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.
Federal Constitutional Law (Austrian act)
When the 1919 Treaty of Saint Germain prohibited the union of Germany and Austria, Austria had to go to work on a permanent constitution in earnest, but was deeply divided on numerous issues. General elections on February 16, 1919 replaced the Provisional Assembly with a Constitutional Assembly ("Konstituierende Nationalversammlung"). The new parliament was dominated by Social Democrats, who favored a unitary state with a strong central government, and the Christian Social Party, who fought for a federation devolving significant authority to regional governments. Unable to reach consensus, the parties chose to defer the decision. The new constitution, passed on October 1 and formally published on October 5, 1920, stipulated that Austria was to be a parliamentary federal republic consisting of eight (at the time) federal states, but did not state which powers and duties would lie with the national government and which ones with the states.