SA remained...

While Hitler did see to the elimination of most of the SA (Sturmabteilungen- "Storm Troopers") leadership on June 30, 1934 (the so-called "Night of the Long Knives,") he certainly did NOT eliminate "most" of the SA, which had reached a membership of some 4,000,000 men. The force that wore the black uniform were the Schutzstaffel, or SS, which was originally an SA unit until the massacre of the SA leadership freed it to become autonomous under its chief, Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Nevertheless, the brown SA uniform remained standard wear for Party members, including members of the Austrian Nazi Party. These men were notoriously more savage than their German counterparts.

The MOVIE is wrong

The con Trapps actully left Austria before it became part of Germany. They left in 1934? I think, so it could be right. But Austria and Germany did not reunite until 1938. So the whole movie is incorrect.

Anschluss

Comment 4133 speaks of Germany and Austria 'reuniting' in 1938. Prior to that year, the two countries had never been united. Germany did not even exist until 1871. Before then, it was a collection of minor principalities dominated by the Kingdom of Prussia. Austria had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until its breakup after World War I. The notion that the unification of the two countries was restoring any previous situation was merely Nazi propaganda.

SA was still going

Though the SA was effectively sidelined after the Rohm Purge of 1934, it was still active as a wing of the Nazi Party right up until the collapse of the reich in 1945. Thus, it is odd, but far from impossible, for the SA to be featured in this manner in the film.

More on Anschluss

Comment 26775 is almost right. Before 1871 saying "Germany" was like saying "Scandanavia" except that the German people were more homogeneous than Scandanavians are. Austrians are ethnic Germans and Austria is often shown as a German state on pre-1871 maps. More importantly, until Napolean dissolved it in 1806 Austria was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations and contributed many of its Emperors, who were elected by the rulers of the larger German states. Maps of the Holy Roman Empire show Austria as part of the Empire while other regions ruled by Austria's Hapsburg dynasty were outside of it. Austria was always the most powerful German state until Prussia began to assert itself under Frederick the Great in the 1740s. As Prussia grew by annexations it sought to separate Austria from the rest of Germany, partcularly under Bismarck, who knew that the Hapsburgs could present a legitimate challenge to Prussia's royal house, the Hohenzollerns, as leaders of a unified Germany. By defeating Austria and the southern German Catholic states in 1866 and then using those Catholic states as allies against France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, Bismarck was able to unify all of Germany except Austria. But once Austria was shorn of its polygot empire after 1918 and became a purely ethnic German country there was plenty of reason to seek anschluss, and the allies feared it enough to prohibit it in the Treaty of Versailles. So the commentator is right to say that Austria and Germany were never truly unified, but the movement for anschluss had far more behind it than Nazi propaganda

comment to 26930

Before Bismark the German Emperor family was the Hapstburg (the Austrian Emperors). It was one country for over 500 years. It was a loosly nit counrty with many counts, dukes, etc... but one country none the less. Even after Bismark, when the Hapstburg gave up the crown of the "Holy Roman Emperor" (and the Prussian king got it) and kept the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor's crown he was still had lands in today's Germany. It was still regarded as one Germany just under different rulers. The one had Tirolia, Salzberg, Upper and Lower Austia, Upper and Lower Steria, etc... and the other had Baveria, Hessia, Saxony, Pommerania, etc... So it was more than 'just' propaganda.

Behold American public education

Let's start with some spelling. "Hapsburg", "loosely", "knit", "Bavaria".\r\rNow some history. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved nine years before Bismarck was born. The title of Holy Roman Empire did not pass to the Kings of Prussia, and there were rulers of other German states who held the title at times instead of the rulers of Austria. The title held by the Austrian Emperor (after the title was created)was just that, Emperor of Austria. Later the title of King of Hungary was assumed by the Hapsburgs and it was only then that the term Austria-Hungary was used. After the German Empire was established the Hapsburgs held sway over no territory within its borders.\r\rFinally, political science. The commentor is using the term "country" in a very broad sense. The Holy Roman Empire was, as they say, none of those things. The Emperor's power was minimal and any of the states that comprised the "Empire" could and did defy the Emperor at will. Indeed, member states routinely went to war with each other. The commentor is right that there was more behind anschluss than Nazi propaganda, but Austria was never in any true political union with the rest of Germany that would constitute a "country" in the way that France, Denmark or England constituted a country in those days. The appeal of anschluss was the uniting of ethnic Germans in the world's two countries (except Liechtenstein) wherein ethnic Germans were the overwhelming majority of the population. That the Treaty or Versailles banned anschluss years before the Nazi party was founded attests to this.

Re: 50081

Behold pomposity! Behold rudeness! Behold the assumption that one person's errors in spelling and history are evidence of the failings of an entire public school system! Behold the assumption that it must be an American system! Your comment is well written and nicely detailed, but your attitude is pedantic and boorish.

comment to 50081

Of course the Hapsburgs held sway over their territory. The "Heimatslaender" were under sole rule of the Hapsburgs. They included upper and lower Ausria, Steria, Tirol, etc... (in a sense what is today's Austia). There was no Duke of Steria etc.. There used to but they died out and the emperor got the lands. You said, "The commentor is using the term "country" in a very broad sense. The Holy Roman Empire was, as they say, none of those things." Check webster: counrty has many def. One is: a political state or nation or its territory. This def. most certainly applies. At the beginning the Emperor's power was minimal. That was the intention. The German nobility (Dukes etc...) elected their Emperor. They wanted to elect the weakest. They picked a Count with a small estate in Switzerland (the Habichtsburg). Right after he was elected the most powerful aristocrat (King Ottocar II of Bohemia) waged war on him. The other aristocrates supported King Rudolf I. Rudolph I won and gained the lands of the fallen Ottocar II. Later on, when the Hapsburgs' power grew only the most powerful aristocrates could do as they wished.

Austria History Lesson (interwar period)

Prior and during the First World War, Austria was the center of a large multinational, multicultural empire. The rulers in Vienna were German speaking people. After the war, the empire was broken up, and a number of smaller states were created (e.g. Czechoslovokia, Yugoslavia, Poland, etc.). Austria proper, where the German-speaking former ruler lived, was stripped of its seacoast, deprived of its navy and most of its army, and all of its international prestige, and as a result, the Austrians felt isolated and insecure.\r\rWhile unification with Germany would not have been considered in the glory days of empire, many Austrians, after the First World War, advocated it, so that all the German-speaking people would united in a single country. After the horror of the war, however, the Allies feared a strong pan-Germanic nation, and the Treaty of Versailles expressly forbade union between Austria and Germany.\r\rWhen Hitler came to power in 1933, he and his Nazis began to put economic pressure on Austria, but they did not get very far, because Italy, under Mussolini, acted as Austria's de facto protector. For example, in 1934, the Germans engineered the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Englebert Dolfuss, but when Mussolini made it clear that he would not tolerate a German takeover of Austria, Hitler backed off for the time being.\r\rBy 1938, however, Hitler and Mussolini became Axis partners, so Hitler had a free hand to interfere with Austria's internal affairs. Aside from that, however, many Austrians genuinely desired union (Anschluss) with Germany, believing that it was in Austria's long-term best interest to do so. A plebscite on the question of union was to have been held on Sunday, March 14, 1938, but Hitler did not trust, or wish to wait, for expression of popular sentiment on the issue, so he invaded on Friday, March 12, 1938.