>>33868438Well, as any historian and expert on cultures would tell you, austrians are german through and through. For centuries, most of the middle ages and modern times they ruled the Holy roman empire and vienna was the center for german culture. Rivaling France and Paris, nobody knew or cared about Berlin for the longest time. Then after Napoleon in the 19th century they seemed like the most likely candidate to unite the german people under a nationstate which seemed like only a matter of time. Prussia beat them, united the german people outside of austria under the "lesser german solution" (germany without austria) because Bismarck knew the Austrians would never be content with prussian dominance especially after they’ve just been such a powerful empire for such a long time. Austria developed independently alongside the new German Empire and after the first world war the entente didn’t allow Germany and Austria to unite as one of many ways to cripple Germany’s power in the treaty of Versailles. It was a political move through and through. Then Austria was annexed in the Anschluss (with thundering applause by the populace) by Hitler, so of course that idea has been forever tainted.
The austrians are germans, just like swabians, franconians, saxons, bavarians, hanoveranians and so on.
Sussex could be independent and they’d still be english, the champagne could be independent and they’d still be french, all these places would of course have their own identity, just like they have while being part of a bigger country, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’d also be classified under a greater, more general nationality.
There, I originally didn’t want to go into much detail but I went almost all in. I hope this is sufficient to explain what I mean.
