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.
Austria–Czech Republic relations
Both countries have a long common history. For the first time united from 1253 until 1276 under the reign of Přemysl Otakar II, they later joined again and, together with Hungary, formed a major European power under the Habsburg dynasty which lasted from 1526 until 1918. Initially only a personal union, the ever more centralized monarchy ruled mostly from Vienna (Prague was the capital only from 1583 until 1611) was increasingly seen as an obstacle of the Czech and German national interests during the uprising of nationalism in Central Europe from the second half of the 19th century. The Czechs demanded to be ruled by a government in Prague, the capital city of their kingdom, not in Vienna, and as part of their main party strategy of passive resistance did not participate for years in the political discussions and decisions of the Austrian "Reichsrat", the parliament in Vienna representing all nations of the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarían Monarchy. Ethnic Germans at the same time wanted to participate in the ongoing German unification process.