The Anschluss was the invasion and annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938. The Federal State of Austria, ruled by the fascist and Catholic Fatherland Front, was strongly nationalistic, opposing a union with "Protestant Germany". Attempts by the Austrian Nazi Party to gain power were put down, with a Nazi coup being ruthlessly suppressed in 1924 and the party being banned for the next fourteen years. In 1938, under pressure from Nazi Germany, the Austrian government was forced to hold a referendum on unification with German. Fuhrer Adolf Hitler sent the German 8th Army to ensure that a referendum on unification with Germany would produce the right result, and the German troops were greeted by admiring Austrians with Nazi salutes and flowers; 200,000 people went to see Hitler announce the union of Germany and Austria in the Hildenplatz of Vienna. Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg was forced to concede defeat, and Austria became a part of Nazi Germany. 99.7% of Austrians who showed up to vote on the annexation supported the Nazis, and Austria would be annexed to Germany until the end of World War II in 1945. Immediately after the Anschluss, the brownshirt Sturmabteilung thugs plundered Jewish homes and shops in Vienna, and Jews were forced to wash away pro-independence slogans painted on the streets ahead of the 13 March plebiscite. All Jews were driven out of public life within months. Nazi flags were forcibly hung from buildings across the country to show "German pride", and the new authorities made it their business to know everything about everyone, creating a surveillance state in the new Austria. However, Nazi leaders such as Gauleiter Hans Zeller claimed that nothing had changed in Austria, and allowed for daily life to continue for the Austrians, who now lived in the German province of Ostmark.
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