You are very right, Raimey. These cities and towns that you name her, Olmütz and Mährisch Ostrau, were also an integral part of what was once called Central Europe, and what after 1918 and especially after 1945 has been too easily forgotten, in lieu of an artificial West <-> East division in Europe.
Both were "German cities" in the sense that of majority of their population since the Middle Ages spoke German, and that the city was constituted according to German law. Yet that must not be misconstrue this in a more modern, 19th century sense of ethnically based nationalism.
Both belonged, until 1918, to the Habsburgian Margraviate of Moravia, which on its turn was one part of the "Lands of the Bohemian Crown", hereditary in House of Habsburg.
So, they were subjects of the Emperor, inhabitants of Cisleithania, linguistically and maybe culturally Germans.
Jani might chime in here, from his "Windische" (as it was then called) perspective on Ferlach. Some parallels are obvious. ;-)
Herzliche Grŭße,
Carcano
As a descendant of a Sudeten family (my mother was actually born some km south of Olmütz) I may chime in here.
My opinion is that until 1918 or so these people actually felt to be Austrians, Habsburg subjects, of course German-speaking, but also with a lot of contempt for "Reichsdeutsche", the subjects of the German empire living in the North.
After all, a united Germany was still quite young then.
Of course later, into the 1930s, with increase of ethnically base nationalism, the attraction of "Grossdeutschland" mounted - the rest is history.
For studying the history of Bohemian hunting, and many interesting guns, the museum in Ohrada is to be recommended
https://www.nzm.cz/en/visit-us/tickets-and-entrance/nzm-ohradafuhrmann
