A Study Of Soviet Policy In Austria, 1938-1955

The Essence of the Austria question is to restore its sovereignty. Austria was involvedin World War â…¡as a part of Germany after German anschluss in March 1938. According to"The Declaration of Austria" during the Moscow Council of ForeignMinisters(CFM)Meeting in 1943, postwar Austria was permitted to restore its sovereignty,and required to bear its share of responsibility in Germany's war efforts against the UnitedNations. Austria had been occupied for ten years between Austrian liberation in 1945 andthe conclusion of the Austrian Treaty in 1955. It war just the period of the first Cold War,and the foreign relations of the big powers dominated the settlement of the Austria question.As an important occupation power, the changes of the Soviet foreign policy had a greatinfluence upon the Austrian Treaty issue. This paper attempts to interprets the effects of the evolution of the Soviet diplomacyand Austrian independent foreign policy upon the conclusion of the Austrian Treaty in thebackground of U.S.-Soviet cold war utilizing the Soviet-Austria relations documents andRussian archives declassified recently on the Austrian issue.The Soviet Union linked theAustrian question to the war reparations, West German rearmament and Trieste issues, andAustria became a hostage of the cold war. This shows the complexity of the cold war in theCentral Europe.