The Red Army in Austria. Группа авторов
Molotov to break the linkage between the Austrian and German questions and show the Western powers goodwill to come to a resolution of the Austrian issues. After Molotov publically announced in late February that the Austrian question was no longer linked to the conclusion of a German peace treaty, dramatic movement on the Austrian treaty occurred in the next few weeks. In informal bilateral meetings in Vienna, Austrian officials heard from Soviet diplomats that armed neutrality along the lines of the Swiss model offered a viable solution to the Austrian question. Moscow invited an Austrian delegation to come to Moscow for a round of bilateral negotiations.51
Chancellor Raab led such a high-level Austrian delegation to Moscow in mid-April and returned with decisive Soviet concessions. The longstanding economic issues that had been unresolved since the fall of 1949, when the Austrian treaty had come close to an agreement in the New York Deputies’ talks, were now resolved bilaterally. The Austrian government agreed to pay the Soviet Union directly the 150 million US dollars demanded by Moscow for the return of the “German assets” (including the valuable oil assets in the Soviet zone). The Austrian government would pay in kind (not in cash) over a number of years. The Soviet leaders also agreed with the Austrian delegation that Austria would declare its armed neutrality along the lines of the Swiss model after the withdrawal of occupation forces three months after the ratification of the Austrian treaty.52
During the spring of 1955, the Western powers were relegated to the sidelines to watch in utter amazement the quick progress of the bilateral Austrian–Soviet negotiations. The British Foreign Office was gravely worried about the bilateral diplomacy with Moscow. Geoffrey Harrison, the experienced Soviet expert who was in charge of Austrian affairs in London, observed with a biblical allusion: “the Austrians are rushing across the precipice like the Gadarene swine.” Foreign Minister Eden, sensing Austrian eagerness to move ahead after Molotov unlinked the Austrian and the German question, expressed his worry: “I hope I won’t wake up one morning and see Raab in Moscow.” The State Department in Washington was more collected and demanded to be fully briefed by the Austrian government about Austria’s bilateral negotiations with Moscow. As Dulles had observed earlier, the Austrians could not be stopped if they wanted a treaty for the price of neutrality. CIA Director Allen Dulles observed in the National Security Council discussions after the breakthrough in Moscow that the Soviet concessions on Austria after all these years constituted “the most significant action since the end of World War II.”53
After the return of the Raab delegation from Moscow, diplomacy moved at breakneck speed to finish the Austrian State Treaty. The ambassadors of the four powers met in Austria with Foreign Minister Figl to put the final touches to the Austrian treaty draft. Among many other fine points negotiated by the ambassadors, the United States demanded in a secret agreement from the Austrian government that the Western oil corporations be compensated for the loss of their assets as a result of the Soviet return of the oil assets to the Austrian Government (“Vienna Memorandum”). The final details of the extensive Austrian State Treaty draft were agreed on only two days before the foreign ministers met in Vienna to sign the Austrian State Treaty on May 15, 1955. The conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty came amid dramatic changes in the international framework in Europe. A few days before the signatures were attached to the Austrian State Treaty, Dulles had visited Paris for the official ceremony incorporating the FRG into NATO. Molotov had signed the Warsaw Pact Treaty in the Polish capital a day before the conclusion of the Austrian treaty in Vienna. The tighter military integration of its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, culminating in the conclusion of the Warsaw Pact, was Moscow’s answer to West German rearmament. On the other hand, Moscow’s concessionary mood could also be gathered from its withdrawal from a naval base in Finland and a marked improvement of relations with Tito’s Yugoslavia. The final conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty thus needs to be seen against a larger backdrop of dramatic changes in Soviet domestic politics and its turn toward “peaceful coexistence” as well as both the further consolidation of military blocs in Europe and the fateful steps toward the post-war division of Germany.54
As soon as the signatures of the foreign ministers dried on the Austrian State Treaty on May 15, the Austrian Foreign Office began its whirlwind of diplomacy to get the treaty ratified by the great powers and the rest of the world. Once the ratification process was complete on July 26, the three-month clock began to tick toward the withdrawal of occupation forces. Once the occupation powers had withdrawn their troops, the Austrian parliament passed a constitutional law proclaiming Austria’s permanent neutrality to the world on October 26, 1955. Austria thus consummated its agreement with Moscow to enter a state of neutrality in accordance with the Swiss model once the Austrian treaty was concluded and the occupation powers evacuated the country. The neutralization of Austria was also the Soviet “deed” that finally broke a diplomatic logjam of sorts in East-West relations. After two years of procrastination, the Western leaders final met the Kremlin bosses to test their seriousness over promoting “peaceful coexistence” in a summit meeting in Geneva in July 1955.55
CONCLUSION
The United States, however, was a crucial midwife in the final rounds of Austrian treaty negotiations. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and their representatives in Austria had played a decisive role in putting Austria on a trajectory of economic recovery and growth with their massive pre-Marshall Plan and ERP economic aid. Austria’s incipient “economic miracle” by 1955 gave the Raab government the wherewithal to enter bilateral agreements with the Soviet Union to pay for the return of the “German assets.” In addition, US support for Austria’s secret rearmament since 1951 and the transfer of American military hardware after 1955 allowed Austria to quickly start its army in 1956. The “core” of the future Austrian Army built with American support before the conclusion of the State Treaty in 1955 pacified the Pentagon sufficiently for it to reluctantly agree to an Austrian treaty. This “core” allowed the Austrians to quickly build a credible armed force to follow the Swiss model of armed neutrality.
NOTES
1. William Lloyd Stearman, The Soviet Union and the Occupation of Austria: An Analysis of Soviet Policy in Austria, 1945–1955 (Vienna: Siegler, 1962); William B. Bader’s Stanford Ph.D. Diss., “Austria between East and West, 1945–1955,” Stanford, 1966, was published in Austria almost forty years later in a German translation but without updating the theses and literature, see, Österreich im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ost und West 1945 bis 1955 (Vienna: Braumüller, 2002).
2. Gerald Stourzh’s “kleine Staatvertragsgeschichte” was first published in 1975 and is now in its fifth edition, much expanded; see Um Einheit und Freiheit. Staatsvertrag, Neutralität und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Österreichs 1945–1955 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1998 and 2005 [with a new bibliographic essay]); see also the “Historiography Roundtable” on it in Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka and Ruth Wodak, eds., Neutrality in Austria, Vol. 9 of Contemporary Austrian Studies (New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publications, 2001), pp. 236–292; and Manfried Rauchensteiner, Der Sonderfall. Die Besatzungszeit in Österreich (Graz/Vienna: Verlag Styria, 1979), reprinted in 1995 and republished in 2005 with only minor revisions and barely any engagement of the literature written in the previous thirty years as Stalinplatz 4. Österreich unter Alliierter Besatzung.
3. Oliver Rathkolb, “Politische Propaganda der amerikanischen Besatzungsmacht in Österreich 1945 bis 1950. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Kalten Krieges in der Presse-, Kultur- und Rundfunkpolitik,” Ph.D. Diss., Vienna, 1981; Josef Leidenfrost, “Die amerikanische Besatzungsmacht und der Wiederbeginn des Politischen Lebens in Österreich, 1944–1947,” Ph.D. Diss., Vienna, 1984; Alfons Schilcher, “Die Politik der Provisorischen Regierung und der Alliierten Grossmächte bei der Wiedererichtung der Republik Österreich,” Ph.D. Diss., Vienna, 1985; Günter Bischof, “Between Responsibility and Rehabilitation Austria in International Politics 1940–1950,” Ph.D. Diss., Harvard, 1989; Ralph W. Brown, III, “A Cold War Army of Occupation? The U.S. Army in Vienna, 1945–1948,” Ph.D. Diss., Tennessee, 1995. This cohort is maybe best represented by Günter Bischof and Josef Leidenfrost, eds., Die Bevormundete Nation. Östereich und die Alliierten, Vol. 4 of Innsbrucker Forschungen