query: When did the Nazis occupy Austria?
passage: Anschluss
Anschluss (German:[ˈʔanʃlʊs](listen) "joining") refers to the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938.[1] The word's German spelling, until the German orthography reform of 1996, was Anschluß[2] and it was also known as the Anschluss Österreichs (pronunciation, German: Annexation of Austria).
passage: Anschluss
The idea of an Anschluss (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Greater Germany")[lower-alpha 1] began after the unification of Germany excluded Austria and the German Austrians from the Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1871. Following the end of World War I with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1918, the newly formed Republic of German-Austria attempted to form a union with Germany, but the Treaty of Saint Germain (10 September 1919) and the Treaty of Versailles (28 June 1919) forbade both the union and the continued use of the name "German-Austria" (Deutschösterreich); and stripped Austria of some of its territories, such as the Sudetenland.