document of the Second Austrian Republic; its contents were selectively adapted and proclaimed by the Provisional Government of Karl Renner on April 27, 1945.13
The Moscow Declaration was a highly ambiguous document. It proclaimed Austria as “Hitler’s first victim” and promised to reestablish the country; Austrians were reminded that the Allies expected a contribution from them toward their own liberation; at Soviet insistence the Allied declaration reminded Austria(ns) that they also bore responsibility for Hitlerite war crimes. The Moscow Declaration was in part an Allied propaganda document that aimed at encouraging domestic Austrian resistance against the Hitler regime. The Moscow Declaration was followed up by the determination of Austrian occupation zones by the “European Advisory Commission” established by the Allied foreign ministers in Moscow. The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union would occupy Austria jointly like they planned to do in Germany. But Austria would be treated differently after the war as a “liberated country” from Germany—a “defeated country.” Austria would be governed by a four-power Allied Commission, not a Control Commission. The Austrian “peace treaty” would be a “state treaty.”14 By the end of the war at the latest, however, the importance of Austria had been clearly recognized in Washington: “Austria is a strategic center for which there is bound to be a political struggle, the outcome of which will affect the economic well-being and stability of Southeastern Europe, an area of tension out of which WWI and II arose and where the dangers of future conflict could arise.”15
TRUMAN’S AUSTRIAN POLICY
The new administration of Harry S. Truman,16 successor to the deceased President Roosevelt, had been in office for barely three weeks when the Provisional Government of Karl Renner under the aegis of the Soviet occupation power proclaimed Austria’s independence on April 27, 1945. The British government was very upset over this unilateral act against all wartime agreements. Churchill and his advisors in the Foreign Office considered the Renner government a Soviet puppet regime—like the ones established in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria in the previous months. Whitehall did not recognize the Renner regime. The United States and its representative in Austria, General Mark Clark, acted more pragmatically and mediated throughout the summer of 1945 in what looked like an emerging Soviet-British “cold war” over the future of Austria.17
Four-power Allied control of Austria slowly emerged in the summer and fall of 1945. In July, the four occupation powers moved or retreated into their zones agreed upon in the European Advisory Commission. The powers began to implement the first Control Agreement in early July. In August, the Western powers moved into their assigned sectors in Vienna. In early September, the Allied Council began to meet in Vienna. In late October 1945, the Western powers finally recognized the provisional Renner Government. In late November, free elections were held out of which there emerged a conservative-socialist coalition government; in spite of the very disappointing vote count for the Communists (5 instead of the expected 25 percent of the vote), one Communist minister was included in the Cabinet too. Leopold Figl from the People’s Party (ÖVP) was the first elected post-war Austrian chancellor.18
The Soviets acted piqued and began to put serious economic pressure on the new Austrian government. They seized most of the important industrial assets in their zone (“German assets”) in the winter/spring of 1946 and thereby sparked the outbreak of the Cold War in Austria. The US government started to pour considerable economic aid into Austria (including the Soviet zone) to counter Soviet economic pressure and ensure the survival of Austria. Initially, much of the aid was foodstuffs, as Austrians experienced serious food shortages and famine. Eventually during later 1946 and 1947 this became financial aid to balance the trade deficits and revive industrial production and rebuild the infrastructure after the massive destruction the war had left, particularly in the cities.19
While the United States concentrated on economic recovery and the spiritual and mental renewal of the post-Second World War nation (“denazification”) during this initial phase of the Austrian occupation, the Americans increased in 1946 efforts to write an Austrian treaty (“peace treaty,” “state treaty”) to end the occupation and release the country into full independence. The chances of writing an Austrian treaty were discussed on the periphery of the Foreign Minister negotiations in Paris in the summer of 1946 when the treaties were written with Hitler’s five satellites. Austrian treaty negotiations seriously took off during the initial round of negotiations by the Deputies of the Foreign Ministers for an Austrian treaty in London (January/February 1947).20 The Foreign Ministers met in Moscow (March–April 1947) to negotiate Austrian and German “peace” treaties. In the Austrian treaty talks the most difficult issues were the “German assets” questions. The Soviets wanted the Austrians to pay for the “German assets” they seized in 1945/1946 as part of their “reparations” settlement with the Western Allies at the Potsdam conference. The other unbridgeable issue in 1947 was Yugoslav border demands in Carinthia/Styria.21 In the 1948 Deputy negotiations in London, progress was made on both these issues. After the Tito-Stalin split, Moscow no longer supported Yugoslav territorial demands against Austria. In Austrian treaty negotiations, the Truman administration and the American negotiators strongly supported Austrian positions against maximum Soviet demands intended to weaken Austria economically.22
The United States played a key role both in defending Austria against Soviet economic depredations and in continuing to pour extensive economic aid into Austria and Europe. During the spring of 1947 the Truman administration reacted to Communist pressure on Greece, the Communist coup in Hungary, and the ongoing negative trading balance of Western European nations (including Austria) by announcing a major initiative toward economic recovery of the continent—the European Recovery Program. Better known under the name of Truman’s new Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the “Marshall Plan” began to pour twelve billion dollars into Western Europe in 1948; the program lasted until 1952. Austria turned out to be one of the principal recipients of Marshall Funds on a per capita basis. Without the American pre-Marshall Plan and ERP economic aid, Austria would not have recovered as quickly from its wartime destruction.23
The arrival of the Marshall Plan gave the Soviets convenient cover to consolidate their bloc in Central Europe. With the formation of the military bloc came the militarization and nuclearization of the Cold War.24 As a result of the Communist coups in Hungary (1947) and Prague (1948), along with the Berlin crisis (1948–49), Western European governments felt threatened and launched a military organization—the Brussels Pact (1948). In 1949, the United States and Canada joined Western European defense efforts and initiated the North Atlantic Treaty Pact (1949). After the detonation of the first Soviet atomic device in late August 1949 and the victory of the Communists in the Chinese civil war in October 1949, the United States responded with a reassessment of its entire national security strategy, culminating in the document NSC 68. The United States quadrupled its defense spending after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 and built an awesome nuclear arsenal alongside an increase in the conventional forces.25
The militarization of American Cold War policies and strategies also proliferated into the Austrian occupation. American fears of Communist subversion in Austria gravely increased after the Czech coup (“Prague is west of Vienna”) in the American occupation element in Austria.26 There were recurrent fears of a Communist putsch attempt among Austria’s political elite and these were duly reported to the American High Commission. In October 1950, the Communists tried to launch a general strike that the Austrian government considered a “putsch attempt.” The “Korean scenario” of a direct Communist attack in Austria was deemed less likely.27 US High Commissioner Geoffrey Keyes began planning for building the “core” of a future Austrian Army as early as 1948. In the basic National Security Council document for Austria NSC 38/5 military security considerations became prevalent, like in the case of NSC 68.28
It was the “October 1950 general strike” attempt, however, that allowed General Keyes to move forward with the “militarization” of Austria too. In 1951, the Austrian government with the help of the United States launched the “B-Gendarmerie.” Police officers were trained to