German Memoirs in Asia - Austria & Divided German States

Andrea was narrating various issues about Austria. When I asked Andrea how most of the Austrians identify themselves as Austrians or Germans, she said, "there are complex issues. We have a unique culture in Austria. So we feel comfortable when we identify ourselves as Austrians". She also said, "We are less in number compared to those who are in Germany and that is the primary reason why we like to identify ourselves as Austrians".

That the German Nation and its people should be divided was a notion held by many European nations. Foreign powers had long interceded in German affairs, pitting one German principality against the other.

In the 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the Holy Roman Empire (of the German nation), Austria and Prussia emerged as two opposite poles in Germany, trying to re-establish the divided German nation. In 1870, Prussia attracted even Bavaria in the Franco-Prussian War and the creation of the German Empire as a German nation-state, effectively excluding the multi-ethnic Austrian-Habsburg monarchy. From this time on, the connotation of Germans came to shift gradually from "speakers of the German language" to "Imperial Germans."

The dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire after World War I led to a strong desire of the population of the new Republic of Austria to be integrated into Germany. This was, however, prevented by the Treaty of Versailles.

Trying to overcome the shortfall of Chancellor Bismarck's creation, the Nazis attempted to unite "all Germans" in one realm. This was welcomed among ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Danzig and Western Lithuania, but met with resistance among the Swiss and the Dutch, who were perfectly content with their perception of separate nations established in 1648, and the Dutch, in particular as they had never even spoken a form of the modern Germanic language.

Before World War II, most Austrians considered themselves German and denied the existence of a distinct Austrian ethnic identity. It was only after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II that this began to change. After the world war, the Austrians increasingly saw themselves as a nation distinct from the other German-speaking areas of Europe, and some polls in 2000 indicated that no more than ten percent of the German-speaking Austrians saw themselves as part of a larger German nation linked by blood or language.

Germans, would hold that they belong to the German culture, which is what decides if someone is considered a German or not. On the other hand, Austrians often prefer to see the same persons and institutions as Austrian. Particularly, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - who spent most of their lives in what is Austria today - may be considered to have been central within the German culture but may nevertheless often be characterized as Austrians, not as Germans.

The beginnings of a divided Germany may be traced back much further; to a Roman occupied Germania in the west and to Free Germania in the east. Starkly different ideologies have many times been developed due to conquerors and occupiers of sections of Germany. Poets talked of Zwei Seelen in einem Herz (Two souls in one heart).