Do you agree with Hitler's annexation of Austria in the Anschluss?

[deutschen Blutes]

That wasn't aimed at anyone in particular but a Germanic race is a popular idea in forums like this, and see below.

I know, the Nazis themselves, especially in the earlier years, spoke of a 'Germanic race' but they eventually dropped it because they knew it couldn't be proved scientific. However, they did speak about a German Volk.

Sometimes the word 'race' is used rather ambiguously.

It is often used as a more PC term for race, as with official surveys in the UK and 'ethnic minorities' and so is not always in the line with the def. you gave above.

Demographics of the UK also mentions the various races too.

Many of the PC brigade even try to deny that race has any biological definition and that it's only a 'social construct' which is just madness.

Hitler would probably have won the referendum anyway. That annexation wasn't one of his big sins.

No doubt. It was a political idea even among non-Nazis or even people openly against the Nazis.

It's a rough analogy. The important point in all this is that national identity can be as important or more important than ethnic identity.

Ethnicity plays a part in a national identity. It's silly to try and speak of 'ethnic Austrians' because Austria has been separated from Germany since 1945. Only a fool would deny that Austrians are ethnic Germans.

[Neon Knight]

Ethnicity plays a part in a national identity.

I very much agree, but you'll find many who disagree - civic nationalists who think (for example) that a person who immigrated from India who is granted British citizenship is as British as anyone else.

[deutschen Blutes]

I very much agree, but you'll find many who disagree - civic nationalists who think (for example) that a person who immigrated from India who is granted British citizenship is as British as anyone else.

Perhaps so. However, I would argue that anyone with a rational mind and an understanding of the term national identity would realise how that is simply a fallacy and totally goes against the conventional definition of the term 'national identity'.

Similarly, being born in a country does not make you that country's homogeneous ethnic group.

[TheForeigner]

Yes, Austrians are Germans and the annexation to Germany would have been ok, if not under Hitler.

[Svipdag]

I don't agree with anyone's annexation of anyplace. In view of our history, I know that that sounds incongruous coming from an American, but, as far as I am concerned, "right of conquest" is not a right, just a fact.