The Vienna Ambassadorial Conference and the signing of the State Treaty, May 2-15, 1955. Feature Flags: { 1 Julius Raab was Austrian chancellor from April 1953 to April 1961. The Austrian government, claiming that the Italians had not lived up to their obligations, initiated bilateral talks. The provisions of the State Treaty applicable to the 19 Heuser, Western Containment Policies, 100. Significant are the pessimistic observations of Manfried Rauchensteiner made in 2000 in an analysis reaching far beyond the year 1956, with the information that, on the side of the Americans, the defensibility of Austria was estimated to be one day, and concluding: In retrospect one must say that in a war in which Austria might have been involved in one way or the other, the country would have been destroyed and made uninhabitable perhaps for years. Rauchensteiner, sterreich und die NATO, 279. The Austrian situation was unique in postwar Europe. 201. On the significance of the Trieste question, see Stourzh, Einheit, 178f. UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS, UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FRANCE and AUSTRIA. These reforms promoted the economic growth and social stability of the late 1980s. Bischoff reported to Raab on these talks in a correspondence directed via the maid-servant of the Bischoff family in Vienna. Corrections? "corePageComponentGetUserInfoFromSharedSession": true, 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. Kreisky argued adroitly by drawing attention to the fact that the conclusion of the State Treaty would be a sign that agreement with the Soviet Union was possible and that the creation of a European army was not necessary. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. Resources . Many Austrians blamed the now-suffering Austrian economy on the influx of newcomers. After negotiations for a new coalition cabinet failed, in May 1970 Kreisky was appointed chancellor, and he formed the countrys first all-Socialist cabinet. 43 Quoted in the contribution of Suppan, Jugoslawien und der sterreichische Staatsvertrag, 468. Voters grew increasingly dissatisfied with a stagnant sociopolitical system in which all important decisions were made behind closed doors by the interest groups represented in the Social Partnership (i.e., the chambers of industry, trade, and agriculture and the labour unions). Sowjetische sterreich-Politik 19451953/55, in Die Rote Armee in sterreich: Sowjetische Besatzung 19451955: Beitrge, ed. 48 Fursenko, A. 2023 UEFA Women's Under-19 EURO final tournament: All the fixtures and A Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between the United States and Austria was signed in Washington on August 27, 1829, and entered into force February 10, 1831 after the exchange of ratifications. On May 15, 1955, representatives of the governments of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States, and France signed a treaty that granted Austria independence and arranged for the withdrawal of all occupation forces. The Austrian State Treaty and the International Decision Making Process By then, however, the larger strategic issues . The late 1970s also witnessed the first of a series of scandals, many of them related to the technocratic wing of the Socialist Party. Conversation on the occasion of a breakfast (=luncheon) given by Molotov for Figl and Kreisky on 16 February 1954, 06/13a725/7/39, Archiv vnenej politiki Rossijkoj Federacii [Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation] (hereaft er cited as AVPRF), Moscow, Russia. Consult. Its archival designation is 066/14a/40/119/520 AVPRF; a copy of it is available in Vienna in the Foundation Bruno Kreisky-Archiv. On its content, see Stourzh, Einheit, 33738. 55 On resistance in Vienna, see Stourzh, Einheit, 349, 37172; on resistance in the Moscow Party Presidium, see Mikoyan in the secret July Plenum of the Central Committee, in Stourzh, Einheit, 401. 59 Otto Eiselsberg, Erlebte Geschichte 19171997 (Vienna, 1997), 23233, 23435. There is a signifi cant reference about this in Curt Gasteyger, Die sowjetische Europapolitik, in Die internationale Politik 1955: Eine Einfhrung in das Geschehen der Gegenwart, ed. The declaration of Dulles at the Berlin Conference also is an indication that there cannot be any complications in this respect. For this I refer to Dulles's arguments in the discussion with the American chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Radford, in the 166th meeting of the National Security Council as early as 13 October 1953 (Foreign Relations of the United States 19521954, 7:191012) and to the conversation of Eisenhower and Dulles of 20 January 1954 (Stourzh, Einheit, 298, referring to Dulles's Memorandum of a Breakfast Conference with the President, in the John Foster Dulles Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS). : Die Entstehung der sterreichischen Neutralitt und ihr Schweizer Muster (Bern, 1995), 80.Google Scholar. As promised, the newly-independent nation declared and maintained its neutrality for the remainder of the Cold War. The overall terms of the treaty were less favorable to the Soviet Union than previous proposals, but the timing was right for the USSR to initiate its withdrawal from Austria. Austria and Belgium drew a six-goal thriller at Tivoli Stadium, . After Austrian promises of perpetual neutrality, Austria was accorded full independence on 15 May 1955 and the last occupation troops left on 25 October that year. A growing environmental awareness intensified voter frustration. In Volume 3 of Contemporary Austrian Studies (1995), Austria in the Nineteen Fifties, the dominant theme was the Austrian State Treaty in the context of international politics. . 130, argues as follows: Dulles's reference to the eventuality of a neutral status for Austria was, he says, as recent studies succinctly demonstrate, partially a tactical ploy with the purpose of shifting the onus of obstructionism in the Austrian question onto the Soviet (and obliquely Austrian) side. The recent studies referred to by Filitov are Rathkolb, Oliver, Washington ruft Wien: US-Gromachtpolitik gegenber sterreich, 19531963 (Vienna, 1997)Google Scholar; and Pape, Matthias, Ungleiche Brder: sterreich und Deutschland, 19451965 (Cologne, 1999)Google Scholar. 66 Complete text in Stourzh, Einheit, 64142. These are not diaries by Schner, as the minutes are erroneously referred to in Gehler, sterreichs Auenpolitik, 2:1170n27. 8 Conversation between Paolo Taviani and the British diplomat A. D. M. Ross, 20 May 1955; see report by Ross to the Foreign Office in London, quoted in Stourzh, Einheit, 593. The coalition stumbled from one scandal to another until it was finally brought down by the election of Kurt Waldheim, who was alleged to have been a Nazi war criminal, as president in 1986. Eiselsberg, Erlebte Geschichte, 234; and personal information given to the author by Ambassador Eiselsberg, 17 December 1992. 4 (2000): 27279, here 272.Google Scholar. Finally, in April of 1955, and after substantial debate on both sides, representatives of the Austrian Government traveled to Moscow and returned just four days later with a complete treaty that outlined compensation to the Soviet Union for German assets and the nature of Austrian neutrality. Brix, Emil, Bruckmller, Ernst, and Stekl, Hannes (Vienna, 2004), 392417, esp. 64143. Molotov repeatedly referred to the danger of the revival of German militarism [the specifi c ground for this fear was the project of the European Defense Community]. 328Google Scholar. The following belongs an article of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice written for Dice Europische Rundschau, a quarterly on politics, political and contemporary history include a special issue commemorating the Austrian Country Agreement of 1955. 52 Filitov, The Post-Stalin-Succession Struggle.. The annual budget led to grave disunity in the coalition, and in the autumn of 1965 the government resigned and called new elections. 26 Report by Envoy (Gesandter) Wildmann, 19 November 1952, Zl. 1955 multilateral treaty regarding the international status of Austria, Toggle Generalities and structure subsection, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, "The Austrian State Treaty and the Cold War: Contending Perspectives", Federal Chancellor Leopold Figl exhibits the freshly signed State Treaty document to the waiting crowd (Video), Counter-website to the 2005 national celebrations, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Austrian_State_Treaty&oldid=1161830575, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles lacking in-text citations from October 2015, Articles with German-language sources (de), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, This page was last edited on 25 June 2023, at 09:26. Estimates in tons are easier to grasp than estimates in 1955 US dollars. The first papers of the Foreign Ministry are dated 19 and 24 January 1955, respectively. (Innsbruck, 2005), 1:1028.Google Scholar. 49 For this verbal information, I am grateful to Dr. Michail Prozumenikov, deputy director of the Russian State Archives for Recent History, Moscow, on the occasion of a symposion at the Schallaburg in Lower Austria, 29 April 2005. 46 This is stressed by Filitov, The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle, 13338. Austria - The 1955 State Treaty and Austrian Neutrality - Country Studies 77 This figure is composed of payments (in cash or kind) during the occupation decade of 1,533 million dollars and transfer payments (Ablsezahlungen) again in cash or kind beginning in 1955 of 299 million dollars. In the 1990 elections the Socialists avoided disaster only through a combination of Vranitzkys popularity and the weakness of the Austrian Peoples Party. Although there were some concrete indications of the new policy, such as relaxed controls in East Berlin and the newfound willingness of the Chinese to discuss Korean War POW exchanges after Chinese leaders visited Moscow, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that he would only agree to holding a summit meeting with the Soviet Union if there were several clear indications that Soviet actions would match its rhetoric of peace. The Secretary; EUR Mr. The Austrian State Treaty was signed in the Belvedere on May 15, 1955, leading to independence and the withdrawal of all Allied occupation troops. For the German Wehrmacht, the invasion was their first test even though no fighting actually occurred. 92 Zuckmayer, Carl, Als wr's ein Stck von mir: Erinnerungen (Frankfurt am Main, 1966), 71.Google Scholar. Austria, also called the Republic of Austria, emerged as an independent state when the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved as a result of the Treaty of St. Germain, signed between the allied powers and Vienna on September 1919. 10 132nd meeting of Cabinet Figl I, 9 November 1948, Ministerratsprotokolle, Archiv der Republik (hereafter cited as AdR), sterreichisches Staatsarchiv (hereafter cited as StA), Vienna, Austria. Th e principal aim of Austria's eff orts to obtain the State Treaty was the termination of four-power control and the withdrawal of the occupation troops from Austria especially, it needs to be stressed, the withdrawal of Soviet forces. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 2034; and Sergeev and Ludwig Steiner, Die sterreichisch-sowjetischen Beziehungen 19531955 und der Weg zum Staatsvertrag (extract of a conversation with Michael Gehler and Helmut Wohnout), in Der sterreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Based on these lists, Austria paid $150 million to the Soviets out of current production to buy them out of Austria. First: Why was Raab ready to swallow everything in order to get the State Treaty? Just when a deal appeared imminent, the Soviet Union again opted not to sign; in fact, at several points throughout the process the Soviet Union delayed completion of the treaty while it reconsidered what benefits it hoped to gain from the agreement. 36 See the preparatory document of three high Soviet diplomats dated 27 November 1953, 066/35/187/28/15, AVPRF; Pukin, Il'iv, Gribanov to Molotov, 27 November 1953. Juli 1955; 39. The documents cited by Ruggenthaler and Mueller are now published in Karner, Stelzl-Marx, and Tschubarjan, eds., Die Rote Armee: Dokumente, document no. See Ebert, Michael, Bonn-Wien: Die deutsch-sterreichischen Beziehungen von 1945 bis 1961 aus westdeutscher Perspektive unter besonderer Bercksichtigung der sterreichpolitik des Auswrtigen Amtes (PhD diss., University of Kiel, 2003), 192.Google Scholar. Published online by Cambridge University Press: Austria In Austria: Allied occupation troops in return for an Austrian promise to declare the country permanently neutral. "coreDisableEcommerce": false, Two questions arise immediately. Austrian State Treaty, 1955. The Austrian State Treaty and the Cold War: - MIT Press At this meeting, the rejection (strongly stressed by Mikoyan) of the re-entry plans of the Foreign Ministry presumably did take place, since the re-entry right does not occur anymore in the Foreign Ministry position papers after 24 March, while it did occur in position papers before 24 March (and in a strongly veiled and indirect form even in the Soviet note to Austria of 24 March with the invitation to Chancellor Raab). Content may require purchase if you do not have access. The Austrian State Treaty ) or Austrian Independence Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state. "coreDisableEcommerceForArticlePurchase": false, . Carinthia: A Yugoslav- Austrian Dispute - JSTOR With the conclusion of the Austrian treaty, the Soviet Union could strike a decisive blow against the establishment of the European Defense Community. 20th-century international relations: Postwar European recovery. Print. The Allies' greater preoccupation with Germany delayed formal treaty negotiations with Austria until January 1947. 56 On these preparations, see the account based on Soviet archival sources in ibid., 34546, 36869, 400415. PDF OCCUPATION AND INDEPENDENCE: THE AUSTRIAN SECOND REPUBLIC, 1945-1963 - Gale After the XIXth Party Congress, Molotov was banished from the closer environment of Stalin. State Treaty (with annexes and maps) for the re-establishment of an (Vienna, 2005)Google Scholar, document no. 69 On this, see, with recent sources, Rudolf Jebek, Vermgensfragen im deutsch-sterreichischen Verhltnis 19551957, in Der sterreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. The Soviet documents published in 2005, to which reference is made here, were not yet known to Professor Naimark. Austrian State Treaty. On May 15, representatives from Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union signed the Austrian State Treaty, ending seventeen years of occupation by foreign troops. troops in return for an Austrian promise to declare the country permanently neutral. The Bohemian rising and the victory of the Counter-Reformation, New conflicts with the Turks and the Bourbons, Social, economic, and cultural trends in the Baroque period, From the accession of Maria Theresa to the Congress of Vienna, Conflicts with revolutionary France, 17901805, Revolution and counterrevolution, 184859, International relations: the Balkan orientation, Economic reconstruction and political strife, Authoritarianism: Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, Match the Country with Its Hemisphere Quiz, Which Country Is Larger By Population? Contrary to widespread misgivings, the political stability of the country was not disturbed, and parliament was given new vigour and influence. : Die Entstehung der sterreichischen Neutralitt und ihr Schweizer Muster, sterreichs Aussenpolitik der Zweiten Republik: Von der alliierten Besatzung bis zum Europa des 21. Recognition of Austrian Independence, 1921. The agreement and its annexes provided for Soviet oilfield concessions and property rights of oil refineries in Eastern Austria and the transfer of the assets of the Danube Shipping Company to the USSR.[1]. One of the examples he named was the completion of the Austrian State Treaty. In late 1954, the West German Government and the Western powers at last reached an agreement under which Germans would rearm under the NATO command, reassuring the United States. In the case of Julius Raab, the role of his brother Heinrich Raab, who lived in Switzerland after 1938 and enthusiastically advocated the Swiss model, is of interest (see ibid., 25355). Eisenhower was against neutrality on principle, and he was both angered by this maneuver and hopeful that Austrian neutrality could still be prevented. Ambassador Eiselsberg met this person in a Moscow hospital on the occasion of a visit to the ailing Ambassador Bischoff. 85 Franz Cede, Staatsvertrag und Neutralitt aus heutiger Sicht, in Die Gunst des Augenblicks, ed. } The reshaped coalition of the Socialist Party (renamed the Social Democratic Party in 1991) and the Austrian Peoples Party faced new problems that were largely due to the dramatically changed international situation: Austrias application for membership in the EEC (which, renamed the European Community, was embedded in the European Union [EU] in 1993) renewed heated debates over domestic repercussions and over memberships compatibility with neutrality. 463. Telegram From the Delegation at the Vienna Ambassadorial Conference. The parties finally reached an agreement in 1949 in which the West would offer economic concessions to the Soviet Union in exchange for the Soviet relinquishment of Yugoslav claims. 29 Adold Schrf was Austrian vice chancellor from December 1945 to May 1957 and federal president from May 1957 to February 1965. The author was able to see the Soviet minutes and have them copied during a research sojourn in the archives (AVPRF) in Moscow in April, 1994. Ambassador Bischoff mentioned to Eiselsberg that he had only a single foreign diplomat among his contacts, French Ambassador Louis Joxe. 140, 32930. Austrian state treaty: message from the President of the United States transmitting the State treaty for the re-establishment of an independent and democratic Austria, signed at Vienna, May 15, 1955. The Austrian State Treaty and the International Decision https://doi.org/10.1017/S0067237800021494, Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945, the Allies agreed that they would jointly occupy Austria in the postwar period, dividing the country and its capital Vienna into four zones as they planned to do with Germany and Berlin. We are used to referring to the allied occupation of Austria, yet the Allies of World War II had not been allies for some time, at least since 194748, and certainly not in 1954 or 1955even if they cooperated correctly in the Allied Council. In terms of military strategy, I deem it useful to speak of the East-West occupation of Austria because, de facto, the occupation forces had become part of the two military power agglomerations that had come into being in the course of the Cold War.