Austrian resistance
Encyclopedia
The Austrian resistance to the Nazi rule that started with the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

 in 1938 had a prehistory of socialist and communist activism against the era of Austrofascism
Austrofascism
Austrofascism is a term which is frequently used by historians to describe the authoritarian rule installed in Austria with the May Constitution of 1934, which ceased with the forcible incorporation of the newly-founded Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938...

 from 1934. These activists, limited primarily to adherents of the political far left, operated in isolation from the Austrian mainstream during the war years. One prominent activist was Josef Plieseis
Josef Plieseis
Josef "Sepp" Plieseis was an Austrian resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.Plieseis was born in Bad Ischl and became a young member of the Socialist movement. He volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War, where he was wounded twice. He was arrested in France and incarcerated in...

. Other strands of Austrian resistance included Catholics and monarchists. However, it is notable that several Austrian nationalists, some of them even with fascist sympathies, also resisted, opposed to the destruction of the Austrian state.

Austrian society has had an ambivalent attitude both toward the Nazi government from 1938 to 1945 and the few that actively resisted it. Since large portions of Austrian society either actively or tacitly supported the Nazi regime, the Allied forces treated Austria as a belligerent party in the war and maintained occupation of it after the Nazi capitulation. On the other hand, the Moscow Declaration
Moscow Declaration
The Moscow Declaration was signed during the Moscow Conference on October 30, 1943. The formal name of the declaration was "Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security". It was signed by the foreign secretaries of the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union...

 labeled Austria as a free and democratic society before the war, and considered its capture an act of liberation.

Many books discuss the historical events from one perspective or another. An academic overview is given in "The Resistance in Austria, 1938-1945" by Radomír Luza, University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

The sign of the Austrian resistance was O5, where the 5 stands for E and OE is the abbreviation of Österreich with Ö as OE. This sign may be seen at the Stephansdom
Stephansdom
St. Stephen's Cathedral is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, OP...

in Vienna.

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