Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
[2] [3] After World War II, many Austrians sought comfort in the myth of Austria as being the first victim of the Nazis. [4] Although the Nazi Party was promptly banned, Austria did not have the same thorough process of denazification that was imposed on post-war Germany.
As well, all administrative and legal measures since 1938 would be ignored. The conference declared the intent to create a free and independent Austria after the war, but also stated that Austria had a responsibility for "participation in the war at the side of Hitlerite Germany" which could not be evaded. [1]
This did not satisfy Hitler and the pro-German Austrian Nazis grew in strength. In September 1936, Hitler launched the Four Year Plan that called for a dramatic increase in military spending and to make Germany as autarkic as possible with the aim of having the Reich ready to fight a world war by 1940. [39]
Otto was involved in helping around 50,000 Austrians, including tens of thousands of Austrian Jews, flee the country at the beginning of the Second World War. [28] During his wartime exile in the United States, Otto and his younger brothers founded an "Austrian Battalion" in the United States Army, but it was delayed and never saw actual combat ...
The military career of Adolf Hitler, who was the dictator of Germany from 1933 until 1945, can be divided into two distinct portions of his life. Mainly, the period during World War I when Hitler served as a Gefreiter (lance corporal [A 1]) in the Bavarian Army, and the era of World War II when he served as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) through his ...
Adolf Hitler [a] (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, [c] becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934.
About 1.2 million Austrians served in all branches of the German armed forces during World War II. After the defeat of the Axis Powers, the Allies occupied Austria in four occupation zones set up at the end of World War II until 1955, when the country again became a fully independent republic under the condition that it remained neutral.
Civilian deaths, due to the flight and expulsion of Germans and the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union, are sometimes included with World War II casualties. During the Cold War, the West German government estimated the death toll at 2.225 million [14] in the wartime evacuations, forced labor in the Soviet Union as well as the post war ...