In early 1938, Adolf Hitler turned a military scandal into personal control over the Wehrmacht — and within weeks used that power to pressure, invade, and annex Austria in the Anschluss. This episode follows the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis, Hitler’s February 4 command takeover, the Berchtesgaden ultimatum, Schuschnigg’s failed plebiscite gamble, the German invasion of March 12, and the terror that followed in Vienna. This was not just a border crisis. It was the moment Nazi Germany moved from internal dictatorship to open territorial expansion. Britain and France did not intervene, Austria was erased as a sovereign state, and Hitler’s next target — Czechoslovakia — was already coming into view.
