Once Adolf Hitler completed the union between Austria and Germany(Anschluss), the Nazi government renamed the incorporated territory. The name Austria (Österreich in German, meaning "Eastern Realm") was at first replaced by "Ostmark", referring to the 10th century Marcha orientalis. The change was meant to refer to Austria as the new "eastern march" of the Reich.
In August 1938, the Donau-Zeitung [de] proudly referred to Passau as "the cradle of the new Ostmark".[2]
Styria, including the southern districts of Burgenland; increased by Lower Styria as occupied territory after the 1941 Balkans Campaign
"Upper Danube" (Oberdonau), name for Upper Austria, including the Styrian Aussee region (Ausseerland) and the South Bohemian territories around Český Krumlov annexed with the "Sudetenland" according to the 1938 Munich Agreement
Vienna, i.e. "Greater Vienna", including several surrounding Lower Austrian municipalities incorporated in 1938.
A Reichsgau was a new, simple administrative sub-division institution which replaced the federal states in the otherwise completely centralized Third Reich.[4] From April 8, 1942, as the term "Ostmark" was still too reminiscent of the old, independent state of Austria, the chosen official name for the seven entities was Alpen- und Donau-Reichsgaue ("Danubian and Alpine Reichsgaue"). In the course of the Allied occupation after World War II, the Austrian state was restored in its pre-1938 borders according to the 1943 Moscow Declaration.
References
^Eckart Reidegeld: Staatliche Sozialpolitik in Deutschland. Band II: Sozialpolitik in Demokratie und Diktatur 1919–1945, 1. Aufl., VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN3-531-14943-1, S. 406, 542.
^Rosmus, Anna (2015). Nibelungen: Niederbayern im Aufbruch zu Krieg und Untergang [Hitler's Nibelungs: Lower Bavaria at the Onset of War and Downfall] (in German). Grafenau, Germany: Simone Samples Verlag. p. 165f. ISBN978-3-9384-0132-3.
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