ABSTRACT
Only the Austrian German Nationalist Party was as enthusiastic as the Social Democrats in its support for the Anschluß. The decision made in Vienna on 12 November was received with cool restraint in Berlin, since it had already been made known on 9 November in Bern that, in the case of an Anschluß, the Entente would impose harder peace terms upon Germany. If Otto Bauer's demonstrative resignation on 25 July 1919 was an admission that his Anschluß policy had failed, then the acceptance of the peace treaty and the legislation of 21 October seemed to drive the last nail into the coffin of the Anschluß issue. The events in Austria, together with Benito Mussolini's "Watch on the Brenner," convinced Hitler that the time was not yet ripe for an Anschluß. Adolf Hitler's concept of world domination attributed almost exclusively military-strategic and economic significance to the Anschluß of Austria.
