[4] The Western allies suspected the establishment of a puppet state and refused to recognize Renner. Anton Pelinka/ Rolf Steininger (Wien 1986); Die bevormundete Nation. What was missing until recently were the archives of the Soviet Element of the Allied Commission for Austria (SCSK) and the documentation for most of the Soviet military units and commands stationed in Austria from 1945 to 1955. 269. In: Focus Austria. In 1947, the Austrian economy, including USIA enterprises, reached 61% of pre-war levels, but it was disproportionately weak in consumer goods production (42% of pre-war levels). While Austria was not included in the Soviet sphere of influence cutting across most of central and eastern Europe, and instead was counted among the bloc of neutral countries between Soviet and British influence, there can be no doubt that from the start Austria was earmarked for heavy economic exploitation to rebuild the industrially ravaged Soviet Union.19 While a brutal and immediate Sovietization was probably never intended, it was envisioned by Stalin that Austria would develop into a peaceful, Moscow-friendly state in which the creation of a broad national front would eventually lead to a non-revolutionary transition to a Socialist system.20 Naturally, the Austrian Communist Party (KP) was to become the motor for long-term evolutionary change to a peoples democracy subservient to Soviet interests. In this light, the Soviet governments adherence to the Moscow Declaration of 1943, guaranteeing Austrias independence, was correct, as the Kremlins failure to create a communist client state as it did in East Germany was restrained. In: Contemporary Austrian Studies 14 (2006) 343-352. Vojin Majstorovic got his PhD at the University of Toronto. [88] The communists stormed and took over GB offices and disrupted railroad traffic but failed to recruit sufficient public support and had to admit defeat. Wolfgang Mller, "Sowjetbesatzung, Nationale Front und der "friedliche bergang zum Sozialismus". It did not lose any territory, despite Yugoslavias claims to Carinthia, a province in the south of the country. After the Soviet Union had relieved Austria of the need to pay for the cost of their reduced army of 40,000 men,[75] the British and French followed suit and reduced their forces to a token presence. The coalition of Christian Democrats (VP) and Social Democrats (SP),[26] backed by 90% of the votes, assumed control over the cabinet and offered the position of Federal Chancellor to Christian Democrat Julius Raab. Cf. American money effectively raised real wages: the grain price was about one-third of the world price, while agriculture remained in ruins. [Link] Why did the soviets leave austria? : r/HistoriansAnswered - Reddit This restraint can be partly explained by the fact that Moscow did not fully control Austria and partly because Austria was far from the Soviet Unions frontiers. These people, liberated by the Red Army, frequently led the way in looting and in attacking civilians. Wait a moment and try again. [46], From March 1946 to June 1947, 64% of these rations were provided by the UNRRA. [83], Although in the fall of 1950 the Western powers replaced their military representatives with civilian diplomats,[30] strategically, the situation became gloomier than ever. [14] Throughout 1945 and 1946, all levels of Soviet command tried, in vain, to contain desertion and plunder by rank and file. What revolted Austrians the most, rightly so, was the issue of mass sexual violence and wild looting by the troops. The use ofrape as a weapon of waris not new. 1944-50 flight and expulsion of Germans - Wikipedia 155180. [55] Heavy industry (or what was left of it) was concentrated around Linz, in the American zone, and in British-occupied Styria. Austrias participation in the European Recovery Programme is naturally a development of considerable importance to the Soviet Union. . More than 20,000 Austrians were killed and 67,000 wounded in more than 1000 aerial attacks. Among them e.g. [92] Finally, the Soviets replaced their military governor with a civilian ambassador. [24], The Potsdam Agreement allowed confiscation of "German external assets" in Austria, and the Soviets used the vagueness of this definition to the full. For over four hours, Hamburg burned. Stanley, "Great Britain and the Austrian Question", 1938-1945, PH.D. Thesis, University of London 1975, a decade later, Robert Knight, "British Policy toward Occupied Austria", 1945-1950, Ph.D. Thesis, University of London (LSE) 1986 and Gnter Bischof, "Between Responsibility and Rehabilitation: Austria in International Politics 1940-1950", Ph.D., Harvard University 1989. Refugees moving westwards in 1945. Albert Resis (Chicago 1993) 10. In 1938, Austria had a Jewish population of about 192,000, representing almost 4 percent of the total population. This in turn led to a more critical Soviet attitude towards the newly-elected coalition government under Leopold Figl, leader of the national conservative Austrian Peoples Party (VP), and to a marked increase in Soviet propaganda in Austria. [62] In 19481949, a substantial share of Marshall Plan funds was used to subsidize imports of food. Wolfgang Mueller, "Soviet Plans and Policies for Austria's Transition to Socialism, 1945-1955". They were in total control of the area. Among these were: Vladimir O. Pechatnov, "The Big Three after World War II: New Documents on Soviet Thinking about Post-War Relations with the United States and Great Britain" (=Cold War International History Project Working Paper 13/1995); Vojtech Mastny, Kremlin Politics and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years (New York 1996); and Vladislav Zubok/Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA 1996). After the Anschluss in 1938, Austria had generally been recognized as part of Nazi Germany. Why on Earth Did Hitler Invade the Soviet Union? - HistoryNet They responded with a counter-proposal for a pan-European security system that, they said, could speed up reunification of Germany, and again the West suspected foul play. In Austria, there were hundreds of thousands of slave laborers out of 5 million Soviet citizens the Nazis had taken to the Third Reich from conquered territories. Cf. British diplomat and signatory to the treaty, Geoffrey Wallinger reported to London that the deal "was far too good to be true, to be honest". Why did the USSR leave Austria? USIA was facing bankruptcy and the cost of occupation to the tune of 36 million Austrian shillings annually since 1953 may have made the leaving easier. Cf. Top Image:Soviet soldiers taking down a Nazi sign in Austria. $150 million for German assets paid with goods, plus 10 million tons of oil and $2 million in cash Steininger 2008, p. 128. There is a debate among historians whether Soviet conduct in Austria was as bad as in Germany, and the preponderance of evidence indicates that it was not, although it was similar. 145, 153, wrote that Tolbukhin "was reported to have been relieved of his command in the summer of 1945 because of the behaviour of his troops.". November | 4 Choose another date 1956 Soviets put a brutal end to Hungarian revolution To continue watching video, please disable your ad blocking software and reload the page. [29] Thus, according to Bischof, the Cold War in Austria began in the spring of 1946, one year before the outbreak of the global Cold War. At the same time, the Western Powers initiated the Short Treaty with Austria as a condition for negotiations about Germany. Why did the Soviet Army leave Austria peacefully in 1955 but stayed in every other country they entered? Copyright 1998-2023 Eurozine, www.eurozine.com. [87] International tension was coincident with a severe internal economic and social crisis. For a review of evolution of Austrian Social Partnership see Bischof et al. [22] On 27 June 1946, they amalgamated these assets into the USIA, a conglomerate of over 400 enterprises. 1996. The Netherlands and Ireland were the second and third with 10.8% and 7.8%. "[40] The economy of the Soviet zone eventually reunited with the rest of the country. Guenter Bischof, Austria in the First Cold War, 1945-1955. The military and political leaders were not concerned with the fate of enemy civilians. [96], In January 1955, Soviet diplomats Andrey Gromyko, Vladimir Semenov and Georgy Pushkin secretly advised Vyacheslav Molotov to unlink the Austrian and German issues, expecting that the new talks on Austria would delay ratification of the Paris Agreement. [35] It controlled not more than 5% of Austrian economic output but possessed a substantial, or even monopolistic, share in the glass, steel, oil, and transportation industries. Austrians had their say in the end, though, when they trounced the Communist Party of Austria in the post-war parliamentary elections. Suddenly, the tone and message of Soviet propaganda abruptly changed. In 1946, when Washington urged the commencement of such Allied negotiations, foreign minister Molotov was in no hurry whatsoever. Wage increases were limited and locked to commodity prices through annual price-wage agreements. Ukraine - Nazi Occupation, Soviet, Genocide | Britannica In: U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation. The assistance from Allies, mostly from the USA but also the Soviet Union, fed the population. By now, the body of available literature in the former Soviet Union enables a significant level of insight into the thinking, planning, and decision-making of the Soviet authorities, both in the Kremlin and in the Soviet administration, both military and civilian, stationed in Austria. It came into force on 27 July and on 25 October the country was free of occupying troops. Since post-war Austria became neutral country, all the allied forces withdrew from it. Their products were in high demand in post-war Europe. For the Soviets, Austria had become an economic and political liability. Respect their traditions, families, and private property. The annexed excerpt from one of these impressive estimates by the British Joint Intelligence Committee from the summer of 1948 bears witness to this type of sagacity. Austrian electors refused to honour the Communist contribution to the Austrian resistance to Nazi occupation and aggression and instead identified the KP with the Red Armys plundering and raping. With the help of several bilateral commissions and study groups, a significant range of Soviet and Russian archives have since been consulted and mined for relevant documents. WW2 Dates & Timeline | Holocaust Encyclopedia Its price permanent Austrian neutrality was enacted in the Austrian parliament on 26 October 1955.30 This memorable date has since become the Austrian national holiday. Find out more Post-war scramble The end of World War Two brought in its wake the largest population movements in European history. External Websites Also known as: German-Soviet Treaty of Nonaggression, Hitler-Stalin Pact, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica The Soviet Union has so far refrained from action that would precipitate the partition of Austria on the German model, and such a contingency would probably only be of value to her from the purely military point of view, i.e., if war seemed imminent. There the matter remained until Stalins death in March 1953. [60] It benefited some trades such as metallurgy but depressed others such as agriculture. The Soviet Union expropriated over 450 formerly German-owned businesses; by 1955, the majority of these companies were close to bankruptcy. The instruction clearly tried to create a sympathetic image of Austria amongst the rank and file, while the appeal to respect families and properties directly urged the soldiers to refrain from committing sexual assaults and looting. This position was confirmed in the Moscow Declaration of 1 November 1943 by the foreign ministers of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States, in which Austrians were reminded of their responsibility for fighting in Hitlers armies. 272. The intimate Diary of an Ausrian Interpreter at Moscow Treaty Talks New perspectives on Austrians and World War II, Kak byl dostignut proryv v avsriyskom voprose ( ), Austria, Germany, and the Cold War: from the Anschluss to the State Treaty 19381955, South Tyrol. the police) and of education (i.e. Officers almost always sympathized with their long-suffering soldiers over civilians. The country, according to American reports, survived 1945 and 1946 on "a near-starvation diet" with daily rations remaining below 2000calories until the end of 1947. Guenter Bischof, "The Making of a Cold Warrior: Karl Gruber and Austrian Foreign Policy, 1945-1953". Soviet invasion of Afghanistan | Summary & Facts | Britannica 141142, used 1937 as a base year, and wrote that "1937 itself was a poor year". Among them Wolfgang Mller, "Die sowjetische Besatzungsmacht in sterreich 1945-1955. The Soviet Union released Austrian prisoners at a much faster rate than the Germans, but the last Austrians were not released until 1955. At this point, requisitions also added to the suffering of the civilian population. The troops understood their arrival on the Third Reichs soil as their victory, and some soldiers were determined to exact a tribute from the defeated enemy by plundering, assaulting civilians, and committing rapes. In the end they agreed on "three months from signing the Treaty, but no later than December 31" Kindermann 1955, p. 110. ", Steininger 2008, p. 101, cites Eisenhower's letter to, Steininger 2008, p. 123, refers to chancellor Schuschnigg's visit to. Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, with the overwhelming support of the Austrian population. They had long since recognised that Austria was not to be incorporated into the Soviet postwar empire, not even by gradual means. [19], American troops, including the 11th Armored Division, crossed the Austrian border on 26 April, followed by French and British troops on 29 April and on 8 May, respectively.
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