Allied-occupied Austria
The Allied occupation of Austria lasted from 1945 to 1955. Austria had been regarded by Nazi Germany as a constituent part of the German state, but in 1943 the Allied powers agreed in the Declaration of Moscow that it would be regarded as the first victim of Nazi aggression, and treated as a liberated and independent country after the war.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, Austria, like Germany, was divided into four occupation zones and jointly occupied by the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France. Vienna, like Berlin, was similarly subdivided and the central district administered jointly by the Allied Control Council.
Whereas Germany was formally divided into East and West Germany in 1949, Austria remained under joint occupation until 1955; its status became a controversial subject in the Cold War until the warming of relations known as the Khrushchev Thaw. After Austrian promises of perpetual neutrality, Austria was accorded full independence on 12 May 1955 and the last occupation troops left the country on 25 October the same year.
Read more about Allied-occupied Austria: Mounting Losses, Hunger, Marshall Plan, Cold War, Detente, Independence
Famous quotes containing the word austria:
“All the terrors of the French Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the morals, manners, and name of that interest, saying, that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free- masonry. M. de Narbonne, in less than a fortnight, penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)