¹ Julius Raab was Austrian chancellor from April 1953 to April 1961.

² Report of the French Embassy Vienna, 14 January 1954, as quoted in: Stourzh, Gerald, Um Einheit und Freiheit: Staatsvertrag, Neutralität und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Österreichs 1945–1955, 5th ed. (Vienna, 2005), 425.Google Scholar

³ Public Record Office, London, FO 371/93622/CA 1201/5/G, 12 July 1951, first published in facsimile in Stourzh, “Rückblick auf den April 1955: Der lange Weg zur ‘Schweizer Formel’,” Die Furche, 19 April 1985, 6.

⁴ Quoted, with reference to Foreign Office records, by Rauchensteiner, Manfried, “Ö;sterreich und die NATO,” Truppendienst 39, no. 4 (2000): 272–79, here 272.Google Scholar

⁵ “[…O]ur militarily untenable position there,” as quoted in Stourzh, Einheit, 213.

⁶ On this theme, see Stourzh, Einheit, 197–220, particularly 212–17; recently Artl, Gerhard, “Das Aufgebot: WestÖsterreich als ‘geheimer Verbündeter’ der NATO?,” in B-Gendarmerie, Waffenlager und Nachrichtendienste: Der militärische Weg zum Staatsvertrag, ed. Blasi, Walter, Schmidl, Erwin A., and Schneider, Felix (Vienna, 2005), 97–122Google Scholar, esp. 121–22.

⁷ The NATO decision in favor of the employment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe was taken in December 1954. See, among others, Wiggershaus, Norbert, “Nordatlantische Bedrohungsperzeptionen im ‘Kalten Krieg,’ 1948–1956,” in Das nordatlantische Bündnis 1949–1956, ed. Maier, Klaus A. and Wiggershaus, Norbert (Munich, 1993), 17–55, esp. 44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Mastny, Vojtech, “Die NATO im sowjetischen Denken und Handeln 1949 bis 1956,” in Konfrontationsmuster des Kalten Krieges 1946 bis 1956, ed. Mastny, Vojtech and Schmidt, Gustav (Munich, 2003), 432, 458, 462CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The book by Schmidt and Mastny is an excellent analytical work in both contemporary history and political science.

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. 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, “Österreich und die NATO,” 279.

⁹ Leopold Figl was Austrian chancellor from December 1945 to April 1953 and foreign minister from November 1953 to June 1959.

¹⁰ 132nd meeting of Cabinet Figl I, 9 November 1948, Ministerratsprotokolle, Archiv der Republik (hereafter cited as AdR), Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (hereafter cited as ÖStA), Vienna, Austria. Figl's report to the Council of Ministers cited in Stourzh, Einheit, 142.

¹¹ Report dated 26 January 1950, in Sowjetische Politik in Österreich 1945–1955: Dokumente aus russischen Archiven, ed. Mueller, Wolfgang et al. (Vienna, 2005)Google Scholar, document no. 64, 641–47, esp. 641. With slight modifications, this sentence was taken over into a report “on the revival of National Socialism in Austria” written “on the basis of materials of the division for domestic affairs of the Soviet element of the Allied Commission for Austria for the year 1949,” dated 23 March 1950, presented to Foreign Minister Andrej Vyšinskij by Michail Gribanow, director of the third European division of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. Published in Karner, Stefan, Stelzl-Marx, Barbara, and Tschubarjan, Alexander, eds., Die Rote Armee in Österreich: Sowjetische Besatzung 1945–1955. Dokumente (Graz, 2005), document no. 109, 539–45Google Scholar, esp. 541.

¹² Mueller, Wolfgang, “Die Teilung Österreichs als politische Option für KPÖ und UdSSR 1948,” Zeitgeschichte 32, no. 1 (2005): 47–54Google Scholar. Minutes of the conversation are also published in Mueller et al., Sowjetische Politik in Österreich, document no. 48, 453–65.

¹³ See Stourzh, Einheit, 321.

¹⁴ Stalin's anger as to Tito's too independent foreign policy obviously seems to have played a decisive role in the Stalin-Tito break. On this subject, there is a remarkable (indirectly reported) statement of a high Soviet diplomat in Rome, Councilor of Embassy Martinov, which reached the British Embassy in Rome. Martinov was said to have observed around 1 July 1948—that is very soon after the rift became public—“the real quarrel with Tito was on account of the latter's insistence on running too independent a foreign policy.” The two main points of Soviet criticism were said to be first, the “Yugoslav claim to Carinthia which was preventing the Soviet Government from reaching agreement on the Austrian Peace Treaty [sic],” and second, that Tito gave more help to the Greek Communist rebel leader General Markos than Moscow thought wise. Source cited from the very solid book by Heuser, Beatrice, Western “Containment” Policies in the Cold War: The Yugoslav Case (London, 1989), 35.Google Scholar

¹⁵ As a former member of the commission on topographical signs, I have no sympathy for the partial non-fulfillment of the treaty concerning topographical signs up to now. In 1972, Chancellor Bruno Kreisky nominated a commission for the study of the problems of the Slovene ethnic group in Carinthia, which was active until 1975. Since the problem of topographical signs was the most acute and pressing one, the commission was colloquially known as “Ortstafelkommission.” Excellent information is contained in the collective volume by Pandel, Martin et al. , Ortstafelkonflikt in Kärnten—Krise oder Chance (Vienna, 2004)Google Scholar. To be criticized is a statement of the ex-governor of Carinthia, Leopold Wagner, in a radio interview (ORF-“Panorama”-program on 14 June 2005), to the effect that “minority protection was incorporated into the State Treaty merely ‘with a wink’[;] in Carinthia one never had thought that this ought to be truly put in practice.” Quoted after the columnist “Rau” [Hans Rauscher], “Von der Etsch…,” Der Standard, 15 June 2005, 1.

¹⁶ The precise provisions are cited in Stourzh, Einheit, 710f.

¹⁷ The escalation took place within the context of a very polemical and immediately published exchange of notes between Moscow and Belgrade between 19 July and 29 August 1949. The Soviet side showed that Yugoslavia had been prepared at a very early date (April 1947) to reduce its territorial demands drastically if need be, while the Yugoslav side questioned the sincerity of public Soviet support for Yugoslavia's territorial demands on Austria. See Stourzh, Einheit, 81–85.

¹⁸ On this subject, see Ruggenthaler, Peter, “Warum Österreich nicht sowjetisiert wurde. Sowjetische Österreich-Politik 1945–1953/55,” in Die Rote Armee in Österreich: Sowjetische Besatzung 1945–1955: Beiträge, ed. Karner, Stefan and Stelzl-Marx, Barbara (Graz, 2005), 650–726, esp. 675–81Google Scholar; see also the article by Wolfgang Mueller, “Gab es eine ‘verpasste’ Chance?: Die sowjetische Haltung zum Staatsvertrag, 1946–1952,” in Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 89–120, esp. 112–16. The documents cited by Ruggenthaler and Mueller are now published in Karner, Stelzl-Marx, and Tschubarjan, eds., Die Rote Armee: Dokumente, document no. 159 (draft of a letter of Deputy Foreign Minister Andrej Gromyko to Stalin, 22 October 1949), 741ff.; and document no. 160 (Decision No. 71 of the Politbüro of the Central Committee of the CPSU of 24 October 1949, with instruction to Foreign Minister Andrej Vyšinskij), 745. In an interesting article from 2004, Norman Naimark mentioned that in November 1949, when the West displayed readiness for compromises and a conclusion of the treaty, the Soviets were no longer willing “to come to the table.” He then added, “We still have no firm understanding of why Stalin allowed the Austrian situation to stagnate after the initiatives of 1948–49 came to naught.” Naimark, Norman, “Stalin and Europe in the Postwar Period, 1945–1953: Issues and Problems,” Journal of Modern European History 2, no. 1 (2004): 28–56, esp. 34–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The new Soviet tactics of blocking the treaty negotiations combined formal readiness to continue talks with a substantive standstill. According to a decision of the Politburo of 7 January 1950, Stalin did not postpone a reunion of the treaty deputies, but did “not permit any leeway for negotiations anymore.” Stefan Karner and Peter Ruggenthaler, “Stalin und Österreich: Sowjetische Österreich-Politik 1938–1953,” Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung (2005): 102–40, esp. 124. The Soviet documents published in 2005, to which reference is made here, were not yet known to Professor Naimark. They are apt to put more into the foreground the connection—not yet sufficiently researched!—between the Austrian question, the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict, and the question of Trieste—from May 1950 onward, coupled with the State Treaty. On the significance of the Trieste question, see Stourzh, Einheit, 178f.

¹⁹ Heuser, Western “Containment” Policies, 100.

²⁰ Propositions of the Soviet Union “On the Conclusion of a State Treaty for the Re-establishment of an Independent and Democratic Austria,” submitted to the Conference of Foreign Ministers of 12 February 1954, in Csáky, Eva-Marie, Der Weg zu Freiheit und Neutralität: Dokumentation zu Österreichischen Auηenpolitik, 1945–1955 (Vienna, 1980), 327–28, esp. 328Google Scholar. Internally, there already existed doubts as to the efficacy of the connection between the question of Trieste and the State Treaty (see Stourzh, Einheit, 299), and in the course of the year 1954, the Soviet attitude concerning Trieste loosened considerably; the agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia on Trieste that had been brought about under Western leadership was accepted very quickly by the Soviet Union.

²¹ On the occasion of the Conference on the State Treaty organized by the Austrian Academy of Sciences on 9 and 10 May 2005, I was able—thanks to the generous helpfulness of Ambassador Rostislav Sergeev—to have a look at the minutes of Molotov's conversations on the Austrian question during the Berlin Conference of Foreign Ministers in February 1954. Conversation on the occasion of a “breakfast” (=luncheon) given by Molotov for Figl and Kreisky on 16 February 1954, 06/13a725/7/39, Archiv vnešnej politiki Rossijkoj Federacii [Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation] (hereaft er cited as AVPRF), Moscow, Russia.

²² See Stourzh, Einheit, 164–65, 192–220, 391.

²³ See ibid., 352–53.

²⁴ This results from a letter by Gribanov to Foreign Minister Vyšinskij of 28 February 1950, found in the AVPRF by Peter Ruggenthaler, quoted aft er Ruggenthaler, “Warum Ö;sterreich nicht sowjetisiert wurde,” 684.

²⁵ On this, see Stourzh, Einheit, 221.

²⁶ Report by Envoy (Gesandter) Wildmann, 19 November 1952, Zl. 158.341-pol/52, Records of the Foreign Ministry, AdR, ÖStA. Reprinted in Schilcher, Alfons, Österreich und die Groηmächte: Dokumente zur Österreichischen Auηenpolitik, 1945–1955 (Vienna, 1980)Google Scholar, document no. 64, 158–60. This edition contains many very revealing documents, however, it has considerable editorial weaknesses; see the review by this author in Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 36 (1983): 434–40. Additional information by Nikolaus Basseches from 1953, 1954, and 1955 up to the immediate preparatory period of the Moscow negotiations of April 1955 was forwarded in reports from the legation in Bern to the Foreign Office in Vienna (see Stourzh, Einheit, 350–51n35, and 422n216); some of these were published by Schilcher, Österreich und die Groηmächte. The information imparted by Basseches deserves a more thorough investigation in light of the archival materials gradually becoming available in Moscow. For instance, a report by the legation in Bern dated 16 December 1954 shows that at least some power centers in Moscow expected the ratification of the Paris Treaties at a very early date (see Stourzh, Einheit, 350n35). On the sources of Basseches's information nothing is known so far; should they have their origins in the orbit of the Central Committee, they would be of considerable relevance, as I wrote in 1998 (ibid.).

²⁷ Jenny, Christian, Konsensformel oder Vorbild?: Die Entstehung der Österreichischen Neutralität und ihr Schweizer Muster (Bern, 1995), 80.Google Scholar

²⁸ Khrushchev, Nikita S., Vremja, Ljudi, Vlast’: Vospominanija [Time, people, power: Memoirs], vol. 2 (Moscow, 1999), 215Google Scholar. Khrushchev adds that Stalin had tossed up this question at a time when Molotov no longer belonged to the circle of people who had direct access to Stalin. After the XIXth Party Congress, Molotov was banished from the closer environment of Stalin. Thus it might be possible that, to Molotov, “the most recent point of view which Stalin held in the last months of his life with regard to the Peace Treaty with Austria was unknown.” Khrushchev adds also, however, that he suspected that Stalin may have revealed his considerations concerning Austria to Molotov prior to the XIXth Party Congress (ibid.). Molotov fell into disgrace (noticeable to the public) immediately after the end of the XIXth Party Congress (5–14 October 1952); on 16 October, Stalin proclaimed the transformation of the Politburo into a more extended Presidium, with a bureau of nine persons, for which Molotov was not nominated. There was also a violent verbal attack by Stalin in a plenary meeting of the Central Committee on 16 October 1952. On this, see Yoram Gorlitzki and Oleg Khlevniuk, Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953 (Oxford, 2004), 148–51. The Soviet initiative on talks with Austrians mentioned in the main text began on 11 September, about one month prior to the party congress; the conversation in Bern took place hardly five weeks after the end of the party congress. I stress these two initiatives in Washington and in Bern because, owing to a frequently voiced cliché, Stalin's death was the turning point between the blocking and unblocking of the State Treaty question. It is to be hoped that sources that become available in the future in Moscow will bring more clarity into the origins of these initiatives.

²⁹ Adold Schärf was Austrian vice chancellor from December 1945 to May 1957 and federal president from May 1957 to February 1965. Bruno Kreisky was state secretary (in American terms, undersecretary of state) for foreign affairs from April 1953 to July 1959, foreign minister from July 1959 to April 1966, and chancellor from April 1970 to May 1983.

³⁰ For more detail on this, see Stourzh, Einheit, 252–82. 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., 253–55). Foreign Minister Gruber's statement in the National Council in April 1952 is significant: “It is the opinion of the Austrian Federal Government that we stand on the ground of neutrality according to international law.” Full quotation and context in Stourzh, Einheit, 276–77. In the case of Kreisky, his special affinity for Sweden should be noted. See the article by Karl Molin, “The Supportive Observer: Sweden and the Austrian State Treaty 19554/55,” in Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 397–415. The connection between the conclusion of the State Treaty and the declaration of neutrality is briefly related, yet with awareness of the relevant problems, in the extensive work by Gehler, Michael, Österreichs Aussenpolitik der Zweiten Republik: Von der alliierten Besatzung bis zum Europa des 21. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Innsbruck, 2005), 1:102–8.Google Scholar

³¹ Stourzh, Einheit, 238–39. At the same time, Austria, on Soviet insistence, renounced adherence to the draft of the so-called “Short Treaty,” which had been submitted for discussion by the Western powers in March 1952; this draft had omitted the question of “German property” and therefore did not contain the concessions that had been made to the Soviets in this area in 1949; the Soviet Union immediately and categorically turned down the “Short Treaty” as a basis of negotiations.

³² Figl's declaration at the Berlin Conference of Foreign Ministers on 13 February 1954, in Csáky, Der Weg zu Freiheit und Neutralität, document no. 140, 329–30.

³³ Dulles's notes on the talks with Molotov are in Foreign Relations of the United States 1952–1954, vol. 7 (Washington, 1986), 1080–81, quoted in Stourzh, Einheit, 309–10. The “lacking willingness of the Western powers to have the neutrality clause anchored in the State Treaty and then to sign it” of which Gehler (Ö;sterreichs Auηenpolitik, 1:133) writes, was not a theme any longer after the Soviet Union yielded in the direction of Dulles's conception in April 1955.

³⁴ Dulles's statement is confirmed in the Soviet notes on the Dulles-Molotov conversation, though rendered there a bit more fully. Dulles said in the conversation with Molotov (which also touched other topics) that the Austrian Government would be prepared to pursue a policy of neutrality in order to transform (prevratit’) Austria into “a second Switzerland” and that the United States would not attempt on their part to draw Austria into the North Atlantic Pact, the European Defense Community, or any other similar alliances. Before that, Dulles had also said that the most unacceptable part of the Soviet proposals on Austria was the proposal on the continued presence of the four powers in Austria. See 06/13a/25/7/32, AVPRF. Characteristic for the difficult climate of the negotiations on Austria at the Berlin Conference is the fact that Molotov, in a first conversation with Figl on 11 February 1954, reproachfully and extensively spoke on Austria's support for the “Short Treaty” draft (sokraščënij dogovor), though Austria had distanced itself quite clearly from the “Short Treaty” as early as August and September 1953.

³⁵ Full text quoted in Stourzh, Einheit, 310. Alexej Filitov, in his article “The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle and the Austrian State Treaty,” in Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 121–43, esp. 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-Groηmachtpolitik gegenüber Österreich, 1953–1963 (Vienna, 1997)Google Scholar; and Pape, Matthias, Ungleiche Brüder: Österreich und Deutschland, 1945–1965 (Cologne, 1999)Google Scholar. I have to observe the following:

First. Dulles did not generally speak of a “neutral status” for Austria, but very specifically of a neutrality to be voluntarily declared by Austria, and he emphasized the example of Switzerland.

Second. Dulles's statement was (also) a “tactical ploy,” but not against “obstructionism” or “Soviet intransigence,” as Rathkolb argues (Washington ruft Wien, 271), but against a much more specific object, namely, against the Soviet demand of inserting an article of neutralization into the State Treaty. The Western powers categorically turned this down because it meant a “precedent for Germany” for them, as Figl recognized correctly (on this see Stourzh, Einheit, 308–11).

Third. Dulles's statement was more than a “tactical ploy;” it demonstrated a definitely serious willingness to accept an Austria free of alliances or neutral—not however a neutralized one!—similar to Switzerland, if Austria should wish this. 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 1952–1954, 7:1910–12) 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).

With reference to the opinion of Matthias Pape, accepted by Filitov, that Dulles's statement that a freely chosen neutrality was “honorable” was made with the certainty that the State Treaty would not materialize anyway, I would like to say that this speculative remark is not substantiated by the sources cited (debate in the National Security Council October 1953; conversation of Eisenhower and Dulles, January 1954). When Pape opines further that Dulles's positive statement on neutrality in February 1954 had the consequence that “Austria in the future would refer to this as a negotiating basis vis-à-vis America,” I hold against it that not the Austrians, but the Soviets were the first ones to bring Dulles's Berlin declaration into play. See Stourzh, Einheit, 407–08, 434–35, 640–42; and also Rostislav Sergeev, “Wie der Durchbruch in der Österreichischen Frage erreicht wurde,” in Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 195–204, esp. 201.

³⁶ See the preparatory document of three high Soviet diplomats dated 27 November 1953, 066/35/187/28/1–5, AVPRF; Puškin, Il'ičëv, Gribanov to Molotov, 27 November 1953. The contents are rendered in detail in Stourzh, Einheit, 298–300; see also Mueller, “Gab es eine ‘verpasste Chance’?,” 119–20.

³⁷ In a conversation already referred to between Figl and Kreisky on one side and Molotov on the other, on 16 February 1954—at a time when the failure of the Austrian question in Berlin was quite apparent—Figl pointed to the inconsistency of the Soviet position, which requested on the one hand the continued presence of allied troops in Austria, and, on the other hand, demanded Austria's neutralization through the State Treaty. 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]. 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. With the conclusion of the Austrian treaty, the Soviet Union could strike a decisive blow against the establishment of the European Defense Community. Kreisky expressed the opinion that the failure of the Austrian negotiations would give the greatest joy to the representatives of West Germany; he added that the signing of the Austrian treaty would shake the very basis of Adenauer's policy. He argued to no avail. 06/13a/25/7/33–40, esp. 35, 37–38, AVPRF.

³⁸ On Khrushchev's new foreign policy line of 1955 and 1956 and on the diff erences with Molotov, see the excellent part III, “Attempts at Détente,” in the already-cited work by Mastny, “Die NATO im sowjetischen Denken und Handeln,” 439–71. See also the discussion of the origins of the Warsaw Pact in ibid., 439–46.

³⁹ This rapprochement had begun in the course of the year 1954; see the exchange of letters between Khrushchev and Tito from June to September 1954 in Rajak, Svetozar, “New Evidence from Yugoslav Archives,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 12/13 (2001): 315–23.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See above, near note 19.

⁴¹ See Stourzh, Einheit, 465–66, on the basis of the memoirs of an eye- and ear witness, the Yugoslav diplomat of Slovene origins, Bogdan Osolnik; see also the article by Arnold Suppan, “Jugoslawien und der Österreichische Staatsvertrag,” in Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 431–71, esp. 463.

⁴² According to a report dated 8 March 1955 by the French deputy high commissioner and chargé d'affaires in Vienna, Roger Lalouette, on a conversation with Kreisky, rendered in detail in Michael Gehler, “Österreich und die deutsche Frage 1954/55: Zur ‘Modellfall’-Debatte in der internationalen Diplomatie und der bundesdeutschen Öffentlichkeit aus franzÖsischer Sicht,” in Bericht über den zwanzigsten Österreichischen Historikertag in Bregenz 1994, ed. Verband Österreichischer Historiker und Geschichtsvereine (Vienna, 1998 [1999]), 83–134, esp. 95. Certain ideas of Kreisky's, rendered in the same report, about the possible formation of a neutral belt in Europe, contemplating Yugoslavia (and possibly Austria) on the one hand, and Finland and Sweden on the other, strongly remind one of formulations in an important report by Ambassador Bischoff from Moscow dated 28 February 1955 (see Stourzh, Einheit, 347), according to which Austria, in Soviet thinking, was attributed a “functionally similar role” to that of “Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.”

⁴³ Quoted in the contribution of Suppan, “Jugoslawien und der Österreichische Staatsvertrag,” 468.

⁴⁴ See below at note 53.

⁴⁵ Stourzh, Einheit, 466.

⁴⁶ This is stressed by Filitov, “The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle,” 133–38.

⁴⁷ On the hope for the availability of Malin's notes, see Stourzh, Einheit, 336.

⁴⁸ Fursenko, A. A., ed., Prezidium ZK KPSS 1954–1964, vol. 1 (Moscow, 2003), esp. 29, 35, 38, and 41.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ For this verbal information, I am grateful to Dr. Michail Prozumenščikov, 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.

⁵⁰ Professor Filitov has rightly referred to the signifi cance of Mikoyan's contribution to the debate in the July Plenum, and also to the fact that not the first version, but the printed, last version of Mikoyan's intervention is the more important one. I stressed as early as 1998 that Mikoyan was the one who spoke in greatest detail and was best informed about the development of the Austrian policy of the Soviet Union, and I have rendered the content of Mikoyan's speech according to the printed, final version. See Stourzh, Einheit, 456–57.

⁵¹ See Stourzh, Einheit, 345; and now Filitov, “The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle.” On the possible, at least approximate dates of the three meetings mentioned by Mikoyan, the following may be said, in large part in agreement with Professor Filitov, who correctly refers to the uncertainties due to the lack of sources. According to Mikoyan, the first meeting took place well before the Plenum of the Central Committee of the end of January 1955 (see Stourzh, Einheit, 456; and Filitov, “The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle,” 135). The first papers of the Foreign Ministry are dated 19 and 24 January 1955, respectively. The paper written first, signed by Semënov alone and directed to Molotov, is entitled “Soviet-Austrian relations (1950–54),” though mentioned in Filitov's article (note 28), is not analyzed there; it was written on 19 January, though the outgoing date is 29 January 1955, as indicated by Filitov. Its archival designation is 066/14a/40/119/5–20 AVPRF; a copy of it is available in Vienna in the Foundation “Bruno Kreisky-Archiv.” On its content, see Stourzh, Einheit, 337–38. One may express the hypothesis that the first meeting of the Party Presidium mentioned by Mikoyan antedated these position papers; it possibly took place in the first half of January 1955. According to Mikoyan, there seem to have been fierce arguments, notably between Bulganin and Molotov (see Stourzh, Einheit, 456). A second meeting of the Presidium where the Austrian question was discussed took place on 24 February 1955, as is evident from a fi le paper in the Foreign Ministry (Stourzh, Einheit, 345; Filitov, “The Stalin Post-Succession Struggle,” 140). Professor Filitov expresses the view that this meeting was the “stormy” one of which Mikoyan spoke, while I tend to the view that the fiercest arguments took place in the first meeting mentioned by Mikoyan (some time prior to the Plenum of the Central Committee which met at the end of January 1955). According to the estimate of Professor Filitov, a third meeting should have taken place between 22 and 25 March (Filitov, “The Post-Stalin Succession Struggle,” 141). 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).

⁵² Filitov, “The Post-Stalin-Succession Struggle.”

⁵³ Izvestija [News], 10 March 1955, 4; Pravda [Truth], 12 March 1955, 4. I hereby correct the erroneous date of 11 March 1955 for both newspapers given in Stourzh, Einheit, 335. Tito's criticism of Molotov contained references that allow one to assume already existing “direct contacts” between the Yugoslav party leadership and “responsible personalities” of the Eastern bloc. There is a signifi cant reference about this in Curt Gasteyger, “Die sowjetische Europapolitik,” in Die internationale Politik 1955: Eine Einführung in das Geschehen der Gegenwart, ed. Arnold Bergsträsser and Wilhelm Cornides (Munich, 1958), 959n57. Molotov was not admitted into the delegation that traveled to Belgrade at the end of May 1955 under the leadership of Khrushchev and Bulganin—a journey then considered a sensation. The announcement of the journey and the listing of the names of the most important members of the Soviet delegation (without Molotov) took place on 14 May 1955, the day of the conclusion of the Warsaw Pact and one day before the signing of the State Treaty.

⁵⁴ On this subject, there are reports of an eye- and ear-witness, Ambassador Rostislav Sergeev, in “Wie der Durchbruch in der Österreichischen Frage erzielt wurde,” in Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 203–4; and Sergeev and Ludwig Steiner, “Die Österreichisch-sowjetischen Beziehungen 1953–1955 und der Weg zum Staatsvertrag” (extract of a conversation with Michael Gehler and Helmut Wohnout), in Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 205–13, esp. 208.

⁵⁵ On resistance in Vienna, see Stourzh, Einheit, 349, 371–72; on resistance in the Moscow Party Presidium, see Mikoyan in the secret July Plenum of the Central Committee, in Stourzh, Einheit, 401.

⁵⁶ On these preparations, see the account based on Soviet archival sources in ibid., 345–46, 368–69, 400–415.

⁵⁷ Facsimile of the handwritten text of the statement by President Körner, ibid., 240.

⁵⁸ Negotiations began in earnest on 12 April and were concluded on 15 April 1955 with the initialing of the “Moscow Memorandum.”

⁵⁹ Otto Eiselsberg, Erlebte Geschichte 1917–1997 (Vienna, 1997), 232–33, 234–35. Ambassador Eiselsberg met this person in a Moscow hospital on the occasion of a visit to the ailing Ambassador Bischoff. On the basis of information received from Bischoff, Eiselsberg writes that details of the Moscow negotiations may have been prepared “through the contacts Bischoff -Alexej” (this confidential individual presented himself to Eiselsberg as “Alexei Alexejewitsch”). Ibid., 233. Bischoff reported to Raab on these talks in a correspondence directed via the maid-servant of the Bischoff family in Vienna. This lady (whose name is known to the author) brought Bischoff's letters personally to Raab. Raab's replies also went via the same person. Both Raab's and Bischoff's letters were presumably destroyed immediately after having been received and read; a typewritten statement by Professor Friedrich Bischoff, son of Ambassador Bischoff, dated March 1998, is to be found in the Nachlass Bischoff in the ÖStA; in the same sense, information of Professor Bischoff to this author, March 1998. Professor Bischoff also once met his father's interlocutor. Ambassador Bischoff mentioned to Eiselsberg that he had only a single foreign diplomat among his contacts, French Ambassador Louis Joxe. In March 1981, when Eiselsberg was Austrian ambassador to Paris, Ambassador Joxe confirmed vis-à-vis Otto Eiselsberg the fact of Bischoff's 1955 information; Joxe had, according to Eiselsberg, in view of Bischoff's request for confidentiality, not reported to the Quai d'Orsay either in writing or telegraphically; some high officials in Paris, among them the subsequent secretary general of the Quai d'Orsay, Jean-Marie Soutou, were apparently informed verbally. Eiselsberg, Erlebte Geschichte, 234; and personal information given to the author by Ambassador Eiselsberg, 17 December 1992.

⁶⁰ On this episode, see Rostislav Sergeev, “Wie der Durchbruch in der Österreichischen Frage erreicht wurde,” 200–201; and (with minimal differences—Bulganin, after having returned to the other Soviet guests, had said “everything in order”) verbal information given to the author by Ambassador Sergeev on 10 April 2000 in Moscow on the occasion of a dinner given by the Austrian ambassador, Franz Cede, in the same rooms in which the dinner on 12 April 1955 had taken place. This episode was first published by the author in “Reply to the Commentators, Historiography Roundtable on Stourzh's Staatsvertragsgeschichte (Atlanta, 1999),” in Neutrality in Austria, ed. Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Ruth Wodak, Contemporary Austrian Studies, 9 (New Brunswick, 2001), 290–91.

⁶¹ Quoted in Stourzh, Einheit, 495.

⁶² Eiselsberg, Erlebte Geschichte, 233–34.

⁶³ See Molin, “The Supportive Observer,” 401–2.

⁶⁴ Cipher-telegram by Ambassador Sohlman to Stockholm No. 204, 14 April 1955, cited in ibid. The editors of the volume on the Austrian State Treaty, Arnold Suppan, Wolfgang Mueller, and myself, are deeply grateful to Professor Molin, who has put at their disposition extracts and resumés of cipher-telegrams and letters of Ambassador Sohlman to Stockholm (Archives of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, vol. 40, HPI CÖ) in English translation. These are important newly available sources for the history of the Moscow negotiations.

⁶⁵ The Austrian stenographic minutes of the Moscow negotiations taken by Josef Schöner, then political director of the Austrian Foreign Office, were transcribed by Schöner himself into a typewritten longhand version; they are edited and commented on by Stourzh, Einheit, document 3, 615–66, esp. 641–43. These are not “diaries” by Schöner, as the minutes are erroneously referred to in Gehler, Österreichs Auηenpolitik, 2:1170n27.

⁶⁶ Complete text in Stourzh, Einheit, 641–42. 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. The author had a German translation made by Prof. Hofrat Dr. Viktor Petioky, one-time chief interpreter of the Austrian Government for the Czech and Russian languages. This German translation of the Russian text has been amply quoted in my edition of the Schöner minutes in Einheit, 615–66. The Russian version of the discussion is slightly briefer than the Austrian notes taken by Schöner quoted in the text above as follows (author's English translation taken from the German text of the Soviet record): “Raab asks, whether the Soviet delegation does not believe that the word ‘neutrality’ could lead to difficulties in the negotiations with the three [Western] powers and give cause for a delay in the conclusion of the Austrian Treaty. In our declaration, Raab says, we essentially put forward such an Austrian standpoint which means the keeping of neutrality by Austria, we only avoid employing the word ‘neutrality.’

Molotov says, the employment of the word ‘neutrality’ in the Austrian declaration will not cause complications. The declaration of the Austrian President Körner which I have read aloud—says Molotov—has not called forth any negative reaction on the side of the three powers. The declaration of Dulles at the Berlin Conference also is an indication that there cannot be any complications in this respect.

Raab asks about when Austria should make public its declaration about the keeping (Wahrung) of neutrality.

Molotov replies: on the day of the signing of the Austrian State Treaty.

Schärf observes that the Austrian delegation understands the matter as follows: Here we essentially come to an agreement about the matter, yet we will not publish it. Then the Austrian Government will submit this question as its own initiative to Parliament.

Molotov agrees to this, yet he declares, the agreement made among us in this question should now be initialed in Moscow in the form of a document.” 06/14/9/117/1–50, esp. 21–22, AVPRF.

⁶⁷ Stourzh, Einheit, 643.

⁶⁸ Full German text reprinted as Document 4, ibid., 667–70.

⁶⁹ On this, see, with recent sources, Rudolf Jeřábek, “Verm¨gensfragen im deutsch-österreichischen Verhältnis 1955–1957,” in Der österreichische Staatsvertrag, ed. Suppan, Stourzh, and Mueller, 535–600. See also Matthias Pape, Ungleiche Brüder, 445–59. The Innsbruck weekly Volksbote, which was critical as to the tendency of the treaty, was not Communist, as Pape says (ibid., 461), but Catholic.

⁷⁰ Seidel, Hans, “Der lange Weg zum Staatsvertrag,” in Seidel, Österreichs Wirtschaft und Wirtschaftspolitik nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Vienna, 2005), 343–482.Google Scholar

⁷¹ See Chart 4.37 in ibid., 467.

⁷² Fisch, Jörg, Reparationen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich, 1992), 226–32Google Scholar, quoted in Stourzh, Einheit, 596.

⁷³ Seidel, Österreichs Wirtschaft, 466–67.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 477.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 478.

⁷⁶ For his overviews, Seidel employs 1955 US dollars (bereinigte Dollarwerte) and calculates the losses from the Soviet exploitation of oil in the occupation decade 1945–55 at a median value of US$ 227 million. He indicates the amount of Soviet exports (unpaid, no taxes paid) from Austria of crude oil and mineral oil products for the period 1947–55 as 12.7 million tons (Ibid., 474). On an earlier occasion, Reinhard Kamitz estimated the losses of crude oil and mineral oil products due to the Soviets during the occupation decade at 11 million tons (see Stourzh, Einheit, 595). Estimates in tons are easier to grasp than estimates in 1955 US dollars.

⁷⁷ This figure is composed of payments (in cash or kind) during the occupation decade of 1,533 million dollars and transfer payments (Ablösezahlungen) again in cash or kind beginning in 1955 of 299 million dollars. See Seidel, Österreichs Wirtschaft, 467. In this last sum, the amount of 2 million dollars paid as transfer for the assets of the Danube Steamship Company in eastern Austria is not included and ought to be added. On the other hand, the Federal Republic of Germany obligated itself to a payment of 135 million Schillings (US$ 5,109,222 at the 1955 exchange rate of 1:26) as compensation for the Austrian transfer payments (in the amount of US$ 150 million) for the USIA enterprises. See Ebert, Michael, “Bonn-Wien: Die deutsch-österreichischen Beziehungen von 1945 bis 1961 aus westdeutscher Perspektive unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Österreichpolitik des Auswärtigen Amtes” (PhD diss., University of Kiel, 2003), 192.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ On the question of Austrian reparations at the Potsdam Conference, see Stourzh, Einheit, 85.

⁷⁹ Seidel, Österreichs Wirtschaft, 392.

⁸⁰ Ibid., 31–32, 401, and 448–54. The original demands of Western oil companies amounted to approximately US$ 80 million.

⁸¹ For an extensive discussion of this topic, see Stourzh, Einheit, 450–85; and most recently Gehler, Michael, “Der Staatsvertrag, die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und die Deutsche Frage 1947/49–1955,” in Die Gunst des Augenblicks: Neuere Forschungen zu Staatsvertrag und Neutralität, ed. Rauchensteiner, Manfried and Kriechbaumer, Robert (Vienna, 2005), 379–431.Google Scholar

⁸² See Stourzh, Einheit, 478. 06/14/10/118/88–89 AVPRF. Revised instruction on the basis of a decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU of 13 May 1955, copy in: Stiftung Bruno Kreisky-Archiv, Vienna. As far as I can see, this document has not yet received the attention it deserves in the literature on Soviet German policy in the spring of 1955.

⁸³ Quoted according to Mastny, “Die NATO im sowjetischen Denken und Handeln,” 446.

⁸⁴ Stourzh, Einheit, 480–85.

⁸⁵ Franz Cede, “Staatsvertrag und Neutralität aus heutiger Sicht,” in Die Gunst des Augenblicks, ed. Rauchensteiner and Kriechbaumer, 519–35, esp. 524–25. In a recent article on the theme of the State Treaty and neutrality, some regrettable errors have occurred. It is not true that the allies in the State Treaty negotiations had requested neutrality, as has been written by Liebhart, Karin and Pribersky, Andreas, “Die Mythisierung des Neubeginns: Staatsvertrag und Neutralität,” in Memoria Austriae, vol. 1, Menschen, Mythen, Zeiten, ed. Brix, Emil, Bruckmüller, Ernst, and Stekl, Hannes (Vienna, 2004), 392–417, esp. 393Google Scholar. Neutrality was demanded from the Soviet side and accepted (also in view of positive voices from Austria) by the Western powers. Furthermore, it is not correct that Austria interpreted neutrality (already one year after its entry into force) differently than Switzerland (ibid., 400). An important difference between the Swiss and Austrian understandings of neutrality became quite clear very early, namely during the Moscow negotiations in April 1955, when the Austrians made it clear that they intended to stick to the intended membership in the UN (which incidentally was provided for, as was the four powers' support for this membership, in the preamble to the State Treaty), and the Soviets had no objection. See Stourzh, Einheit, 575. Austria was admitted to the United Nations seven weeks aft er the passing of the Neutrality Law on 14 December 1955. As early as February 1956, the government decided, on the initiative of the Socialists, to join the Council of Europe. That the two authors do not have very clear views about the historical developments of the year 1955 is also evidenced by their statement that the Vienna State Opera was reopened “in the spring of 1955, in the preparatory period prior to the signing of the State Treaty” (Liebhart and Pribersky, “Die Mythisierung des Neubeginns,” 394). Actually, the reopening of the State Opera, with John Foster Dulles in attendance, took place on 5 November 1955.

⁸⁶ Full text in Stourzh, Einheit, 683–84.

⁸⁷ Bruno Simma and Hans-Peter Folz, Restitution und Entschädigung im Völkerrecht: die Verpflichtungen der Republik Österreich nach 1945 im Lichte ihrer auηenpolitischen Praxis, Veröffentlichungen der österreichischen Historikerkommission. Vermögensentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich, 6 (Vienna, 2004), 270.

⁸⁸ Speech of Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger on 4 June 1981 on the occasion of the final meeting of the Fonds für Hilfeleistung für politisch Verfolgte (Hilfsfonds), Die Gemeinde, 8 July 1981, 18.

⁸⁹ The document usually referred to as the “Washington agreement” is officially designated as “Joint Statement and Annexes,” dated Washington, DC, 17 January 2001; the relevant clause is Annex A, paragraph 1. The purpose of the Washington agreement was to bring to a definitive end the issue of insufficient (or as in the case of “aryanized” rented apartments, non-existent) compensation and/or restitution and social benefits arising out of the deprivations, material and otherwise, suffered by the victims of Nazi racial persecution. Its English text is available in Bundesministerium für Angelegenheiten, Auswärtige, ed., Aussenpolitische Dokumentation 2001: Sonderdruck: Österreichische Maηnahmen zur Restitution und Entschädigung von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus (Vienna, 2001), 86–103Google Scholar, esp. 88.

⁹⁰ Renate S. Meissner, ed., 10 Jahre Nationalfonds: Zahlen, Daten, Fakten (Vienna: Nationalfonds der Republik Österreich für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, 2005), 18–22.

⁹¹ Cited according to Der Standard, 28 April 2005, 7.

⁹² Zuckmayer, Carl, Als wär's ein Stück von mir: Erinnerungen (Frankfurt am Main, 1966), 71.Google Scholar

⁹³ Rosenkranz, Herbert, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung: Die Juden in Österreich, 1938–1945 (Vienna, 1978), 23Google Scholar. In March 2000, I concluded a lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with the following words: “In view of what happened then, and worse things to come, may I say this: I stand in shame, inerasable. I stand in awe, reflecting on Dr. Taglicht's words. And I stand committed to pass on to younger men and women my conviction. This must not be allowed to happen ever, ever again.” Stourzh, Gerald, “The Age of Assimilation and Emancipation: Liberalism and its Heritage,” in Österreich-Konzeptionen und jüdisches Selbstverständnis: Identitäts-Transfigurationen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Mitelmann, Hanni and Wallas, Armin A. (Tübingen, 2001), 11–28Google Scholar, esp. 28.

⁹⁴ The monument commemorates the victims of war and fascism and the founding of the Second Republic; its central part shows the figure of a Jew scrubbing the streets of Vienna.

⁹⁵ Treichl, Wolfgang, Am Ende war die Tat, edited posthumously by his brothers and sisters (Vienna, 1992), 60.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Accounts of Treichl's death vary. The official notification of Treichl's death in October 1945 says that “he was finally killed on active service on 13 October 1944 (Treichl, Am Ende war die Tat, 65). Peter Wilkinson, the chief of Special Operations Executive (SOE) for Slovenia and Austria, has written that “Treichl and three other Austrians were dropped into the arms of a German patrol. Treichl was shot and killed on landing.” See Wilkinson, Peter, Foreign Fields: The Story of an SOE Operative (London, 1997), 207Google Scholar. On the other hand, recent research contains indications that Treichl, before the Germans could get hold of him, shot himself. See Pirker, Peter in Martin-Smith, Patrick, Widerstand vom Himmel: Östereicheinsätze des britischen Geheimdienstes SOE 1944, ed. Pirker, Peter (Vienna, 2004), 315.Google Scholar Pirker (ibid., 316), writes: “Treichl's extraordinary deed and his intentions to fi ght indeed against National Socialism speak in Austria for themselves. They stand out. They do not need heroic transfiguration.”