Der Ostmark treue Alpensöhne. Die Integration der Österreicher in die großdeutsche Wehrmacht by Thomas A. Grischany (review)

After World War II the reconstituted Austrian republic defined itself as a victim of National Socialist Germany. According to official historiography, the country had been deserted by the international community and had fallen prey to German aggression in 1938. With the exception of a small minority, Austrians had resisted as best they could. From the very beginning, however, this historical interpretation faced questions about the role of Austrians in the institutions of the Third Reich. Most significant was the military. As German citizens, Austrians were subject to the draft. By the end of the war, 1.3 million of them had served in the German armed forces. More than 250,000 did not return. To counter this impression of active participation, many postwar interpreters emphasized the idiosyncrasies of the Austrian wartime experience. They argued that Austrian units had been dissolved and their members subjected to discrimination and special surveillance. It is this picture that Thomas Grischany contests. Based on a wide selection of both printed and archival sources, as well as on interviews with surviving veterans, Grischany traces the experience of Austrians in the German military between 1938 and 1945.

Following a brief introduction to the history of Austro-Prussian military relations, the author zooms in on his core subject, expounding the initial challenges of military integration after 1938. Approximately one quarter of the existing Austrian officer corps was not carried over into the German military, and the remainder had to adjust to differences in terminology and training. To promote assimilation, the German army co-opted suitable icons of Austrian military history into its own pantheon. In this early phase, many Austrians nonetheless encountered questions about their soldierly capabilities. They felt a need to demonstrate their valor and prove that Austrian inadequacies during World War I had been based on the special conditions of the multinational Habsburg army. These efforts were not without success, and Alpine units gradually gained a reputation for toughness and courage. The conduct of predominantly Austrian mountain troops during the Norwegian campaign contributed significantly to this altered perception.

The shared victories of the early war years accelerated integration. The author describes the allure of foreign countries during the relative tranquility of military occupations around 1940. Yet he also highlights the interplay of regional and national aspects in the imagery of German identity. At least on a symbolic level, the German military provided ample opportunity for regional identification. This applied to all groups, but it proved especially useful for newcomers such as the Austrians. The increased status of individual territories such as Tyrol—relative to the formerly dominant Vienna—appealed to provincial sentiments as well.

The attack on the Soviet Union changed the character of the war, but it did not disrupt the internal cohesion of the German armed forces. Whereas civilian dissatisfaction in Austria began to rise after 1943, the battle against communism motivated even conservative opponents of the regime. Grischany finds that shared hardships deepened the sense of comradeship and mutual dependency. With the growing diversification of the German military, Austrians also moved closer to the national center. Minority populations from eastern and southeastern Europe deviated appreciably from the German core, as did such reluctant draftees such as the Alsatians. By comparison with these later additions, Austrians had been absorbed into the German mainstream. The rediscovery of Austrian distinctiveness occurred primarily after the military defeat.

Der Ostmark treuer Alpensöhne describes the successive phases of Austrian integration into the German armed forces during World War II. As explanations for the substantive success of this process, the study cites regional and professional pride, esprit de corps, a fundamentally German sense of self, ideological indoctrination, and not least the shared experiences of both military triumph and disaster. The author also invokes Götz Aly's argument in Hitler's Beneficiaries (2005) that the National Socialist regime gained much of its popularity...