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In the course of the territorial dismantling of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers in April 1941 and, subsequently, after the German occupation of Italy,¹ in September 1943, the Third Reich realized a lesser-known expansionist strategy that focused on the annexation of provinces south of its 1938 (former Austrian) border. In both cases, the underlying political design had been launched and successfully advocated by leading circles of Austrian National Socialists. Even though no definite conceptions of the future status of the occupied territories had previously been worked out, the expansionist model was integrated into the general dispositions concerning German domination of Yugoslavia and, two years later, of Italy. Herewith a political strategy was adopted that can be regarded as a pointed imperialist derivation from expansive pre-1918 Austrian borderland designs and later revisionist aspirations — a strategy that, as far as Italy was concerned, had been inhibited, until 1943, by the National Socialist leadership and its political and military alliance with fascist Italy.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137551528_13

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