Austria, 1938-1988: Anschluss and Fifty Years Edited and Introduced by William E. Wright

A group of distinguished writers examine the most pivotal and traumatic experience in twentieth-century Austrian history: the Anschluss to Germany in March 1938. First, it was painfully apparent that there was little capacity for Austria to resist the Germans, either from internal strengths or from external diplomatic support. Once the Anschluss was a fait accompli most Austrians accommodated as German citizens. But some resisted, either in civil disobedience or in active opposition, especially late in the war. In the last decade, especially, various interpretations of how the Anschluss came about, and how and why Austrians responded to it as they did, have sparked animated, sometimes bitter, debate — all the more heated because only now in the Second Republic have Austrians begun to shape their consciousness as an independent, self-confident, viable people.