The Republic of German-Austria, commonly known as German-Austria (German: Deutschösterreich), was a de facto state that was created following World War I as an initial rump state for areas with a predominantly German-speaking and ethnic German population within what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with plans for eventual unification with Germany. The territories covered an area of 118,311 km2 (45,680 sq mi), with 10.4 million inhabitants.
In practice, however, its authority was limited to the Danubian and Alpine provinces which had been the core of Cisleithania. Much of its claimed territory was de facto administered by the newly formed Czechoslovakia, and internationally recognized as such.
Attempts to create German-Austria under these auspices were ultimately unsuccessful, especially since union with Germany was forbidden in the Treaty of Versailles, and the new state of the First Austrian Republic was created in 1920.
The Austrian Empire of the Habsburgs had been reconstituted as a dual monarchy by the Compromise of 1867. It comprised the Magyar-dominated "lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen", the core of which was the Kingdom of Hungary and was sometimes referred to as Transleithania, and the German-dominated remainder of the empire, informally called "Austria" but semi-officially given the name Cisleithania. Cisleithania included the core "Austrian" provinces, together with Carniola, Dalmatia, the Austrian Littoral (Gorizia and Gradisca, Trieste and Istria) to the south, and Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Galicia and Bukovina to the north and east. The dual monarchy, or Austria-Hungary as it came to be known, was effectively two states with the Habsburg monarch as Emperor of Austria in Cisleithania and King of Hungary in Transleithania. For the most part, each had their own institutions. There were separate parliaments and separate governments and ministries for "imperial Austria" and "royal Hungary".
Austria-Hungary was a multinational entity comprising Germans and Hungarians, as well as nine other major nationalities, who increasingly demanded the right to self-determination. Historically, the Germans had been dominant in the Habsburg monarchy, and their power and influence greatly outweighed their numbers. Even within Cisleithania the Germans represented only 37% of the population. However, Upper and Lower Austria, Salzburg, Carinthia, Vorarlberg and most of Styria and Tyrol had a predominantly German population. These territories were the core "Austrian" provinces and had a population of 6.5 million. While Bohemia and Moravia were predominantly Czech, Germans constituted a majority in a strip of territories that edged their borders, recently self-proclaimed as provinces of the Sudetenland and German Bohemia. The German population of Bohemia and Moravia was 3 million.
From 1914 to 1918, Austria-Hungary fought in the First World War as one of the Central Powers and an ally of Germany. By May 1918, the empire was facing increasing military failure and defeat, as well as domestic unrest caused by food and fuel shortages. Additionally, the demands of the empire's nationalities were becoming increasingly radicalised, encouraged by the American president Woodrow Wilson's commitment to self-determination in his Fourteen Points published in January 1918. In October, the independence of Czechoslovakia and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (they latter unified with Serbia that December to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later called Yugoslavia), Hungary withdrew from the dual monarchy and the Austro-Hungarian army surrendered to Italy at Vittorio Veneto. With the empire collapsing, the Habsburg administration signed an armistice on 3 November and the last Habsburg emperor, Karl I, relinquished his powers on 11 November.
On 21 October 1918, the deputies representing German-speaking areas in the Abgeordnetenhaus, the lower chamber of the Reichsrat, the imperial Parliament of Cisleithania, declared that they were the new Provisional National Assembly for German-Austria. With the impending collapse of the empire becoming apparent earlier in the month, the three main political groupings representing German-speakers in the lower chamber began negotiations on the way forward. The largest group was the German nationalists, a collection of smaller parties, with a total of 109 deputies elected in the last imperial elections, in 1911. Their primary objective was Anschluss or union with Germany. The conservative monarchist Christian Social Party was the next largest with 65 deputies and the Social Democrats, who favoured a democratic republic, had a representation of 37 deputies.
In early October 1918, the Social Democrats were the first to call for all "German-Austrians" to be united in a German-Austrian state. They had recognised the right of all nationalities of the empire to self-determination and they said this should equally apply to German-Austrians. The German nationalists were willing to accept the Social Democrat position to allow further negotiation to take place. The Christian Social Party accepted it as well, but said they had reservations because of their "religious and dynastic convictions". Calling themselves "the Germans of the Alps and Sudetens", all 208 deputies met on 21 October, and unanimously voted that they now constituted the "Provisional National Assembly" for German-Austria. They declared that:
the German people in Austria are resolved to determine their own future political organization to form an independent German-Austrian state, and to regulate their relations with other nations through free agreements with them.
They also elected three Presidents of the Assembly, one from each of the three political groupings: Franz Dinghofer (de) of the German National Movement, Jodok Fink of the Christian Social Party, and the Social Democrat Karl Seitz. A 20-member executive committee was appointed to make constitutional recommendations to the Assembly and, on the committee's subsequent recommendation, a State Council was created as an executive body on 30 October. The Council immediately nominated 14 State Secretaries to head up an administrative structure that mirrored the imperial ministries. As at the end of October, therefore, the German-speaking part of the empire effectively had two governments: the new administration created by the Provisional National Assembly and the imperial government appointed by the emperor under Heinrich Lammasch, last minister-president of Cisleithania. The monarchy was still formally in existence and, in fact, the imperial government was pleased with the constitutional measures brought in on 30 October, believing that they did not assume a republican form and preserved the potential for the continuation of the monarchy.
On 25 October, the Provisional Assembly called on all German-inhabited Lands to form their own provisional assemblies.
On 11 November 1918, Karl I gave up his right to take part in Austrian affairs of state. He deliberately avoided using the term "abdication", as he wanted to retain his freedom of action in the event that his Austrian subjects recalled him. Nevertheless, this decision effectively ended 700 years of Habsburg rule.
The next day, 12 November, the National Assembly officially declared German-Austria a republic and named Social Democrat Karl Renner as provisional chancellor. On the same day it drafted a provisional constitution that stated that "German-Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German-Austria is an integral part of the German republic" (Article 2). The latter provision reflected the deputies' view that felt that Austria would lose so much territory in any peace settlement that it would no longer be economically and politically viable as a separate state, and the only course was union with Germany. This was enforced by the refusal of Hungary to sell grain and of Czechoslovakia to sell coal to Austria-Germany.
As the Empire collapsed and a ceasefire was announced, the Provisional Assembly sought to forestall socialist revolution by organizing a coalition government led by the minority Social Democrats. Karl Renner became Chancellor and Victor Adler became Foreign Minister. The Social Democrats co-opted newly created soldier and worker councils and used their control over labour unions to implement social policies that blunted the socialist appeal.