Anti-Comintern Pact (November 25, 1936) Hitler cynically held a plebiscite on April 10 His toadies and propaganda machine reported the vote as 99 percent in favor of Anschluss, and his personal rule as Führer of a nation that was thereupon reduced to a province of the Greater German Reich This easy success greatly enhanced Hitler’s reputation with the Wehrmacht and German diplomatic corps, even as it deepened his already profound contempt for the West and inflated his pathological sense of personal destiny Anschluss briefly relieved Germany’s foreign currency shortage, expanded the Wehrmacht long term, threateningly positioned German forces around Czechoslovakia, and gave Germany new borders with Hungary, Italy, and Yugoslavia Anschluss was not reversed—Austria was not reestablished as state separate from Germany—until the total defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 Four-power Allied occupation of Austria followed from 1945 to 1955, when Austria was governed by an Allied Control Commission ANT FREIGHT See Tokyo Express ANTI-AIRCRAFT ARTILLERY/GUNS All major combatants produced a wide variety of increasingly effective and longer-range anti-aircraft guns as the war deepened Fixed anti-aircraft artillery was deployed in defense of cities, though some German guns in the Ruhr Valley were mounted on trains to enable them to follow the bomber stream for many miles More anti-aircraft guns were deployed on warships and merchantmen as the air threat to shipping was better understood U.S Navy warships sported many dozens of anti-aircraft guns each by the end of the war, of greatly varying caliber and range for distant or close-in air defense These proved highly effective against kamikaze and other late-war, poorly trained Japanese pilots All major power armies were protected in the field by vehiclemounted anti-aircraft guns, with airfields and base areas also deploying larger fixed guns Most anti-aircraft guns were derivatives of normal artillery tubes but employed different forms of ammunition than standard field artillery, anti-tank guns, or big naval guns Smaller caliber (20 mm–40 mm), rapid-firing cannons were usually mounted on trucks or half-tracks or on obsolete tank chassis They functioned best in defense of infantry or armor against low-flying enemy aircraft making strafing or bomb runs Comparable naval calibers (popularly called “pompoms” by Western Allied crew) provided close-in defense of ships Larger calibers of up to 120 mm employed explosive heavy ordnance that sought out high altitude heavy bombers From 1943 they were usually fitted out with firing radars and worked together with radar-guided searchlights See also aircraft carriers; air power; anti-tank weapons; Flak; Flak Towers; proximity fuze ANTI-COMINTERN PACT (NOVEMBER 25, 1936) A joint declaration by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan that affirmed opposition to the Comintern Secret codicils pledged economic and diplomatic, but not military, assistance 51