Rudolf Steininger. Der Staatsvertrag: Ö–sterreich im Schatten von deutscher Frage und Kaltem Krieg 1938-1955. Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2005. 197 pp. EUR 19.00 (paper), ISBN 978-3-7065-4017-9.
Reviewed by Timothy Dowling (Department of History, Virginia Military Institute)
Published on H-German (May, 2006)
A Question of Place
It is a bit surprising, perhaps even mildly amusing, for an American reader to note Rolf Steininger's rhetorical introduction to Der Staatsvertrag: "warum noch ein Buch über dieses Thema[?]" (p. 7). Austrian history is not, sadly, that large or notable a field in the United States or in the United Kingdom, and it is not as if the Austrian State Treaty has attracted the attention of historians and publishers to the degree that, for instance, Napoleon or Hitler has. Though Günter Bischof and James Jay Carafano have authored excellent studies of the decade leading up to the Austrian State Treaty, other works on modern Austria are hard to come by in English. Sven Allard's study of Soviet policy with regard to the State Treaty is outdated and Deborah Larson's study of the treaty itself is only fifteen pages long and difficult to come by.[1] In an Austrian context, though, Steininger's question makes perfect sense. At least half a dozen different books either about or relating to the Austrian State Treaty, not including Steininger's, were published in German between 2004 and 2006.[2] It was, after all, the fiftieth anniversary of the event that made Austria an independent, neutral state and 2005 was a "Gedankenjahr" for all Austrians. The question of Austrian identity and the State Treaty figured prominently in exhibits, were the subject of television documentaries and were generally unavoidable topics for natives and tourists alike for the better part of the year.
Steininger's book nonetheless manages to bring something new to the table for audiences on either side of the Austrian border. For Austrians, it almost certainly is, as the author claims, one of the few works on the topic to take on multiple, distinctly non-Austrian viewpoints (p. 7). For the rest of the world, Steininger presents a neat case study, complete with documents, of international politics in the early Cold War. In this regard, it is a shame that the book is not available in English, for it would fit neatly into an advanced undergraduate course or an American graduate seminar as required reading. Der Staatsvertrag can still be of great use in such courses; it contains seven reproductions of notes (mostly from the British Foreign Office records) used or exchanged in the negotiations, and the brevity and detail are such that instructors can readily introduce the case study themselves.
The opening chapters of the book provide the background for Steininger's study. He deals squarely, if briefly, with the nastier elements of the First Austrian Republic and the Anschluß. His work is notable for the forthright manner in which it outlines the conscious creation and manipulation of the idea that Austria was Hitler's first victim. "Natürlich war Österreich als Staat 1938 Opfer," he writes, "für die große Mehrheit der Österreicher war das allerdings alles andere als ein Opfer" (p. 21). The facts of Austrian antisemitism, and official attempts to mitigate its effects after the war, are dealt with in a similarly straightforward fashion.
What makes all of this interesting and relevant for Steininger's purposes, though, is the role that the Allies played. It is well known, for instance, that the notion of Austria as victim was officially propagated by the Allies in the 1943 "Declaration on Austria." Steininger goes well beyond the text of the declaration, however, in tracing the negotiations among the Allies over the wording and tying them directly in to the various proposals for postwar Austria. He makes it exceptionally clear that the question of Austria was from the beginning inextricably linked with the question of Germany, and that it was by no means the "sideshow" that many non-Austrians often take it to be. If anything, Steininger demonstrates, the "Austrian question" was far more important to the Soviets, British and Americans than it was to the Austrians themselves at the time.
By placing the question of Austria's future squarely in context, Steininger demonstrates that the "Austrian Question" can serve as a case study for the whole of the early Cold War and not just as a model for the "German Question." Chapter 4 ("1945-1946: Renner-Regierung und 'deutsches Eigentum'"), for instance, illuminates not only the importance of defining "German property" with regard to any Austrian settlement, but also how important that definition was for the Allies in determining the fate of Czechs, Finns, Yugoslavs and others. Chapter 6 ("1946-1949: Im Schatten von containment und deutscher Frage") illustrates how external developments directly affected Allied policies in and toward Austria, while chapter 7 ("1950-1954: Stalin-Note, Kurzvertrag und roll back") argues that it was the Western Powers (and particularly the Americans) who were determined to make Austria a "test case" in the Cold War.
Perhaps the most interesting of Steininger's chapters, however, deals with the question of South Tirol. In a short space, he manages to take on a complex and little-known topic--the territorial disposition of the region--and demonstrate convincingly that it was not an "Austrian" question but a "Cold War" one. This case study within a case study provides an excellent example of how deeply the Cold War mentality affected even small issues in small states. Scholars not just of modern Austria, but also of the Cold War in general will want to examine the details and the argument laid out in this chapter.
Overall, Der Staatsvertrag is an exceptionally useful work. While not exactly new, Steininger's conclusions are drawn in more striking detail than usual, and the argument is both well thought out and provocative. It is short enough for undergraduate consumption, detailed enough for graduate students, and broad enough to apply to a variety of courses dealing with Austria, Germany, Central Europe, and the Cold War. Scholars may not find new theses, but the details will provide fodder for discussion and perhaps open vistas on new connections to be made within old frameworks.
Notes
[1]. Günter Bischof, Austria in the First Cold War, 1945-55: The Leverage of the Weak (London: Palgrave, 1999); James Jay Carafano, Waltzing into the Cold War: The Struggle for Occupied Austria (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002); Sven Allard, Russia and the Austrian State Treaty: A Case Study of Soviet Policy (College Station: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1970); Deborah Welch Larson, Negotiating the Austrian State Treaty, 1953-1955 (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1995).
[2]. Ernst Trost, Österreich ist frei! Leopold Figl und der Weg zum Staatsvertrag (Vienna: Amalthea, 2005); Manfried Rauchensteiner and Robert Kriechbaumer, Die Gunst des Augenblicks. Neuere Forschungen zu Staatsvertrag und Neutralität (Cologne: Böhlau, 2005); Stefan Karner and Gottfried Stangler, eds., Österreich ist frei--der Österreichische Staatsvertrag 1955 (Munich: Taschenbuch, 2005); Walter Blasi, B-Gendarmerie, Waffenlager und Nachrichtdienste. Der militärische Weg zum Staatsvertrag (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004); Frei - Souverän - Neutral -Europäisch (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2004); Heinz Fischer, Österreich--Zweite Republik. Rückblick und Perspektive (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2006); William Bader Braumüller, Österreich im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ost und West 1945 bis 1955. Eine Nachlese zum Jubiläumsjahr 2005 (Munich: Taschenbuch, 2005). Michael Gehler, Modellfall für Deutschland? Die Österreichlösung des Jahres 1955 (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, forthcoming 2007).
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Citation:
Timothy Dowling. Review of Steininger, Rudolf, Der Staatsvertrag: Ö–sterreich im Schatten von deutscher Frage und Kaltem Krieg 1938-1955.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
May, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11798
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