A Cold War over Austria

The Struggle for the State Treaty, Neutrality, and the End of EastWest Occupation, 19451955

By (author) Gerald Stourzh, Wolfgang Mueller

Not available to order

Publication date:

12 November 2018

Length of book:

594 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498587877

After World War II, Austria was occupied by Soviet, American, British, and French forces. This study provides the history of the treaty that was negotiated in order to end this occupation. In the Moscow Declaration of 1943, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union had declared that Austria should be liberated from Nazi rule and reconstructed as an independent state. After the war, however, this goal was soon overshadowed by security and power considerations, and then by the Cold War. While the West strove to safeguard Austria’s independence from communist expansion, the USSR refused to finalize a treaty and to withdraw from its zone in the eastern part of the country. In the end it took until 1955 to come to an agreement and receive Soviet consent for a treaty. An important Soviet precondition for agreeing to withdraw was Austria becoming a permanently neutral country. The roots of Austria’s neutrality as traced in this volume were not only linked to Soviet, but also to Austrian considerations. Based on US, Soviet, British, French, German, Swiss and Austrian documents, the book analyzes the risks, pitfalls and blockades that had to be avoided and overcome before Austria could finally regain its independence and be reconstructed.

Chapter 1: Preconditions and Preparations, 1943–1947

Chapter 2: The Negotiations Begin, 1947

Chapter 3: The Price of Freedom, 1947–1950

Chapter 4: From Cold War to Thaw, 1950–53

Chapter 5: Non-Alignment as the Requisite for Freedom, 1953–54

Chapter 6: Khrushchev versus Molotov—and the Winner is Austria, February to April 1955

Chapter 7: Austria’s Annus Mirabilis, May to December 1955

Conclusion: Austria’s International Position, 1945–55: Options, Choices, and Models

In A Cold War over Austria, Gerald Stourzh and Wolfgang Mueller provide a thoroughly revised and nicely translated updating of Stourzh’s classic study of the genesis of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955. The authors have produced a clear, veracious, and superbly documented history of the attempt on the part of the Four Powers and of the Austrians themselves to find a solution to the complex and entangled Austrian problem. This important book should become standard reading for scholars and students of the Cold War in Europe.