AUSTRIA: Austria's declaration of independence in 1945 draws on the Moscow declaration of two years earlier, stating that Austria was "the first victim of National Socialism".
The declaration says the Anschluss "was not agreed by two sovereign states as usual", but through "external military threat and high treason terror of a Nazi fascist minority who tricked and extorted a defenceless government". The occupation, once "forced on the helpless people of Austria", was abused immediately to sideline the former administration, destroy Austria and "degrade the historical, glorious city of Vienna to a provincial city".
The annexation was an act of "economic and cultural theft", resulting in the removal of the national bank's gold to Berlin and Austria's "immeasurable artistic and cultural treasures".
The document says Hitler led the "powerless" Austrian people into a "senseless and hopeless war that no Austrian ever wanted or could have predicted or approved of . . . against people whom no true Austrian ever had any feelings of hostility or hatred".