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Primarily, I am looking at the differences between say, the movements for German unity and that of Italian nationalists.

The record shows that the people of Austria had accepted without much resistance their unification with Nazi Germany during the "Anschluss" (closing) of 1938. Yet other unification efforts before and after the Anschluss failed.

Considering the fact that almost all countries of Europe are organized on a linguistic basis, why did the movements for Austro-German unity fail?

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Probably because the last time they tried it, it didn't work out... :/ – Yannis Rizos Nov 30 '12 at 21:48
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@YannisRizos But it was not really a failure. The failure was the war, not the process of unification itself. – Arani Dec 1 '12 at 11:33
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Certainly, but it kinda left some (emotional, political, etc) baggage which probably explains why Austrians couldn't care less about unification with Germany nowadays. – Yannis Rizos Dec 3 '12 at 13:17
I have improved the question, and nominate it for reopening. – Tom Au Mar 14 at 21:35
I support reopening this question. What I'm puzzled though, is what other German-Austrian unification efforts after the "Anschluss" @Arani had in mind, for I am not aware of any serious ones (except for common membership of both countries in the EU). – Drux Mar 14 at 22:20
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closed as not constructive by Yannis Rizos, Luke, knut, Steven Drennon♦ Nov 30 '12 at 23:47

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1 Answer

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Austria is prohibited from joining Germany by the Allies of WWII. Austria has no right to do so. It was a condition for the removal of the allied occupation.

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Yes, but after the Allies left in 1955, there was no force that could have imposed those agreements. – Arani Dec 1 '12 at 9:24
@Arani why do you think there was no such force. Did the Allies (but Soviet Russia) somehow disappear out of history? – Drux Mar 15 at 6:46
@Drux Simply because the democratic forces are very sensitive to public opinion before waging war, and the people of the Western Allies would surely not support force (just as they accepted unification of East Germany despite the opposition of UK and France). – Arani Mar 15 at 14:22
Hmmm, you may have a point there, although I was not so much thinking of actual war, but of permanent international sanctions. BTW, I find this an interesting topic (and therefore an interesting question), because before WW2 there were some respectable unification efforts, which by now have been fairly completely covered or disreputed (along with the more wacky ones) by what has happened since. – Drux Mar 15 at 15:39

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