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 – the Nazis' first victim
"Austria – the Nazis' first victim" was a political slogan first used at the Moscow Conference in 1943 which went on to become the ideological basis for Austria and the national self-consciousness of Austrians during the periods of the allied occupation of 1945-1955 and the sovereign state of the Second Austrian Republic (1955–1980s). According to the interpretation of this slogan by the founders of the Second Austrian Republic, the "Anschluss" in 1938 was an act of military aggression by the Third Reich. Austrian statehood had been interrupted and therefore the newly revived Austria of 1945 could not and should not be responsible in any way for the Nazis' crimes. The "victim theory" formed by 1949 () insisted that all the Austrians, including those who strongly supported Hitler, had been unwilling victims of a Nazi regime and therefore were not responsible for its crimes.