德意志和奥地利在未来是否可能合并？

二战中德国首先侵略的是哪个国家？很多同学会选择捷克斯洛伐克，因为“慕尼黑阴谋”后德军武装入驻苏台德地区，捷克斯洛伐克的国家主权因此遭到严重破坏。然而正确答案却是奥地利，因为“德奥合并”之后就不存在奥地利这个国家，可在大家的印象中奥地利为何不像一个受害者呢？

这就涉及到德意志民族和德意志国家的区别问题，也正是在民族认同的驱使下，德国和奥地利在数百年的时间里一直在尝试着各种方案的“合并”。

早先在神圣罗马帝国时期，统一的德意志国家并不存在，虽然处在同一个“帝国”框架之内，但普鲁士就是普鲁士，奥地利就是奥地利，大家各自拥有强大的实力。当时代发展到有必要建立一个统一的德意志国家时，普鲁士和奥地利却分别提出了两种“合并”方案。

虽然无论普鲁士还是奥地利都是主张合并的，但普鲁士严格坚持着“纯粹德意志民族”的主张，除非奥地利肯放弃其治下的非德意志民族和土地，否则绝不把奥地利纳入新生的“德国”版图。

而此时处在哈布斯堡家族统治下的奥地利并不愿意放弃经营百年的成果，更不愿意靠“自断臂膀”的方式迎合普鲁士，于是普奥战争爆发，得胜后的普鲁士干脆将奥地利排除在“德意志第二帝国”之外。

失败后的奥地利继续与境内的众多非德意志人生活在一起，并很快在此基础上成立二元制的“奥匈帝国”。出于主体民族之间的血缘亲近感，德国与奥匈帝国仍旧是亲密无间的军事盟友，突出表现在第一次世界大战的阵营选择上。

当奥匈帝国皇太子斐迪南遇刺之后，德国毫不犹豫地选择向协约国复仇，结果就是持续四年之久的第一次世界大战。战争的结果以同盟国的失败告终，德国和奥匈帝国遭受严重的制裁，其中奥匈帝国由于下辖的民族众多，因而在英法列强的鼓动下，大量举着民族旗号的群体宣布独立。

图-德国柏林

捷克斯洛伐克、匈牙利、克罗地亚、罗马尼亚等等先后宣布脱离奥匈帝国，到最后偌大的帝国只剩下一个奥地利。奥地利面积8.39万平方公里，比重庆市稍大一些，人口890万（2020年1月）。而德国面积约35.76万平方千米，欧盟第四，比我国云南省要小。德国人口约8315万，欧盟第一，GDP总量也是欧盟第一。

从民族属性上说，德国的德意志人和奥地利的德意志人同属一个民族，此时由于奥匈帝国的非德意志地区纷纷独立，剩下的奥地利反而更加纯粹，于是奥地利人寻求与德国合并的意愿极为迫切。按照当时流行的国际原则，即使身为战败国，“德奥合并”的权利也应该受到尊重，但英法显然在这方面执行着“双重标准”。

图-奥地利维也纳

一方面，奥匈帝国境内的非德意志人要独立的话就大力支持；另一方面，奥匈帝国境内的德意志人要与德国合并的话就大力反对。

英法不愿意看到一个庞大而统一的德意志国家出现在欧洲大陆，同时也正因为如此，诸如捷克斯洛伐克和匈牙利等国独立的时候还捎带从奥地利边界圈走相当一部分德意志人，而这些都受到了英法的默许。

或许是战败的耻辱，也或许是对不公正的愤怒，德国很快在希特勒的带领下走上复仇之路，而奥地利也最终冲破禁锢得以与德国合并。可惜战车一旦开动就很难停下，将奥地利划为“第三帝国”的一个省之后，德国还想着把曾经崩落的碎片全部找回。

奥匈帝国解体时，德意志人口占多数的苏台德地区被捷克斯洛伐克带走，于是苏台德成为希特勒的下一个目标，之后是但泽走廊、梅梅尔等等。二战全面爆发之后，德国的战争机器被苏联和英美从东西两线砸烂，以“自愿”原则合并的德奥两国不得不再次分离，直到今天德国与奥地利虽然说着同一种语言，但仍旧是两个国家。

德国的经济、人口不但独霸欧盟，放在整个欧洲来看，德国GDP总量欧洲第一，人口只比俄罗斯少。欧洲以德意志人为主且大部分人讲德语的国家有德国、奥地利、瑞士、列支敦士登，此外比利时、卢森堡、波兰也有部分人说德语，德奥合并是任何其他欧洲国家不愿看到的。

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我们被教育出一种思维定式：同一个民族，就一定要并成一个国家。或者“自古以来”过那么几年，就一定要并成一个国家。德国、奥地利、瑞士，分开过，都过得蛮好。至少有很多穷国人，削尖脑袋想钻进去。还有啥东西有资格高于民生？老白姓自己太不把自己当个东西了。

As a German, I think there is close to zero chance of a German-Austrian merger. Unless you count further European integration, but that doesn't seem to happen either, and would concern all member states, or at least larger groups, alike.

There was a similar question with a good answer. I agree with 执伞者孙羽

悉尼大学亚洲研究系，共党中的修正主义 's answer. I just want to add something:

Germans in general are Christians (including Austrians). But the more you go north, the more protestants are there (after Martin Luther's reformation, exactly 500 years ago in 2017). The South is catholic, e.g. Bavaria. The same is true for Austria.

In fact, the bloodiest war ever fought on German soil was not WW 1 (outside Germany) or WW 2. It was the 30-years war from 1618 - 1648. No other war cost so many lives / population. Entire provinces were deserted, animals like wolves came back....

Light brown: areas with at least 1/3 of population dead

Dark brown: at least 2/3 of population dead.

As so often, many reasons and power struggles were mixed, but it was fought strictly along religious lines, Catholics against Protestants. The main Catholic leaders were the the Austrian Emperor of the house of Habsburg, the arch duke of Bavaria, and of course their generals (Wallenstein and Tilly respectively).

On the Protestant side, there was no such clear leadership at first within Germany, so at first, Denmark's king got involved, later the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf became the dominant leader of the Northern Protestants.

On this map you can see that "Germany" was really a big mess of small and smallest states.

Austria is the big yellow thing in the bottom right corner. Prussia is the tiny blue island inside the red Poland-Lithuania in the upper right hand corner. Of no significance at the time!

When this was over, after 30 years of bloodshed, without a winner, only losers, it was clear that the religious division would remain (much had been about freedom to exercise the protestant faith).

The patchwork Germany continued to Bismarcks age. In the meantime, Prussia grew into a major European power, to rival England, France, Spain Austria and Russia. But it was always much much smaller than all of these. Nonetheless, it's king Friderich II (called the Great for his talent as general) fought aggressive wars against Austria, for pure lust of conquest.

The religious divide continued to be so strong, that the French Emperor Napoleon III (Himself a catholic like all French) thought still in 1870, when he attacked Prussia (and the northern German states), that the Southern, Catholic, German states would actually side with France, not with Germany/Prussia, and this even after the liberation wars to kick out the French of Napoleon I (Bonaparte) out of Germany which were still in the living memory of the people back than.

For Bismarck, holding together Germany (even without Austria) was more realistic to achieve than to have the eternal internal power struggle with Austria. Bavaria, the next largest catholic state, was already enough to handle. Bismarck wanted and forced the war with Austria to mark the dividing line.

Later, for Hitler, it was an entirely different story. Hitler was thinking in world politics dimensions. Austria had become a "nobody" on the map after the break down of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire after WW 1. But he was Austrian himself. Already in WW 2 he fought for Germany, not for Austria. And once he could, he united his homeland Austria with his elected land Germany, trying to bring together all German-speaking people, or even all he considered Arian.

It must be said that the Austrians in their big majority felt truly happy when this happened, and as far as I can tell, the Germans also approved of this. People were thinking in bigger dimension then.

Today, the situation is very different. I am not aware of ANY meaningful movements either in Austria or Germany for a merger. (ok, you will always find a handfull of idiots no matter for what. )

Germany will not develop any desire to a greater Germany ("Gross-Deutschland"). Already the re-unification after the cold war, which was totally self-evident, was eyed very skeptically by the other larger European countries like France and UK, although it only added 16 million people of a bankrupt state. So basically 1 larger Chinese city, and we are talking about a poor one. Austria is just half of that, but quite rich.

For above reasons, maybe Bavaria would be favorable, the other federal states would not.

And you are right, Germany agreed at the moment of the reunification to accept the outer borders of the 2 Germanies as the definitive new border. That this was not already settled had nothing to do with Austria though. It was about the former German territories which now belong to Poland. In that case, the Allies had even made a mistake when they drew these lines against Germanies will, confusing 2 rivers of the same name, and making Germany even smaller than they themselves had wanted to...

The idea of Europe is not to favour big nation states. On the contrary. It is those which got us centuries of wars. A well funtioning Europe would see more powers delegated to a central European Government (which we don't really have, not even in name). At the same time, the local regions would gain in importance, as people would identify more with "Jiansu Province" or "Guangdon", or their city, just like you do in the huge China, rather than with a heterogeneous Europe. At that moment, all the similarities of e.g. Austria and Bavaria would play out, they might cooperate even more than they already do.

Besides: If you live in Europe and have EU passport, like I do, in certain respects, it is already like one country (but also with France, or Portugal and so on).
I can live where I want (I live in France and Germany), work where I want (I work in Germany mostly), buy real estate where I want (I have in Germany, France, Poland).
Ok, I can only vote in Germany for federal elections. I could even vote in France in local elections. But besides that?

So I honestly hope that history is past your question. It is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
People might be unhappy with Europe in many ways. I am too. But it has brought us THE LONGEST PERIOD OF PEACE EVER in our history. That is worth every bureaucracy and useless European standard etc.