Nazi Austria?

I was wondering since Hitler was from Austria what if he returned there after WW1 & started doing in Austria what he did in Germany & bullying former Austrian controled states into giving up land or being annexed?

How differantly would the world react?

Could he make a good attempt to bring back a Nazi Austrian empire?
 

Cook

Banned
neither was Germany after the war

I will clarify; Austria was in no condition to bully anyone in 1939. Austria alone did not have the potential to become a threat to its neighbours or to the rest of Europe.
 
;)Anschluss with Hungary. Munich agreement: Annexation of Croatia and Slovenia. First Vienna Award(annexation of parts of Slovakia). Partial Annexation of Yugoslavia. Romania and Bulgaria join the Axis. Hitlers Austro-Hungary invades Germany which is in bad military shape under the treaty of versaille which the Weimar republic upholds.

Czechoslovakia and Poland are next.;)
 
Too little demographic base, too little industry. The industrial centre of the old A-H was Bohemia. There was a bit around Vienna, true, but most of Austria was a backwater, really industrializing only after Anschluß and after WW2. It had a population of only 6.5 Mio., far too few to build armies that could conquer any neighbour other than Liechtenstein, and no one in 1918, and few during the first republic believed that Austria was economically viable.
 
>I was wondering since Hitler was from Austria what if he returned there after WW1 & started doing in Austria what he did in Germany & bullying former Austrian controled states into giving up land or being annexed?

Austria ends up as Italian protectorate very quickly. Possibly followed by a limited war between Germany and Italy for control of Austria.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, lots of what is now pass roads over the Alps from Italy to Austria have seen a massive upgrade from the Italian side - with spec fit for light tanks and armored cars. Guess what has been in preparation there. (EDIT: then Schuschnigg, and after him Dollfuss, slipped into Mussolini's bed and an invasion appeared to be superfluous)
The same has been going on along the Swiss/Italian border, except that the Swiss stuffed the mountain positions controlling the passes with AT artillery bunkers, as well as put dozens of concealed 105 mm guns to cover the approach roads on he Italian side (very easy in the Alps). Austria has been in no position (financial or political) to do the same.
 
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Greater Austria??

I must agree, that Austria have neither the human nor the industrial ressources to bully around anybody.

Even though Austria used to be a major power, that is in the 1930s all in the past.

Being a Dane I could envision the former major power of Denmark, building up its' military starting to bully countries which used to be controlled bu Denmark (e.g. Norway, Sweden, England and Estonia) but I am afraid reality then sets in!!.... But problerly worth an ATL :p
 
Nazis take power in Austria. Britain and France look at Mussolini, at Franco (who is victorious for some reason), at various East European authoritarians such as Pilsudski and Päts and start to fear for the future of the still sane, though internally a bit unstable Weimar Germany.

In 1937 or 1938, the Western powers allow Germany to invade Austria and merge it into itself as a way of stopping this spread of dictatorships in Europe and to serve is a warning to future wannabe troublemakers.

In a last-ditch effort to protect his (so-called) "National Redoubt" Hitler orders his last fanatical troops to commit various war crimes, but is captured alive by German troops and brought to Nuremberg to be tried. He is executed by hanging in 1939.
 
Nazis take power in Austria. Britain and France look at Mussolini, at Franco (who is victorious for some reason), at various East European authoritarians such as Pilsudski and Päts and start to fear for the future of the still sane, though internally a bit unstable Weimar Germany.

In 1937 or 1938, the Western powers allow Germany to invade Austria and merge it into itself as a way of stopping this spread of dictatorships in Europe and to serve is a warning to future wannabe troublemakers.

In a last-ditch effort to protect his (so-called) "National Redoubt" Hitler orders his last fanatical troops to commit various war crimes, but is captured alive by German troops and brought to Nuremberg to be tried. He is executed by hanging in 1939.

This would be the best-case scenario for Germany, that's for sure. They can regain most of their irredentist claims (Austria, South Tyrol, Danzig, whatever a surviving Weimar wants from Poland [most likely the 1914 border sans most of Poznan], and Memel) easily and make friends with the Entente and some others (for example Yugoslavia) along the way. In fact, the only important area Germany coveted which it would not get in such a scenario would be Sudetenland (even Eupen-Malmedy isn't off the cards here, Belgium was close to selling it in 1926, and once Versailles has collapsed, nobody would care anymore if they did)
 
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