This chapter presents an analysis of three phases and of the beginning and the end of geopolitical influences on ‘trade with the East’ in Austria. The second half of the year 1945 has deliberately been chosen as the starting point for the reflections presented here, although it is well known that Austrian neutrality, a product of the State Treaty negotiations of 1955, was not adopted by parliament as a constitutional law until 26 October 1955. This chapter will focus on the basic geopolitical framework and the historical context of the export trade, and ultimately also on the import economy. What is not intended here is an analysis from the point of view of the history of economics; some excellent analyses of this kind are indeed forthcoming.

Economic war getting off to an early start in 1945

While Sweden and Switzerland managed, albeit slowly, to adapt their neutral-political objectives to the emerging realities of the geopolitical confrontation straight away in 1945, Austria was itself a bone of contention in the East–West conflict from the moment of its rebirth as a state. The provisional government of Karl Renner, established in Upper Austria on a Soviet initiative and comprising representatives of the equally newly founded parties, SPA, APP and CPA (that is, Social Democrats, People's Party and Communist Party), in fact constituted a breach of inter-Allied agreements: such a premature government was not part of the pact that had been made, and it was only with difficulty that the Western Allies could be persuaded that this was not another case of a communist puppet government.