Why didn't Hitler advocate Austrian nationalist ideas?

[George L Gregory]

Is there a way you can block certain threads?

Instead of burbling the same question, why don’t you try contributing to the thread?

If you don’t like what people are posting then either don’t open this thread or block those people.

[ljadw]

What Hitler said can not be used as a proof for what he meant .
He said that Austria was his homeland,but very soon he did forbid to even talk about Austria .
And, that Braunau am Inn ( a city in Upper Austria ) where Hitler lived til he was 3 ,was in the past a part of Bavaria, does not prove that Hitler had German ancestors .Hitler lived longer in Linz than in Braunau .
Braunau was already Austrian since 1779 .
Eichmann was a German but lived mostly in Austria but he remained German .
Hitler was an Austrian who lived 7 years in Munich, but that does not make him a Bavarian .
The place where Hitler was born is irrelevant for the question if Hitler had German ancestors .
There is no proof that he had German ancestors,thus we can assume that he had no German ancestors .

[George L Gregory]

What Hitler said can not be used as a proof for what he meant .

You are contradicting yourself. Earlier on you posted what he considered himself counted. He told the German people as an Austrian he was a Bavarian.

He said that Austria was his homeland,but very soon he did forbid to even talk about Austria .

When did he ever forbid people to talk about Austria? He never hid his Austrian background. The change of Austria to Ostmark was to fulfil the Greater Germany concept and the historical name of Austria which came out of Bavaria as the medieval March of Austria and its predecessors Bavarian eastern march.

And, that Braunau am Inn ( a city in Upper Austria ) where Hitler lived til he was 3 ,was in the past a part of Bavaria, does not prove that Hitler had German ancestors.

His family lived more or less around the same areas and his ancestors would have considered themselves to be Germans.

Hitler lived longer in Linz than in Braunau .
Braunau was already Austrian since 1779 .

It has been under Austrian rule since 1816. Prior to that it changed between Austrian rule and Bavarian rule.

So if he had been born in 1815, would you say he had no German ancestors despite it being born under Bavarian rule?

Eichmann was a German but lived mostly in Austria but he remained German .

And? That’s going by his nationality (citizenship).

What about prior to 1871? Was Mozart Austrian or German?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3131333.stm

Yet Mozart himself said:

... I believe I am capable of bringing honor to any court—and if Germany, my beloved Fatherland, of which, as you know, I am proud, will not take me up—well, let France or England, in God's name become the richer by another talented German—and that to the disgrace of the German nation!

One can be Austrian and German just like one can be English and British.

Hitler was an Austrian who lived 7 years in Munich, but that does not make him a Bavarian .

I never stated that. But Austrians are descended from the same people as Bavarians. Austrians are Germans. Bavarians are Germans.

The place where Hitler was born is irrelevant for the question if Hitler had German ancestors .

Historically Austrians thought of themselves as Germans. Thus, Austrians ancestors equal German ancestors. There was no difference.

There is no proof that he had German ancestors,thus we can assume that he had no German ancestors .

Prior to 1866 Austrians were thought of as Germans like any other Germans so of course he had German ancestors. Hitler’s family were Austrian Germans.

[SteveFBS]

Is there a way you can block certain threads?

Instead of burbling the same question, why don’t you try contributing to the thread?

If you don’t like what people are posting then either don’t open this thread or block those people.

I asked it ONCE and then clarified my point to someone who commented on it.

[ljadw]

About Mozart : after the war a lot of Austrians said that Hitler was a German and Mozart an Austrian .
And, that prior to 1866 Austrians were thought ( by WHOM ? )of as Germans, does not mean that they were Germans : it were the Austrians themselves who decided what they were .
The father of Hitler considered himself as an Austrian and was a loyal subject of the Emperor .
The borders in Central and Eastern Europe changed incessantly and these changes can not be used to determine the ethnic nationality of the populations .
Take Transylvania (Siebenbürgen for German nationalists )where lived a lot of German speaking people :
Before 1867 they were Austrians
In 1867 (Ausgleich ) they became Hungarians
In 1919 they became Romanians
in 1940 again Hungarians
In 1945 the few remaining German speaking people in Transylvania became again Romanians
But no one knows how they did consider themselves : German, Austrian, Romanian, Hungarian ?
And, we have the Wolga Germans, the inhabitants of the Alsace,Kafka, the Sudeten Germans, etc
We have today a lot of inhabitants of Northern Ireland ....
Before 1866 the meaning of German was different from the meaning of German in 1918 .Thus one should not use the ancestry of Hitler to decide if he was German or not ...
In 1919 Schussnigg and Dolfuss were German nationalists, 15 years later they were Austrian nationalists .
In 1919 and in 1938 the overwhelming majority of the Austrians did consider themselves as Germans ,not because their ancestry, in 1945 the same people ,with the same ancestors, considered themselves as Austrians .

[George L Gregory]

Is there a way you can block certain threads?

Instead of burbling the same question, why don’t you try contributing to the thread?

If you don’t like what people are posting then either don’t open this thread or block those people.

I asked it ONCE and then clarified my point to someone who commented on it.

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=231738&start=525#p2366657

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=231738&start=540#p2367425

That’s twice you’ve whined about the thread. Either contribute to it or shut up.

[George L Gregory]

About Mozart : after the war a lot of Austrians said that Hitler was a German and Mozart an Austrian .

Beethoven, not Mozart.

And, that prior to 1866 Austrians were thought ( by WHOM ? )of as Germans, does not mean that they were Germans : it were the Austrians themselves who decided what they were .

Austria was the biggest German state, only second to Prussia, prior to 1866. Österreich literally means “eastern realm”. Austria came out of Bavaria in 976 and ruled Germany for hundreds of years.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Österreichische_Identität

They considered themselves Germans and were seen as Germans by other Germans and non-Germans.

The father of Hitler considered himself as an Austrian and was a loyal subject of the Emperor .

And? He was still a German nationalist. The guardian Josef Mayerhofer described him as:

This was also true of Alois Hitler, whom Hitler's guardian, Mayrhofer, had described as 'Liberal' [i.e. anti-clerical], 'German Nationalist', and ‘Pan-German’, but also as ‘loyal to the Emperor’.

Peter Longerich, Hitler: A Life, page 12.

The borders in Central and Eastern Europe changed incessantly and these changes can not be used to determine the ethnic nationality of the populations .
Take Transylvania (Siebenbürgen for German nationalists )where lived a lot of German speaking people :
Before 1867 they were Austrians
In 1867 (Ausgleich ) they became Hungarians
In 1919 they became Romanians
in 1940 again Hungarians
In 1945 the few remaining German speaking people in Transylvania became again Romanians
But no one knows how they did consider themselves : German, Austrian, Romanian, Hungarian ?

Those are the rulers of the lands over the decades, it did not change their ethnicity. Poland was once ruled by the Austrians, Prussians and Russians but the people of Poland were still Poles.

And, we have the Wolga Germans, the inhabitants of the Alsace,Kafka, the Sudeten Germans, etc
We have today a lot of inhabitants of Northern Ireland ....

Again, they are still Germans!

Before 1866 the meaning of German was different from the meaning of German in 1918 .Thus one should not use the ancestry of Hitler to decide if he was German or not ...
In 1919 Schussnigg and Dolfuss were German nationalists, 15 years later they were Austrian nationalists .
In 1919 and in 1938 the overwhelming majority of the Austrians did consider themselves as Germans ,not because their ancestry, in 1945 the same people ,with the same ancestors, considered themselves as Austrians .

Hitler wrote about the area he was from as being “Bavarian by blood”.

If it weren’t because of their ancestry, what was the reason?

[ljadw]

I disagree on your claim that ancestors decide your ethnicity.I have given a lot of proofs of people who renounced and denied their ancestors and the ethnicity of their ancestors .
Now,on the meaning of German, German by blood, etc: this meaning changed following the years : there was an epoch when German meant : culturally German, but not politically ,later it became more politically .
That Hitler described the area he was from (Linz ) as ''Bavarian by blood ''(for which he had no proof ) is something meaningless, as no one can say what was '' Bavarian by blood '' and even if it was so,that does not mean that the inhabitants of Linz had German ancestors,because this also is something meaningless :
if you have an ancestor who lived in Germany (with our without German nationality ) that does not mean that he was German .
if you have an ancestor living in Austria (with or without Austrian nationality ) that does not mean that he was Austrian , he could consider himself as German .
I will even say the following : Bavarian by blood does not exist as blood does not decide if you are Bavarian :after WWII a lot of Sudeten Germans went in exile to Bavaria and became Bavarians without having any Bavarian blood .
About the German speaking people in Transylvania and the Volga : it is not on you or on me to say that they considered themselves as German : the fact that they spoke German is no proof that they were Germans . I lived on the border with France and I have known French people who were mostly speaking the local Flemish dialect, but still considered themselves as French .
Other points : ancestors can change their involvement, they can say at 20 that they are German, at 30 that they are Austrian German, at 40 that they are German Austrian and at 50 that they are Austrian ,
Returning to Austria : being a German nationalist,Austrian German , etc and voting against or for the Anschluss are two different things ,You could be a Nazi and an opponent of the Anschluss and be an antiNazi and a supporter of the Anschluss .
Take Renner (a socialist and a nationalist ) : in 1918,when the socialists were ruling Germany,he supported the Anschluss, when Hitler took over in 1933 he opposed the Anschluss and when Hitler took over Austria he supported the Anschluss . But,this does not mean that he ever was a Nazi .

[ljadw]

About the father of Hitler: to describe him as a German nationalist,is again something meaningless : does it mean that he was a supporter of an Anschluss ? Or did it mean that he supported the dominance of those German speaking people who felt German,in Cisleithania ? Or did it mean that he considered himself culturally German ?
No one knows .The only thing we know that he was loyal to the Emperor not to the Kaiser .

[SteveFBS]

Is there a way you can block certain threads?

Instead of burbling the same question, why don’t you try contributing to the thread?

If you don’t like what people are posting then either don’t open this thread or block those people.

I asked it ONCE and then clarified my point to someone who commented on it.

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=231738&start=525#p2366657

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=231738&start=540#p2367425

That’s twice you’ve whined about the thread. Either contribute to it or shut up.

You're a real charmer, aren't you?

[George L Gregory]

I disagree on your claim that ancestors decide your ethnicity.I have given a lot of proofs of people who renounced and denied their ancestors and the ethnicity of their ancestors .

An ethnic group or ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups such as a common set of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area.

That’s why Hitler spoke about the “Germans in Austria”. He was referring to the ethnic German Austrians - the vast majority of Austrians.

Now,on the meaning of German, German by blood, etc: this meaning changed following the years : there was an epoch when German meant : culturally German, but not politically ,later it became more politically .

And it was always based around descent. Even the nationality law for the German Empire was designed to exclude non-Germans. That’s also why so many pan-Germans argued that Jews could never truly be Germans.

That Hitler described the area he was from (Linz ) as ''Bavarian by blood ''(for which he had no proof ) is something meaningless, as no one can say what was '' Bavarian by blood '' and even if it was so,that does not mean that the inhabitants of Linz had German ancestors,because this also is something meaningless :
if you have an ancestor who lived in Germany (with our without German nationality ) that does not mean that he was German .
if you have an ancestor living in Austria (with or without Austrian nationality ) that does not mean that he was Austrian , he could consider himself as German .
I will even say the following : Bavarian by blood does not exist as blood does not decide if you are Bavarian :after WWII a lot of Sudeten Germans went in exile to Bavaria and became Bavarians without having any Bavarian blood .
About the German speaking people in Transylvania and the Volga : it is not on you or on me to say that they considered themselves as German : the fact that they spoke German is no proof that they were Germans . I lived on the border with France and I have known French people who were mostly speaking the local Flemish dialect, but still considered themselves as French .
Other points : ancestors can change their involvement, they can say at 20 that they are German, at 30 that they are Austrian German, at 40 that they are German Austrian and at 50 that they are Austrian ,
Returning to Austria : being a German nationalist,Austrian German , etc and voting against or for the Anschluss are two different things ,You could be a Nazi and an opponent of the Anschluss and be an antiNazi and a supporter of the Anschluss .
Take Renner (a socialist and a nationalist ) : in 1918,when the socialists were ruling Germany,he supported the Anschluss, when Hitler took over in 1933 he opposed the Anschluss and when Hitler took over Austria he supported the Anschluss . But,this does not mean that he ever was a Nazi .

Austria came out of Bavaria, the Austrians and Bavarians are more or less descended from the same tribes.

I’m aware that many people who weren’t nationalists and/or left-wingers supported the Anschluss.

[George L Gregory]

@ljadw

Why was Austria full of Germans? What did it mean for those people to be Germans? Why were the people in Austria not called ethnic Austrians?

Trying to argue that Austrians aren’t ethnic Germans is like trying to argue that Taiwanese people aren’t ethnically Chinese.

[George L Gregory]

You're a real charmer, aren't you?

I just don’t understand why you’re not contributing to the thread.

You can quite easily stop reading the posts on the thread if you don’t like it.

[ljadw]

@ljadw

Why was Austria full of Germans? What did it mean for those people to be Germans? Why were the people in Austria not called ethnic Austrians?

Trying to argue that Austrians aren’t ethnic Germans is like trying to argue that Taiwanese people aren’t ethnically Chinese.

1 Shepherd is an American ,writing not hindered by knowledge : some one who says that an ethnic group is the same as a race ,can not be taken seriously .
2 What his map indicates is the distribution of languages,not of ethnic groups : there is a big difference between speaking German , being considered by an American as German and to consider yourself as German .
3 His map is totally unreliable as there were many more people speaking German than he indicates : Kafka spoke and wrote in German,but no one will claim that Kafka was a German .
4 Shepherd gives no proofs , not one proof for what he claims :he simply said :everyone who spoke German was a German .
A proof would be the existence and strength of a party that wanted to dismember Cisleithania and the annexation to Germany of all / a part of the regions where the majority of the population spoke German .
5 What Shepherd also fails to mention ( I suspect that he was unaware of the problem ) is : what is a German speaking person ? Someone for whom German was the Lingua Franca or someone who used German as a user language .
Whatever : a lot of the persons whom he considers as Germans were persons for whom German was not their own language but only a language to be used in contact with persons they considered as foreigners : the Jews of Vienna who were not Germans,but immigrants from Austrian or Russian Poland and who continued to speak among each other Jiddisch .Saying that they were Germans because they understood and occasionally spoke German ,is the same as saying that all Indians who understand and speak occasionally English, are English or British .Or that the Scots or Irish who speak English ,are English .
And what about the German speaking inhabitants of Switzerland :are they also Germans ?
There were in Cisleithania 10 million people for whom German was their native language and millions ( maybe more than 10 million ) for whom German was the lingua franca ( in reality a Pidgin German ) ,but I wait still on the first proof that these 2 groups considered themselves as Germans .
We do even not know if the 2 groups considered themselves as Austrians .
Cisleithania was a multicultural,but not a multinational state where German was the Lingua Franca.
Transleithania was and multicultural and multinational with a harsh Magyarization policy .Germanization in Cisleithania was much weaker .

[George L Gregory]

1 Shepherd is an American ,writing not hindered by knowledge : some one who says that an ethnic group is the same as a race ,can not be taken seriously .
2 What his map indicates is the distribution of languages,not of ethnic groups : there is a big difference between speaking German , being considered by an American as German and to consider yourself as German .
3 His map is totally unreliable as there were many more people speaking German than he indicates : Kafka spoke and wrote in German,but no one will claim that Kafka was a German .
4 Shepherd gives no proofs , not one proof for what he claims :he simply said :everyone who spoke German was a German .
A proof would be the existence and strength of a party that wanted to dismember Cisleithania and the annexation to Germany of all / a part of the regions where the majority of the population spoke German .
5 What Shepherd also fails to mention ( I suspect that he was unaware of the problem ) is : what is a German speaking person ? Someone for whom German was the Lingua Franca or someone who used German as a user language .
Whatever : a lot of the persons whom he considers as Germans were persons for whom German was not their own language but only a language to be used in contact with persons they considered as foreigners : the Jews of Vienna who were not Germans,but immigrants from Austrian or Russian Poland and who continued to speak among each other Jiddisch .Saying that they were Germans because they understood and occasionally spoke German ,is the same as saying that all Indians who understand and speak occasionally English, are English or British .Or that the Scots or Irish who speak English ,are English .
And what about the German speaking inhabitants of Switzerland :are they also Germans ?
There were in Cisleithania 10 million people for whom German was their native language and millions ( maybe more than 10 million ) for whom German was the lingua franca ( in reality a Pidgin German ) ,but I wait still on the first proof that these 2 groups considered themselves as Germans .
We do even not know if the 2 groups considered themselves as Austrians .
Cisleithania was a multicultural,but not a multinational state where German was the Lingua Franca.
Transleithania was and multicultural and multinational with a harsh Magyarization policy .Germanization in Cisleithania was much weaker .

Why do you think Austrians speak German? It wasn’t by accident.

So is your argument that the Austrians aren’t Germans? Are you arguing that they stopped being Germans after 1866 or something? Political wars don’t change a people’s ethnicity. There’s no such thing as “ethnic Austrians”.

If Germany had been unified in 1871 as a Greater Germany which would mean that Austria and the Austrians would have been a part of Germany, would you be saying the same things?

The Old Prussians were originally a Baltic tribe, so they weren’t even Germanic. Yet, the Prussians unified Germany.