Why was Austria easier for Hitler to annex than Czechoslovakia?
1 Answer
The Nazi Party of German was strongly rooted in Pan-German Nationalism, bringing all German people in Europe in one new state. Austria had a large German majority, Czechoslovakia didn't.
Explanation:
Austria had long had a German majority population, and with the break-up of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, many Austrians felt slighted by the creation of so many new states on their old territory and fell back on their German identity in consequence.
Adolph Hitler and the growing Nazi Party shared the resentment many Germans had at the loss of German territory with the new Europe that had emerged with the end of WW-1 and the Versailles Treaty of 1919. The notion of a greater Germany based on uniting most of the German people of Europe was a popular plank in the Nazi Platform.
The idea of a Pan-German state also resonated in Austria, where Nazism was proving popular -- and Austrian Nazis had even murdered the Chancellor in 1934 during an attempted coup. Nazi Germany was relentless in its desire to absorb Austria, and this culminated in the Anschluss of March 1938; when Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria before a plebescite on unification with Germany could be held.
In Czechoslovakia, ethnic Germans constituted about 23% of the population, and were particularly concentrated in the Sudetenland, which wrapped around the western end of the country. These same mountains also were Prague sited most of the defences that as Nazi Germany grew stronger. The Nazis employed agents and propaganda to heighted the demands of the Sudeten Germans and threatened war... resulting in the Munich Crisis and the annexation of the Sudeten by Germany in October 1938. Five months later, Hitler moved into Czechoslovakia anyway.
