History of Austria
Austria was dominated by the House of Habsburg and House of Habsburg-Lorraine ("Haus Österreich") from 1273 to 1918. In 1808, when Emperor Francis II of Austria dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, Austria became the Austrian Empire, and was also part of the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. In 1867, Austria formed a dual monarchy with Hungary: the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918). When this empire collapsed after the end of World War I in 1918, Austria was reduced to the main, mostly German-speaking areas of the empire (its current frontiers), and adopted the name The Republic of German-Austria. However the union and name were forbidden by the Allies at the Treaty of Versailles. This led to the creation of the First Austrian Republic (1918-1933).
German nationalism in Austria
One of the foundational problems of the First Republic was that those who had supported the concept of a democratic republic from the German Austria period onward, such as the Social Democrats, did not consider themselves "Austrian", but instead were German nationalists. Those who supported an Austrian national identity, an Austria without the word "German" attached, were conservative and largely undemocratic in persuasion: former Imperial bureaucrats, army officers, priests, aristocrats, and affiliated with the Christian Social Party. In the words of historian A. J. P. Taylor, "The democrats were not 'Austrian'; the 'Austrians' were not democrats." These two groups, the German nationalist democrats, and the Austrian nationalist conservatives, would squabble throughout the first decade of the First Republic. Ultimately, the Austrian nationalist faction would overthrow the democratic republic in 1934 and establish a regime rooted in "Austrofascism" under the protection of Fascist Italy.