Nazi annexation · Austria · 1938–1945

The Anschluss brought Nazi persecution and enthusiastic local participation as well as acts of help.

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1938–1945

Nazi annexation · Neighbours are humiliated in the street

The Anschluss brought Nazi persecution and enthusiastic local participation as well as acts of help.

March 1938

Germany annexed Austria in March 1938. In Vienna, Jews were subjected to public humiliation, including forced street-cleaning, while crowds watched. Violence and degradation were not confined to secret offices. They publicly announced that familiar neighbours had been placed outside normal protection.

Property becomes available for seizure

Nazi policy dispossessed Jews and pressured them to emigrate. Austrian participants acquired businesses and property through the persecution. Material advantage and ideological hatred could reinforce each other: excluding one family opened opportunities for people willing to profit from its vulnerability.

Escape closes, deportation follows

Many Austrian Jews sought to leave, but restrictive foreign entry rules and Nazi controls narrowed their options. Those who remained faced deportation and murder. Flight, confiscation and genocide formed different stages of persecution, carried out through state institutions and individual participation.