Photograph of Austrian citizens gathered in the Heldenplatz in Vienna to hear Hitler's declaration of the Anschluss, 15 March 1938.

About Anschluss.

Anschluss is the German word for 'union'. The term is used to describe the political union of Austria with Germany which was achieved by Adolf Hitler in March 1938. For the almost 200,000 Jewish people who were living in Austria at the time, mostly in Vienna, this meant they were now under the antisemitic laws which also governed Germany. They were subject to barbaric violence, public humiliation and a loss of rights and freedoms. During the Holocaust around 65,000 Jewish Austrians were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.

Sources.

Wikimedia Commons, Anschluss Heldenplatz1 (2020) [accessed 24 November 2021]

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia, ‘Anschluss’, Encyclopedia Britannica (6 March 2021) [accessed 25 November 2021]

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Bibliographies: Anschluss [accessed 25 November 2021]

Depository: USA National Archive in Washington, D.C.