Although Austria was reduced to a small republic of seven million inhabitants after World War l, the historical significance of the country remained, for two reasons, disproportionately large in interbellum Europe. First, the ghost of the Austro-Hungarian empire exerted a considerable influence on the fateful course of Central Europe; and, second, Austria is worthy of the historian's attention because of the role she played as the first victim of Hitler. The echoes of the demise of Austria-Hungary would reverberate in Central Europe through Austria; perhaps the history of Europe, even the history of the world, would have taken another course if Austria had chosen to resist absorption into Greater Germany in 1938.