imperial patronage for the Greek language and Byzantine church rites at the expense of minorities. English people as well had some sense of nationhood as far back as the Norman conquest, which had fully matured by the time of the Hundred Years’ war. In the wake of the Reformation and England’s growing naval power, this turned into an impetus for the spread of the English language and Anglican Church to Wales, Ireland, Scotland, the Americas, India, and later Africa.
Nonetheless, I agree nationalism was not the coherent ideological movement it is now before the 19th century. However, we need to be careful when we say this, because it’s not as though before 1800 everyone thought of themselves as just “humans” or anything like that. They DID have some level of group identity (cf. Martin Luther insulting Copernicus as a “Sarmatian(polish) fool”) it just wasnt as fully developed as later nationalism.
On the whole though

7

I think it’s important to distinguish between “German” as an ethnic, cultural or national identity and “German” as a citizenship or political allegiance. Lots of Austrians have always identified as German (and to this day Austrians, e.g., still speak the German language).

It’s only in the nineteenth century that we get the rise of the idea that the nation is the proper business of the state, and that a nation like which forms part of a multinational state ought to secede and establish a state of its own, e.g. Ireland ought to secede from the United Kingdom and establish an Irish state. Conversely nations which comprise a multiplicity of states ought to unite into a single state, e.g. Italy, Germany.

The Austrian are caught between two stools here. On the one hand, the dominant nation in Austria is German; therefore Austria ought to form part of, and perhaps take a leadership role in, a more united German political entity. On the other hand the Austrian empire is multinational; the rise of nationalism threatens it. And in the end the Austrians finish up with the worst of both worlds; they are left out of unified Germany, and their own empire is increasingly threatened, and eventually disintegrates in the face of, Hungarian, Czech, etc nationalism.

To many Austrians between the wars it must have seemed that the verdict of history was in, so to speak, and it was a verdict in favour of nation-states and against multinational states. And, therefore, Austria’s destiny and best interests lay in uniting with Germany. You wouldn’t have to be a Nazi admirer to come to this conclusion, though obviously if you were that would intensify your feelings in favour of uniting with Germany.

Well, Austria did unite with Germany, in circumstances that we know about, and of course it all ended in tears. And after the war the Austrians have a very strong incentive to swing to the opposing view - to see themselves as victims of Naziism and to distance themselves from any notion that, as Germans, they should form part of a unified German state. Initially this may have been a stance of convenience, to some extent, but in fact maintaining themselves as a distinct political entity from Germany has worked out very well for them, so support for the notion has only deepened over time. And with both Germany and Austria in the EU since 1995, the practical disadvantages and symbolic significance of being separate states have all but disappeared, so there are no pragmatic or practical grounds for continuing to oppose the division of what can be seen as a single German nation into two separate states. Hence sentiment in favour of unification with Germany has all but disappeared.

I would be interested to see details of the opinion polls that the OP refers to. I suspect the answers that will be elicited to questions about Germanness will depend to a significant extent on whether the question is framed so as to present Germanness as a political allegiance or a cultural identification. And this needs to be seen in the context of a wider German identity which readily accommodates regional and local identities - there is no contradiction in being, say, both German and Prussian, both German and Saxon, both German and Bavarian. So there is no necessary contradiction in being both German and Austrian.

8

You’ll find the poll I’m referencing here:derStandard.at. I’m nowhere near fluent in German but I’m almost completely sure that the poll tries to gauge Germanness as a cultural identity.

9

Even to this day, nationalism is subtle and a bit obscure, in many ways. Here in the US, we have many levels and shades of allegiance, and it certainly isn’t attributable as much to cultural heritage, as many would likely assume. We have lots of local allegiances, some of which supersede a national sense of things, save only for the times we feel sufficiently threatened from without, to band together, and that’s here in a modern state, which even has “United” in it’s official name.

Back when many modern nations were initially forming, they didn't come together from a sense of oneness, in most cases.  France didn't coalesce, because of the blooming of some feeling of "Frenchness" sweeping the region, in fact, most of the European countries which came together, were based more on naturally defensible borders, than by nationality.  France in particular is such an odd place, that their capitol city seceded from the rest of the country.  Twice.  Spain is made up of regions which speak different "flavors" of Spanish, and Portugal really ought to have been a part of a single state, except that they developed independently.   Britain was and is a mish mash of very different peoples, some of which still speak "foreign" languages to each other. Germans from the south and west can understand those from the north and east, but they speak very differently.

I guess what I’m getting at, is that the question at the start of this thread, may be sort of back to front. That it’s not that “a separate Austrian identity took root,” so much as it is that Austria was one of several Germanic states which never got swept up into a larger single German nation.