Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 42. (1992)
BISCHOF, Günter: The Anglo-American Powers and Austrian Neutrality, 1953–1955
The Anglo-American Powers and Austrian Neutrality 1953-1955 The West viewed bilateral Austro-Soviet negotiations with great misgivings; successful bilateral talks with Moscow and a „neutralization“ of Austria might set a bad example for the Germans. But in the end, the Western powers could not obstruct the signing of an Austrian Treaty, if Austria was willing to pay the price of neutrality for it. Washington and London made sure, however, that it would be an armed neutrality. A demilitarization of Austria was unacceptable to the political and military leadership of the West. I. Before we explore the reasons for Western scepticism and distrust of Austrian neutrality in the final two years of negotiations for an Austrian State Treaty, however, a brief historiographical review is required. The diplomatic records for the 1953 to 1955 period have only been opened very recently in the British and American archives. Hitherto historians have had no sources on which to draw firm conclusions about Western views towards Austrian neutrality3). The records of the Austrian Foreign Ministry for 1953-1955 have only been accessible to „especially qualified“ historians4). How then, briefly, has the available scholarship presented the period from 1953 till 1955?5) The first scholarly accounts of the 1960’s by Stearman (1962) and Bader (1966) paid little attention to Stalin’s death 3) In accordance with archival practises of opening the record 30 years after the event, the British Foreign Office files on Austria for the years 1953-1955 were opened 1984-1986. The files of the U.S. State Department for Austria 1955-1959 have been opened in the spring of 1988, some years behind the 25-year opening schedule. The Foreign Relations of the United States volume on Austria and Germany for 1952-1954 has appeared in 1986; the one on 1955 is scheduled to appear in 1989. Moreover, important do cuments can also been found in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene and in the John Foster Dulles Papers at Princeton. On the American and British and French record holdings on Austria, see the essays by Robert Wolfe, Robert Knight and Klaus Eisterer in Die Bevormundete Nation: Österreich und die Alliierten 1945-1949, ed. by Günter Bischof and Josef Leidenfrost in Innsbrucker Forschungen zur Zeitgeschichte Bd. 4 (Innsbruck 1988) 415-45. 4) Kurt Peball Die Benützungsbestimmungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchives in Bevormundete Nation ed. by Bischof/Leidenfrost 409-13. For the most recent guidelines, see Wiener Zeitung, 16 March 1988. A selection of relevant documents of the Austrian State Archives has been published in Österreich und die Grossmächte: Dokumente zur österreichischen Aussenpolitik 1945-1955, ed. by Alfons Schilcher in Materialien zur Zeitgeschichte Bd. 2 (Wien Salzburg 1980). Professor Gerald Stourzh has criticized, however, the careless editorial preparation of such important documentary evidence by a junior scholar, see Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 36 (1983) 434- 440. 5) For a still useful overview of the literature, see Oliver Rathkolb Literaturbericht: Der Österreichische Staatsvertrag 1955 in Zeitgeschichte 8 (1981) 242-56. 369
