This book not only traces the history of relations between two countries that were occupied by the Allied powers at the end of World War II but also sheds much broader light on the history of the Cold War.
After years of meticulous archival research, the young Austrian historian Maximilian Graf from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna has produced a first-rate book (based on his award-winning Ph.D. dissertation) that deserves international recognition. The book makes a major contribution to the history of the two Germanys during the Cold War and provides fascinating evidence about the complex network of relations involving Austria and the other neutral European states.
From the time the German Democratic Republic (GDR, the Communist state in the east) was founded in 1949, it was keenly interested in being diplomatically recognized by Austria. However, these hopes went unfulfilled even after Austria regained its...