Skip to Main Content

Skip Nav Destination

Article navigation

November 01 2021

The Austrian State Treaty and the Cold War: Contending Perspectives

Charles S. Maier,

Charles S. Maier

Charles S. Maier is the Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University and has been on the Harvard faculty for more than fifty years.

Search for other works by this author on:

Google Scholar

Günter Bischof,

Günter Bischof

Günter Bischof is the University Research and Marshall Plan Professor of History at the University of New Orleans and director of the university's CenterAustria.

Search for other works by this author on:

Google Scholar

Peter Ruggenthaler,

Peter Ruggenthaler

Peter Ruggenthaler is deputy director of the Boltzmann Institute for the Study of War's Consequences, in Graz, Austria, and director of the institute's Cold War research programs.

Search for other works by this author on:

Google Scholar

Gerald Stourzh,

Gerald Stourzh

Gerald Stourzh is a professor emeritus of modern history at the University of Vienna.

Search for other works by this author on:

Google Scholar

Wolfgang Mueller

Wolfgang Mueller

Wolfgang Mueller is a professor of modern Russian history at the University of Vienna.

Search for other works by this author on:

Google Scholar

Author and Article Information

Charles S. Maier

Charles S. Maier is the Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University and has been on the Harvard faculty for more than fifty years.

Günter Bischof

Günter Bischof is the University Research and Marshall Plan Professor of History at the University of New Orleans and director of the university's CenterAustria.

Peter Ruggenthaler

Peter Ruggenthaler is deputy director of the Boltzmann Institute for the Study of War's Consequences, in Graz, Austria, and director of the institute's Cold War research programs.

Gerald Stourzh

Gerald Stourzh is a professor emeritus of modern history at the University of Vienna.

Wolfgang Mueller

Wolfgang Mueller is a professor of modern Russian history at the University of Vienna.

Online ISSN: 1531-3298

Print ISSN: 1520-3972

© 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2021

by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Journal of Cold War Studies (2021) 23 (4): 211–245.

https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_c_01045

Gerald Stourzh and Wolfgang Mueller, A Cold War over Austria: The Struggle for the State Treaty, Neutrality, and the End of East-West Occupation, 1945–1955, trans. by Cynthia Peck. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. 594 pp. $160.00 hardcover.

How did Austria achieve sovereignty as a multiparty democracy after the defeat of the Third Reich (of which it had been a component from March 1938 on) and a decade of four-power occupation? Austria's experience stood in marked contrast to that of Germany, which was divided into two states—the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR)—and did not manage to reunify as a single country until 1990. If Cold War rivalry was fundamental in preventing German reunification until the Soviet Union renounced its hold over Eastern Europe in 1989–1990, why did that rivalry not preclude restoration of Austrian independence and sovereignty? The Soviet Union, after all, enjoyed a...

You do not currently have access to this content.

Don't already have an account? Register

You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.