Gertrude Enderle-Burcel, Dieter Stiefel, Alice Teichova (Hrsg.): Sonderband 9. „Zarte Bande” – Österreich und die europäischen planwirtschaftlichen Länder / „Delicate Relationships” – Austria and Europe’s Planned Economies (2006)
Eduard Kubů: Restoration and Régularisation of Economie Cooperation under the Circumstances of Accelerating Cold War
of conducting trade between distant regions of Austria as well as with foreign countries. The most important economic connection between the Czech Lands and Austria, which was not broken even by war events, were the deliveries of black coal. As early as on July 18, 1945, the city of Vienna announced to the public that it had started negotiations about deliveries of coal with the Ostrava-Karvinâ mining district and that negotiations were going well.3 For Austrian trade relations with foreign countries, the Austrian Office for Exchange of Goods with Foreign Countries - Österreichisches Warenverkehrsbüro (Act No. 112/45 BGBI.) - was established on July 27, 1945. However, the enormously lengthy formal procedures were a complication because prior consent of business interest Austrian organisations and the relevant Austrian Ministries was needed for every compensatory deal and if the deal involved more than 30 000 schillings, consent of the Allied Council was also needed.4 In spite of this, Czechoslovak-Austrian compensatory trade started to develop under these makeshift conditions. However, the trade could not rely on any standard interstate agreement in the form of business contracts. Compensatory contracts were concluded by individual major Czechoslovak and Austrian industrial enterprises and trade companies as well as by various public administration institutions, quite often even at a lower level. The foundations for extensive post-war trade exchanges were laid by the memorandum of understanding of 1 August 1945 between the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the Czechoslovak Republic and Österreichisches Staatsamt für Industrie, Gewerbe und Verkehr 1945. This memorandum of understanding envisioned the exchange of 15,000 tons of oil for 43,200 tons of metallurgical coke. In connection with this, a number of compensatory agreements were signed. On September 13, 1945, an agreement was signed between the Czechoslovak nationalised enterprise Mühlig-Union Glasindustrie AG Teplitz-Schönau and Landeshauptmannschaft- Landeswirtschaftsamt in Linz/Donau on the delivery of ammoniacal compounds from Ebensee in exchange for brown coal from the Falknov mining district, which was approved by the Military Government of Upper Austria on November 30, 1945 after protracted delays. On September 17, the implementing negotiations on the Restoration and Régularisation of Economic Cooperation zahraniCnich véci ze dne 6.4.1946 [Report by the Office of the Cominissioner Defending Czechoslovak Interests in Austria to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (hereinafter referred to as MFA) dated 6.4.1946]. 3 NAP, MFA - Vystfifkovy archiv [Archive of press cuttings - hereinafter referred to as APC], box 411, Österreichische Zeitung 18.7.1945, article „Kohlenlieferungen aus tSR und Sowjetukraine“. 4 Archives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague (hereinafter referred to as AMFA), Politické zpravodajstvi [Political reports - hereinafter referred to as PR], Rakousko - 1946 [Austria 1946], Zpràva Ufadu zmocnënce k hâjeni Ceskoslovenskÿch zâjmû v Rakousku adresovanà Ministerstvu zahraniCnich vëci ze dne 6.4.1946 [Report by the Office of the Commissioner Defending Czechoslovak Interests in Austria, dated July 2, 1946], 199
