Austrians
Historically, Austrians were regarded as ethnic Germans and viewed themselves as such. Austria was part of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 which resulted in Prussia expelling Austria from the Confederation. Thus, when Germany was founded as a nation-state in 1871, Austria was not a part of it. In 1867, Austria was reformed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 at the end of World War I, Austria was reduced to a rump state and adopted and briefly used the name the Republic of German-Austria ("Republik Deutschösterreich") in an attempt for union with the Republic of Germany, but was forbidden due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919). The First Austrian Republic was founded in 1919. The Third Reich annexed Austria with the "Anschluss" in 1938.
Republic of German-Austria
On 13 November 1918, German-Austria asked Germany to start negotiations of union and on 15 November sent a telegram to President Wilson to support union of Germany and Austria. This was grounded in the view that Austria had never been a nation in the true sense. While the Austrian state had existed in one form or another for over 700 years (dating to the Holy Roman Empire), its only unifying force had been the Habsburgs. Apart from being German-inhabited, these Lands had no common "Austrian" identity. They were Habsburg-ruled lands that had not joined the Prussian-dominated German Empire after the Austrian Empire lost the Austro-Prussian War.