Felix Austria? Cold War security policy between NATO, neutrality, and the Warsaw Pact, 1945--198

Following the Third Reich's defeat in 1945, officially "liberated" Austria found itself under a quadripartite occupation similar to that of its northern neighbor, Germany. Contrary to official Austrian historiography immediately following the conflict and public pronouncements of the four occupying powers from the anti-Hitler coalition, Austria was far less the "first victim" of German aggression and much more of a willing participant in Nazi crimes than Austrians or privately suspicious Allied leaders cared to admit.;As the Cold War developed, Austria faced the twin dangers of Communist subversion and national division along East-West occupation zone boundaries as would occur in Germany. Austria's clear rejection of Communism and establishment of a unified government, as exhibited in the Social Democratic-Christian Democratic Grand Coalition produced by national elections in November 1945, was of central importance in combating these dangers. Nonetheless, some form of neutrality to forestall any anticipated adherence of an independent Austria to Western military alliances emerged as a precondition for Soviet evacuation of Austria and occupation's end.;Not necessarily adverse to the foreswearing of military commitments after several military misadventures in recent Austrian history, Austrians paid the political price in 1955 of agreeing to adopt permanent neutrality as the policy of a sovereign Austria, thereby paving the way for occupation's end with the State Treaty of that year. Subsequent decades would show, though, that Austrian aversion to all things military meant that Austrians never seriously applied themselves to the fulfillment of neutrality's own military commitments. Austria's Second Republic, meanwhile, developed as a member in good standing of the Western world, thoroughly integrated in all but the military sense with the European and transatlantic community.;As such, Austria became de facto dependent upon NATO for protection against the only real security threat facing Austria, namely the Communist bloc on Austria's eastern borders. Events such as the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 as well as transits of American transports in 1958 repeatedly demonstrated this state of affairs. Analysis of Austrian neutrality shows that neutrality has only limited utility in special circumstances and is ultimately unworkable in the modern world.