"Germany" never was nation. Other nations - including the USA - forced us to be a nation. Germans <=> Bavarians => Austrians. The Austrians are in the same way Germans as are 2/3rd of the inhabitants of Switzerland or the Netherlanders ("dutch"="deutsch"="German") or Frisians, Alemans, Saxons, Frankonians Hesse and many others. Without Prussia (an army wich owned a country) the younger German history is not easily understandable - but without the German Austrians the complete German history is not understandable. And also the Austrian history is not understandable without Germany. Example: The national anthem of Germany was composed from Jospeh Haydn 1796/97 in London for the German emperor from the house Habsburg in Vienna.