A Cold War over Austria: The Struggle for the State Treaty, Neutrality, and the End of East-West Occupation, 1945-1955

by Gerald Stourzh, Wolfgang Mueller

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498587877
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	11/12/2018
Series:	The Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	594
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Wolfgang Mueller is professor of Russian history at the University of Vienna.

Gerald Stourzh is professor emeritus of modern history at the University of Vienna.

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

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.

Norman Naimark

Essential reading in the context of Cold War studies and Stalin’s hegemonic policies in Europe.

Journal of Modern History

A Cold War over Austria is a magnificent exploration of the origins of Austrian postwar independence, charting the slow and often tortuous processes leading to the formation of the State Treaty of 1955, but also a providing a probing examination of the broader ideological matrices and strategic networks that defined postwar diplomacy among the victorious, but rival Allies. This book constitutes a fascinating case study for the political history of postwar international relations in Central Europe between 1945 and 1955, but it also offers many valuable and original insights into the murky world of post-1945 Austrian domestic politics as well. This is an authoritative book, written with a full and masterful command of a vast array of important historical sources.

John W. Boyer