Yes, they are.
No, they aren't.
Other Opinion.
I have been wondering as of late about Austria. Since it had been part of Grossdeutschland in the Reich... what do the current Austrian people think of Germany? Do they think of themselves as Germans, or only Austrians? Is there any chance of another Anschluss in the future? (taking into consideration the miracle of German reunification in 1991..)
(please forgive me, my German is not up to standard...)
Götterschicksal as an Austrian could tell better...
I personally think that the ideological "degermanisation" and the creating of an artificial Austrian "nationality" was successfull in a certain degree. Real German nationalist feeling has been driven out of the Austrians, though not totally, and the certain connections to Germany and the feeling of a certain folkish unity are still there in Austria.
In the nearer future I don't really see a chance for a new Anschluß or second reunification, but perhaps one day in Europe the mentality of our time will be replaced by a cultural renewal. That's what we all desire here.
At least from today's mentality of the society it is quite unrealistic.
If you compare it with 1990, you must think of that the Germans in the GDR still felt mental as Germans and that they couldn't unite because of the communist sictators and the Soviet tanks, and also West German policy was still in the eighties at least officially for unification.
The Austrian mass tabloids often hunt against the Germans who they blame to be arrogant against "us" (the Austrians) and similar stuff, and so they subconsciously strengthen the contrast between the Austrian and the BRD Germans in the mind of the "normal" Austrian man. Brainwashing.
Nordgau, thanks for the reply.Originally Posted by Nordgau
The thing is, with closer EU integration, national borders in Europe will become more meaningless - and the only real boundary remaining will be a linguistic one - which would create an environnment for a Germanic revival in Europe. Linguistically, the extreme eastern areas of France (Alsace; Strasbourg) and Austria to the south, form a natural continuum with the German fatherland. This geographical fact could be exploited in favour of a cultural pan-Germanism (mainly linguistically and economically) within the EU. Other factors are also favourable - i.e. a common monetary currency.
I don't really know if really a cultural pan-Germanism between the Germans in the German state and bordering German areas within the EU becomes really higher than it has been in e. g. the eighties when the borders were stricter. The real ideology here is anti-Nationalism and anti-Germanism.
This refers to this thread. Since any disputing comment on the explanation of the divisions is not wished in the original thread, I make up a new one for it:
The claims on Austria are quite ignorant. It only needs a glance into a history atlas to see that Austria, the German core lands of the Austrian monarchy, has been traditionally the leading state within the German Reich and then the German Confederation for centuries of German history until 1866. And since Austrians used to regard themselves as part of the German people, nation and culture until the middle of the 20th century, an own category for Austrians justified explicitely through the juxtaposition of Germandom and Austriandom as alleged seperated entities makes only sense for a range of "modern" and politically mostly left, anti-nationalist postwar artists (but the fan stands of Hrdlicka and Jelinek aren't that strong on this forum anyway, I suppose). Because of the traditional collective German national and cultural consciousness in Austria there's nothing special or spectaculary in comments like Grillparzer did on the occasion of the foundation of the second Reich in 1871, just as, say, Musil's political statements in 1918/19, when everyone in German-Austria called for the unification with the second Reich, don't get out of the line of general thinking. There surely can also be found an Austrian affect against the Prussian-lead second Reich among men of letters etc., but, as one will see if one analyses Austrian culture and mentality history, that was not an Austrian opposition against Germandom, but an attitude in which one believed that Prussia was a parvenu and Austria was the true and real and history-nobled bearer of German culture and German spirit; it was a decidedly South German consciousness with Baroque, Catholic and Habsburgian-old-Reich elements, but not a consciousness outside of Germandom. Such a traditional Austrian special consciousness, as also the anti-NS Dollfuß-Schuschnigg regime showed it in a hyperbolical way, did not break out of the frame of an inner German dualism and tension. It was not before the late 1930s that a non-German "Austrian nation" was concocted by communist exilants.--
Emperor Joseph II declaring the leading German stage in Vienna as "German Nation Theatre" (Teutsches Nationaltheater) in 1776 does not really indicate an Austrian dissociation from Germany and Austrian willingness to start a competition with her in the arts. And one may just check out the letters of his contemporary Mozart to get clobbered over the head with examples of German cultural pride and German national consciousness. Madame de Staël used to call Vienna the "capital of Germany"--which it indeed was in her time as seat of the emperor and Germany's largest city and cultural centre; there's nothing exceptional or strange about such a characterisation.--In 1848, on the occasion of the national-liberal revolution in Vienna (the capital of the German state that had the presidency in the German Confederation) the Austrian composer Robert Schumann wrote the "German Freedom Song" (Deutscher Freiheitsgesang) and "Black-Red-Gold" (Schwarz-Rot-Gold). I tend to disagree that the overall historical image gives the impression of "a strong state being separated from Germany politically and clearly competing with Germany in the arts on a large scale". Or into which group category has one got to place "Austrians" like Mozart, Schumann, Grillparzer, etc., etc., etc. who explicitely put straight that they were Germans in Germany and that what they were doing was German arts and culture?
Last edited by Nordgau; Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 09:38 PM.
Man ſei Held oder Heiliger. In der Mitte liegt nicht die Weisheit, ſondern die Alltäglichkeit.
SPENGLER
Thank you very much for starting a new thread on the topic. I greatly appreciate that. Had the posts following yours on this thread occurred in the other threads, it would have led down a path that would have sunk the quality of those threads irretrievably.
I can understand this feeling. It was difficult for me to come up with the divisions between the various groups. Any division scheme for the various Germanic peoples will eventually have to fall onto some sort of artificial distinction — there are no clear lines between any one group and the next. Coming up with the broadest subdivisions conceivable would have offended many people, and finding the finest possible distinctions would have yielded an absurdly long list.
I was not pleased myself with dividing Austria from Germany — had I had no problems with it whatsoever, I wouldn't have mentioned it — I'd've simply posted the poll and blithely gone on with my day. I had similar difficulty separating what I called "Germanic America" and "Germanic Australia and Oceania" from the English, particularly in the literary arts (poetry, narrative, drama, &c.). All these groups feel they are part of the same literary history and trajectory and we all read one another's literature without thinking it foreign at all. But had I merged them into the English, some people would be offended. Any division scheme I chose would upset somebody, and for good reasons.
But in the end, I decided it didn't really matter for the purposes of these threads how I divided up the Germanic people. My goal was and is to create threads that will get a lot of examples of fine art. As I said, I don't want a popularity poll, but threads with lots of good art. I chose the poll format simply because poll threads tend to attract people better than non-poll threads.
So if I were in your position, and if I agreed with me that it's a worthwhile goal to have threads with lots of great art or links to lots of great art (literary, visual, musical, or performative), then I would abstain from voting in the poll and simply post examples from all over the whole area I considered to be Germany without regard to how the poll chose to divide the German people.
Last edited by Leofric; Friday, March 24th, 2006 at 04:18 AM. Reason: needless snide remark removed
For many "Austrian" or "German" artists the distinction cannot be made anyway, since clear borders and differences are an invention of the post WW2 propaganda mostly, Communist invention originally. I mean most German regions had at one time an own state in Germany, the difference is just that whats now Austria was ruled by the Habsburg family and finally excluded in the "minor German solution". Originally the revolutionaries of 1848 f.e. felt German and sent still their own representatives to Frankfurt. The German union was still alive, including Austria, until the Prussian-Austrian war 1866, called the German-German War, German Fratricidal War or simply German war - Prussia and Austria were just the leading countries of the respective alliances. But even then many other countries were independent from Prussia too. It was not before 1871 that the division was made clear.
In some areas the borders are very unclear even, changed quite often, f.e. Salzburg was for a long time independent, then by Bavaria, later Austria, changed its affiliations more than once. Vorarlberg is an Allemannic country, whereas the rest is Bavarian by ethnic border-dialect. On the other hand people from the same Austrian part of the Bavarian-Austrian dialect group from Bohemia and Moravia are still being called deutsch/German, namely the Southern Sudentendeutsche or Deutsch-Böhmen. This border was, once again, drawn very arbitrarily after the 1st WW. So thats like letting someone decide with dices who's German and whos Austrian. Obviously there is no contradiction since a Saxon or Bavarian is both too, German and ...
And to ask people like Mozart what they were...well, even if they would have answered Austrian, that would have never been a contradiction since there were many independent kingdoms, it was just Austrias story that the Habsburgs stood out of the new German empire - it was a difference between Prussians and Austrians, but both were German by ethno-linguistic standards obviously. How can it be explained that Bavarians are considered German together with Prussians, but Austrians not, since they are much closer to Bavarians than Prussians are.
Not to speak of the fact that most of Austria was already German when not even all parts of the modern, already reduced BRD might have been fully under Germanic control again. Austria in its core is just Upper and Lower Austria, all other parts came later under the rule of the Habsburg's and were originally independent countries as well. The Habsburg's are the main, if not the only thing which united them and made them different from say todays Bavaria. Again, the border did change over time too and the ethno-linguistic-dialect border is as well (especially if looking at Vorarlberg or the border between Bavaria and Austria, between "Sudetendeutsche" areas and Austria again) unclear.
Not that Austria has not its own character, but still, its an essentially German character. State and ethno-linguistic as well as cultural borders are two different things. Since it was about culture...
Things become even more strange if Scandinavians are being put together, though the differences are finally bigger than between Austrians and Germans, Bavarians and Austrians in particular.
About the ethno-linguistic borders, different dialects inside of the German folk:
Other view on it:
Whats clear is, that the differences inside of the current BRD are by ethno-linguistic standards bigger than those between f.e. Bavarians and Austrians and all differences smaller than those between Scandinavians.
Last edited by Agrippa; Friday, March 24th, 2006 at 03:04 PM.
Magna Europa est patria nostra
STOP GATS! STOP LIBERALISM!
Regarding the German-German War of 1866 and Bismarck's minor German solution of 1871 one must emphasize of course that this was a new division only affecting state borders, giving Germany a new political shape. With respect to national consciousness, to culture, identity and mentality it didn't lead to a drift of the Germans in Austria away from those in the new Reich--rather the opposite was the fact: The exclusion of German-Austria, until then the supreme power within Germany, from the new Reich lead to a strong consciousness of the Austrian Germans of their nationality and of the fact that the German Reich was an incomplete national state, leaving a large relevant part of the nation outside of the borders. In Austria, where the Germans were "left alone" now and had to deal with various different ethnicities in the entire monarchy, German nationalism and the völkisch movement were in the following decades rather stronger than in the Reich. And the Habsburg monarchy itself also knew as components of the entire monarchy just different "nationalities", understood in an ethnic sense, one of them the Germans.
It would be impossible to speak of a competition between Germany and Austria in the sphere of culture and arts because German Austria always was an integral part of the German nation and culture, and the awareness of the common folkdom and the cultural bonds did not decrease bit rather intensify after the political division of 1871. It is nothing noteworthy e.g. for a later anthology of authors from Austria having the title Deutsches Dichterbuch aus Österreich ("German Poetic Book from Austria"). I'd also second that the fact of grouping together the Scandinavians while dividing the Austrians from the other Germans is group-qualitatively inconsequent because Swedes, Norwegians, Danes are clearly different, even if closely related, peoples or nations, respectively, while German Austrianness is ethnically, culturally and historically nothing else but a regional sub-entity of Germandom. Neither in 1871 nor in 1918 nor in 1938 did a recognisable part of the people in German Austria have the idea that anything such as an "Austrian nation" would exist. The era of nationalism saw Norwegians dissolving the union with Sweden--in Austria, quite the opposite, the exclusion from the new Reich in 1871 brought national frustration, and when the hindernesses of the 19th century for realizing the greater German solution: the existence of the larger Habsburg monarchy and the dynastical-power-political dualism between Prussia and Austria, ceased to exist in 1918, immediately a strong movement for the Anschluß arose through all political camps, which to become true only the dictate of the victors inhibited.
By the way, Agrippa, lately I used to come over some details of the exile-communist puzzling out of the "Austrian nation". While until 1933 the KPÖ (Communist Party of Austria) still, as everybody else, wanted the Anschluß--having of course their own vision of an "Anschluß of Soviet-Austria to Soviet-Germany"--, things gradually changed after Hitler's seizure of power in the Reich and Dollfuß's in Austria. It were, however, still different viewpoints which were discussed among Austrian communists at the seventh world congress of the Communist International in 1935: While one speaker argued against the Austrian patriotism (which was, however, still conceptualized as a special German patriotism) of the Dollfuß-Schuschnigg-regime and insisted on the idea of a greater Germany, the KPÖ secretary Johann Koplenig argued for making use of a special kind of Austrian patriotism.
The Austrian communists were encouraged in dealing with ideas of an "Austrian nation" by the leader of the Communist International, Georgi Dimitroff (the one whose ass Göring kicked in Berlin in the trial on the Reichstag fire in 1933; unfortunately Dimitroff made it to leave Germany). There were several consultations of the KPÖ leadership, and it finally decided to commission theories of an "Austrian nation". In spring 1937 then the notorious articles by Alfred Klahr (from the Lenin School of the Communist International in Moscow) in the journal "Weg und Ziel" appeared, which were made official doctrine of the KPÖ.
I must say that I haven't yet came to read Klahr's articles fully in original, but I read in a secondary text that he still took the German folk as origin point, and that that he claimed the process of the formation of an "Austrian nation" for the time after 1918/19 and postulated that that process must be promoted and completed.--With this, even being already quite a kind of unholy decocted brew, the Bolshevik father of the Austrian nation was still less radical than many anti-German Austria-ideologists of the postwar period who, possessing now intellectually and politically all jester's license of the world, completely went berserk with presenting lunatic historical constructs about Austrianness being seperated from Germanness since time immemorial ...
So much about the "birth of a nation". It is a petty that these ideas could become an effective power after the war and that "reeducation" managed to wash the brains of many, but postwar Austrian "nationalism" is the exact complementary phenomenon of postwar West German a-nationalism and anti-nationalism.--In the Moscow declaration of 1943 the Allies declared Austria's "freedom" as war goal. The Austrian "nation" and Austrian "independence"--born in Stalin's Moscow. It would be good if the national camp in Austria--and I mean of cause the actual and authentic nationalists in Austria, i. e. German nationalists--would point out that again and again.
Last edited by Nordgau; Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at 12:44 AM.
Man ſei Held oder Heiliger. In der Mitte liegt nicht die Weisheit, ſondern die Alltäglichkeit.
SPENGLER
Yes, inside the monarchy it was always about Germans and other ethnicities in the empire, it was never about "Austrians", since Austrians they all were, including the Czechs, Slovenes, Italians etc. after the official doctrine. The core of the empire was always, at least until the Austro-Hungarian balance came, German. The most absurd idea being born with this "new folk" was, that most other ethnic German groups which live(d) in the area of the former empire being called "ethnic Germans", but only "Austrians", though directly bordering the other German lands, being "something on their own". Ridiculous.And the Habsburg monarchy itself also knew as components of the entire monarchy just different "nationalities", understood in an ethnic sense, one of them the Germans.
Interestingly thats a problem which was hard to solve by "politically correct" historians and geographers, because they had to make ethnic maps with "Austrians" and Germans. Partly they decided to make f.e. the Donauschwaben "Austrian" and the Siebenbürger-Sachsen "German"...just a joke. In other maps Austria is "surrounded by ethnic Germans", but being Austrian alone. *lol*
States and ethno-linguistic borders are just two different things and especially we Germans know that very well, since before 1871 there was no German state for the ethnic nation anyway. The German view on a nation is much more natural and useful especially if considering the human reality of life.
Magna Europa est patria nostra
STOP GATS! STOP LIBERALISM!
Yeah, when you pass the Bavarian-Austrian border at Kufstein you come from a country populated by Germans into one where suddenly "Austrians" live who do not have and never had to do anything with Germany. And if you then go on and leave Austria and enter South Tyrol at the Brenner border, you suddenly come again into an area inhabited by Germans.And that regardless of the fact that these state borders are rather arbitrary results of political history and you won't see great change in folk traditions and dialect from Munich to Meran passing two border lines.
For some "good-minded" South Tyrolese who parrot every crazy intellectual-ideological novelty coming from the North, the postwar Frankenstein of an "Austrian nation" sometimes can be a tough nut to crack, by the way, and leads to some crampednesses. I remember that some years ago there was a discussion in the regional parliament of South Tyrol where the talk was about the German ethnic group in Italy. Now Reinhold Messner, as member of the always cosmopolitan-minded and evil-nation-rejecting Green party, found it necessary to somehow challenge the Germanness of him and the South Tyrolese generally. Since he seemed to be, on the other side, also not really convinced that the South Tyrolese were Italians proper, his reasoning ended with the escape into the stem identity and the authorative ascertainment: "And anyway, I'm a Bavarian." Well, no doubt, Herr Messner, so the conclusive circle only needs to be completed through the establishment of the fact that Bavarians are a German stem, a part of the German folk.--
Poor guy, in this virtuosic skip rope of him he ended in being caught up in his own argumentative strings. Well, actually I don't find him dislikable at all, a simpatico nature-boy who loves his homeland region; and that's probably why he docked to the Greens. Only in his general political-ideological attitude he is really too much a child of our time.
An even more absurd try was a politically correct comment I read in a South Tyrolese paper when the Italian ex-president had pointed out the plain and simple truth that the South Tyrolese are ethnically Germans and not "Austrians". The newspaper scribbler first claimed the present existence of an Austrian nation, not being German. But since South Tyrole was not in the Austrian boat for more than 80 years now, and since the multiculti menial was anti-nationalism-minded or (German-)nationalism-"overcoming"-minded, respectively, enough that he feared touch with Germandom as much as the devil fears the holy water, he had, after thus repudiating all greater and natural connections, nothing left but a sole regional perspective: The hack's gymnastic exercise finally ended with seriously proclaiming a "South Tyrolese nation".
Well, I don't think that such voices are too representative, the normal homeland-loyal South Tyrolese uses to know that he is a German--even if the a-national school of anti-German Austrian "nation" thinking with its ancillary anaplasmoses may have a certain souvereignity over media and the politically-ideologically relevant sphere today.
Say, Agrippa, how are your personal expericences of history lessons in school beyond Inn and Salzach? How do they deal with Austrian history in knowledge (ideology) transfer to the children? I must say that here in the Restreich the place of Austria in German history, the German dualism and the incomplete character of the nation state of 1871 wasn't really adulterated too strong during my school time. That could have to do of course with the fact because I never had the sort of history teachers who are really decidedly left and have a bite reflex whenever hearing "folk" and "nation"--on the contrary, I even had teachers being rather "conservative" with regard to this. For the relevant phase of history, my teacher, when the school book was about the NS program, the Anschluß of Austria and the reunification of all Germans being among that, pointed out that this was nothing specific National Socialist but a demand and goal of the entire political spectrum. And when we had earlier dealed with Austria-Hungary, he was questioning a girl in the class about the subject matter of the last lesson and asked her to name some of the other ethnicities with which the Habsburg state had to deal. She then itemized something like: "Er ... Czechs ... er ... Poles ... er ... Germans ..."-- -- Because she had caught up somehow in the lessons before that there were tensions between Germans and Czechs in the state she now somehow believed that there was a German ethnicity in Austria-Hungary in addition to the "Austrians".
When there was, not instruction-related, the chat going on what the "most sympathetic" neighbour nations of the Germans were, another history teacher of mine chose: the Italians. I don't know if this option of him was his actual option with respect to the discussion, but his point was, as he didn't hesitate to make clear, that the Austrians are Germans and that the Germans border to the Italians in the South. I catched this ball and played it back to him, agreeing with his option, but completing the argument with the note that this bordering is located at the Salurner Klause and not at the Brenner pass. Excellent play, Mister A.
Here in the Restreich of course they still can treat Austria as a rather marginal and secondary problem of German history, so that even left do-gooders may be able to hand the whole thing "generously"--in Austria, however, it is the absolute essence and central subject of historical regard. I wonder what salti (mortali) they perform there in the schools. It certainly needs lots of sophisticated legerdemains to de-Germanize Austria and Austrian history and distract the little brains into the "correct" direction ...
Man ſei Held oder Heiliger. In der Mitte liegt nicht die Weisheit, ſondern die Alltäglichkeit.
SPENGLER
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