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.
Carinthia
In late 1918, it became obvious that the breakup of the crumbling Habsburg monarchy was imminent, and on 21 October 1918 the members of the Reichsrat for the German-speaking territories of Austria met in Vienna to constitute a "Provisional National Council for German-Austria". Prior to the meeting the delegates agreed that German-Austria should not include "Yugoslav areas of settlement", which referred to Lower Styria and the two Slovene-speaking Carinthian valleys south of the Karawanken range, Seeland (Slovenian: Jezersko) and "Mießtal" (the valley of the Meža River). On 12 Nov. 1918, when the Act concerning the foundation of the State of German-Austria was formally passed by the Provisional National Assembly in Vienna this was worded by the State Chancellor, Karl Renner, "...to encounter the prejudices of the world as though we wanted to annex alien national property" The day before, on 11 Nov. 1918 the Provisional Diet of Carinthia had formally declared Carinthia's accession to the State of German-Austria. The Federal Act concerning the Extent, the Borders and the Relations of the State Territories of 22 Nov. 1918 then clearly stated in article 1: "...the duchies of Styria and Carinthia with the exclusion of the homogenous Yugoslav areas of settlement". Apart from one Social-Democrat, Florian Gröger, all the other delegates from Carinthia—Hans Hofer, Jakob Lutschounig, Josef Nagele, Alois Pirker, Leopold Pongratz, Otto Steinwender, Viktor Waldner—were members of German national parties and organizations.