Mounting pressure from Germany culminated in German troops crossing into Austria on 11 March 1938. By the 15th Hitler had reached Vienna in triumph and was ready to annex the Ostmark as just another German province. There remains controversy as to what the majority of Austrians really thought of this event: the virtually unanimous endorsing plebiscite was unlikely to have been accurate as a considered measure. However, nobody can doubt that many, probably most, Austrians saw the joining, the Anschluss, as an event that would give Austria a chance to revive economically and to thrive as part of a resurgent Germany. There were second thoughts about the loss of all sovereignty and, perhaps more so, the totally secular character of the new regime, which pushed aside Catholic institutions.

Yet many commentators noted the enthusiasm about attacks on Jews in Vienna, which went beyond anything arranged by the Nazi militants. Here was revenge against these arrogant, domineering people who had thought that they ruled the roost. Liesl's friend Hans Sorter wrote about his first experience in a letter years later. The office boy, who normally greeted him, in the MGM film offices where he worked, as Herr Sorter, with a dutiful salute, now announced on his arrival at the office one morning that Sorter was fired and he was in charge.

My parents recognised the difference between Nazi supporters and others, but they would certainly acknowledge that Vienna's new bosses were popular, more so as unemployment got mopped up and better times restored quite speedily. For my mother, her gut feeling was the sensation of being excluded from joining what was clearly a vast popular movement. My father also told me that the problem with Jews was that they were too massively and obviously successful. The nastiness that Jewish people experienced, perhaps not infrequently reflecting a hostility long present but usually carefully masked, was accompanied by some ruthless action on the part of the new state. Yet many violent and cruel deeds were actually spontaneous and not directed from the state. They fitted the new system.

This created a mood of agitation that went beyond anything in the previous five years in Germany and made young Jewish adults determined to leave the country, if need be with nothing.