page_title: Austrians
section_title: Republic of Austria (1955 to present)
hierarchical_section_title: Austrians / History / Republic of Austria (1955 to present)
caption_attribution_description: Cover of the book "Rot-Weiß-Rot-Buch, Gerechtigkeit für Österreich! Darstellungen, Dokumente und Nachweise zur Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der Okkupation Österreichs (nach amtlichen Quellen), Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, Wien 1946", also published in an English version one month later as "Red-White-Red-Book. Justice for Austria. Descriptions, Documents and Proofs to the antecedents and history of the occupation of Austria. First Part (from official sources), Austrian State Printing House, Vienna, 1947".
context_page_description: Austrians are a Germanic nation and ethnic group, native to modern Austria and South Tyrol that share a common Austrian culture, Austrian descent, and Austrian history. The English term Austrians was applied to the population of Habsburg Austria from the 17th or 18th century. Subsequently, during the 19th century, it referred to the citizens of the Empire of Austria, and from 1867 until 1918 to the citizens of Cisleithania. In the closest sense, the term Austria originally referred to the historical March of Austria, corresponding roughly to the Vienna Basin in what is today Lower Austria.
  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.
context_section_description: The end of World War II in 1945 saw the re-establishment of an independent Austria, although the Allied Powers remained in occupation until 1955, when the Austrian State Treaty between Austria and them was signed to end occupation and to regain Austrian sovereignty.
  Immediately after 1945 the majority of Austrians still saw themselves as Germans, as a broader Austrian national identity took time to develop. In a 1956 survey, 46% of Austrians still considered themselves to be Germans. Another survey carried out in 1964 revealed that only 15% of Austrians still considered themselves to be Germans.
  In contrast, the Austrian political elite referred to their experiences in concentration camps and in prison, which had brought out a desire for the lost independence of the Austrian state. Kreissler (1993) writes: “It was not until after the (long dark) night of the Third Reich that Austrian identity was brought back to consciousness by resistance and exile”.
  Austrians developed a self-image unambiguously separate from their German neighbour. It was based on cultural achievements of the past, the Moscow Declaration, geopolitical neutrality, language variation, the Habsburg legacy, and the separation of the two empires in the late 19th century. The German Empire was formed without Austria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the arrangement known as the Kleindeutsche Lösung or "the Little Germany Solution". It proved favourable for Austrians not to be held guilty for World War II, genocide and war crimes, since Austria was considered a victim of Nazi Germany, although some historians call this a "big lie" and have challenged this statement.
  Unlike earlier in the 20th century, in 1987 only 6% of Austrians identified themselves as "Germans". Today over 90% of the Austrians see themselves as an independent nation.
  The logic of the existence of an independent Austrian state is no longer questioned as it was in the inter-war period. Proponents who recognize Austrians as a nation claim that Austrians have Celtic heritage, as Austria is the location of the first characteristically Celtic culture to exist. It is said that Celtic Austria became culturally Romanized under Roman rule and later culturally Germanized after Germanic invasions. Contemporary Austrians express pride in having Celtic heritage and Austria possesses one of the largest collections of Celtic artifacts in Europe.
  Austria's multicultural history and geographical location has resulted in post-Soviet era immigration from Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Poland. As with neighbouring Germany, there has also been heavy immigration from Turkey and former Yugoslav states such as Croatia and Serbia.
caption: "Red-White-Red Book" which was published by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1946, the book describes the accepted description of the events during the Anschluss (1938-1945) by the founders of the Second Austrian Republic.
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