Austria in the First Cold War, 1945-55

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 1-6

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3. The Austrians’ Role and Allied Planning during the Second World War

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 7-29

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4. The Anglo-Soviet Cold War over Austria, 1945/6

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 30-51

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5. The Creation of Austrian Foreign Policy, 1945/6

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 52-77

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6. Austrian Economic Malaise: Soviet-American Cold War over Austria, 1946/7

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 78-103

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7. In the Shadow of Germany: the Militarization of the Cold War in Austria, 1948–52

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 104-129

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8. After Stalin’s Death: “Peaceful Coexistence” and the Conclusion of the Austrian Treaty, 1953–5

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 130-149

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9. Conclusion

   • Günter Bischof

   Pages 150-156

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10. Back Matter

    Pages 157-237

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At the height of the first Cold War in the early 1950s, the Western powers worried that occupied Austria might become 'Europe's Korea' and feared a Communist takeover. The Soviets exploited their occupation zone for maximum reparations. American economic aid guaranteed Austria's survival and economic reconstruction. Their military assistance turned Austria into a 'secret ally' of the West. Austrian diplomacy played a vital role in securing the Austrian treaty in bilateral negotiations with Stalin's successors in the Kremlin demonstrating the leverage of the weak in the Cold War.

• Austria
• communism
• Europe
• Germany
• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
• World War II

'...richly documented, provocative and full of valuable insights.' - Professor Wolfgang Krieger, Philipps-Universität, Marburg

'Bischof provides by far the most authoritative account available of the extraordinary process by which the postwar leadership of Austria maintained the country's unity and independence while navigating among the varying pressures of the four occupying powers and the competing domestic forces. Based on vast new evidence from each of the countries involved, his analyses of the political effects of Soviet economic depredations and the creation of a new national myth to sidestep Austria's Nazi past are compelling.' - Vojtech Mastny and Kathryn Weathersby, The Norwegian Nobel Institute

• University of New Orleans, USA

  Günter Bischof

GÜNTER BISCHOF is an Associate Professor of History and the Associate Director of Center for Austrian studies at the University of New Orleans. He has taught as a guest professor at the Universities of Salzburg (1998), Vienna (1998), Innsbruck (1993-4) and Munich (1992-4) and also lectured at the Austrian Diplomatic Academy (1998). He was appointed a guest scholar at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna (February 1998). He is founding co-editor of Contemporary Austria Studies (6 vols, Transaction, Rutgers University) and the Eisenhower Center Studies of War and Peace (7 vols, Louisiana State University Press). He has co-edited a dozen books and written some three dozen articles on the history of World War II military history and POW treatment, early Cold War diplomacy and Austrian contemporary history. His Harvard dissertation Between Responsibility and Rehabilitation: Austria in International Politics 1940-50 won prizes both from the Harvard History Department and the Austrian Ministry of Science. He won an undergraduate teaching prize at Harvard and won the Early Career Achievement Award from the UNO Alumni Association.

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