Panzer Grenadier Darkness Falls Austria 1938

In early 1938, the leaders of Austria`s First Republic thought to resist Nazi demands for a forced union, or Anschluss, the Austrian leadership. The Austrian Federal Army mustered eight and a half divisions, each of them much smaller than their German counterparts, and was outnumbered 4:1 by German troops slated for the invasion with even greater discrepancies in tanks, planes and artillery. Army chief of staff Alfred Jansa drew up detailed plans for armed resistance, and army commander Gen. Wilhelm Zehner carefully removed Nazi sympathizers from the officer corps. But Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg decided that the situation was as hopeless as it was serious. Austria bowed to the inevitable and the Germans rolled in unopposed.