Anschluss

Anschluss enters the scene through a strategic argument in a document that Hugh Legat is reading: incorporating Austria into Germany is described alongside the proposed incorporation of Czechoslovakia as a way to strengthen Germany’s military position. The passage presents annexation not as an event unfolding before Legat, but as an expansionist calculation, valued for its effect on borders, available forces and military capacity.

Strategic Rationale

The document argues that incorporating Austria and Czechoslovakia would provide a substantial politico-military advantage. It would give Germany shorter and better frontiers, allowing forces to be freed for other purposes. The passage thus connects territorial expansion to military efficiency: new borders are treated not merely as a change in territory, but as a means of reallocating resources.

Projected Military Gains

The calculation also includes the possibility of creating up to about twelve new divisions, estimated at one division for every million inhabitants. By placing this figure beside the proposed incorporation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, the document makes population an explicit measure of potential military growth. Legat encounters the argument while reviewing a page dated 5 November 1937; the evidence establishes the strategic case recorded there, but does not describe the subsequent course or outcome of Anschluss.