Britain and the Occupation of Austria, 1943-45 (Studies in Military and Strategic History)

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Britain and the Occupation of Austria, 1943–45 Alice Hills

Studies in Military and Strategic History General Editor: Michael Dockrill, Professor of Diplomatic History, King’s College, London Published titles include: Nigel John Ashton EISENHOWER, MACMILLAN AND THE PROBLEM OF NASSER Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism, 1955–59 Peter Bell CHAMBERLAIN, GERMANY AND JAPAN, 1933–34 G. H. Bennett BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE CURZON PERIOD, 1919–24 David A. Charters THE BRITISH ARMY AND JEWISH INSURGENCY IN PALESTINE, 1945–47 David Clayton IMPERIALISM REVISITED Political and Economic Relations between Britain and China, 1950–54 Michael J. Cohen and Martin Kolinsky (editors) BRITAIN AND THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE 1930s: Security Problems, 1935–39 Paul Cornish BRITISH MILITARY PLANNING FOR THE DEFENCE OF GERMANY, 1945–50 Michael Dockrill BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT PERSPECTIVES ON FRANCE, 1936–40 Robert Frazier ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH GREECE The Coming of the Cold War, 1942–47 John P. S. Gearson HAROLD MACMILLAN AND THE BERLIN WALL CRISIS, 1958–62 John Gooch ARMY, STATE AND SOCIETY IN ITALY, 1870–1915 G. A. H. Gordon BRITISH SEA POWER AND PROCUREMENT BETWEEN THE WARS A Reappraisal of Rearmament Stephen Hartley THE IRISH QUESTION AS A PROBLEM IN BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY, 1914–18 Alice Hills BRITAIN AND THE OCCUPATION OF AUSTRIA, 1943–45

Brian Holden Reid J. F. C. FULLER: Military Thinker Stewart Lone JAPAN’S FIRST MODERN WAR Army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–95 Thomas R. Mockaitis BRITISH COUNTERINSURGENCY, 1919–60 T. R. Moreman THE ARMY IN INDIA AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRONTIER WARFARE, 1849–1947 Kendrick Oliver KENNEDY, MACMILLAN AND THE NUCLEAR TEST-BAN DEBATE, 1961–63 G. D. Sheffield LEADERSHIP IN THE TRENCHES Officer–Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in the British Army in the Era of the First World War Simon Trew BRITAIN, MIHAILOVIC AND THE CHETNIKS, 1941–42 Steven Weiss ALLIES IN CONFLICT Anglo-American Strategic Negotiations, 1938–44 Roger Woodhouse BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS FRANCE, 1945–51

Studies in Military and Strategic History Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71046–0 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Britain and the Occupation of Austria, 1943–45 Alice Hills Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies British Joint Services Command and Staff College Bracknell

in association with KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON

First published in Great Britain 2000 by

MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0–333–80393–0 First published in the United States of America 2000 by ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0–312–23126–1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hills, Alice, 1950– Britain and the occupation of Austria, 1943–45 / Alice Hills. p. cm. — (Studies in military and strategic history) “In association with King’s College, London.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–312–23126–1 1. Military government—Austria—History—20th century. 2. British—Austria— History—20th century. 3. Austria—History—1945– 4. Great Britain—Foreign relations—Austria. 5. Austria—Foreign relations—Great Britain. I. Title. II. Studies in military and strategic history (New York, N.Y.) DB99.1 H48 2000 940.53'436—dc21 99–054894 © Alice Hills 2000 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 09

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

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Contents List of Tables, Figures and Maps

vii

Preface

viii

Abbreviations

xi

1. A Hybrid Task

1

2. British Policy before 1943

16

3. Crystallisation of British Policy

32

4. Co-ordinating Allied Policy

45

5. Planning and the Military

76

6. The British Element of the ACA

95

7. Occupation

107

8. Civil Affairs and Military Government

135

9. Establishing the ACA

161

10. Towards an Independent Austria

184

11. Planning for Postwar Austria

197

Notes

200

Bibliography

211

Index

218

v

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List of Tables, Figures and Maps

Tables 3.1 4.1 9.1 10.1

Major Foreign Office officials referred to in the text First draft of British zoning proposals, January 1945 Allied Commission for Austria, British Element Occupation costs

43 62 182 194

Figures P.1 1.1 4.1 9.1

Relation of themes to chronology War Cabinet organisation for military affairs, June 1944 Initial British proposals for Allied control machinery Allied Commission for Austria, British Element

x 11 52 183

Soviet proposals for tripartite zoning Lord Hood’s zoning proposals, January 1945 Original Foreign Office zoning proposals Vienna: sectors of occupation Zones of occupation, November 1945 European theatre, February 1945 Advance into Austria, March–May 1945

55 58 61 72 74 127 128

Maps 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 7.1 7.2

vii

Preface British planning for the occupation of Austria in 1945 provides an ideal case-study for examining the relationship between policy and strategy, post-conflict operations and the hybrid nature of the resulting military task. It presents a particularly interesting study, because planning was for the ‘liberation’ of enemy territory. The political problems presented by Austria were of secondary importance in comparison with those of Germany, but British policy was based on sentiment and intent, rather than knowledge. Furthermore, by 1944, Austria was likely to be at the centre of the collapsing Reich territory, so there was an extreme range of scenarios to be taken into consideration. In this book I look at the way in which British policy was developed in the face of these uncertainties and then reconciled with those of her Allies; how proposals and negotiations were directly affected by the existing – and expected – strategic situation; and I consider the military involvement, through civil affairs, in the initial administration of Austria. But my interest focuses on the relationship between policy and strategy. Indeed, the lessons learned from 1945 are of continuing relevance because planning for the occupation of Austria illustrates enduring themes, especially those associated with decision-making and co-operation between allies. There are contemporary resonances in many of the issues confronting planners in 1945, though their thoughts and actions are of interest in their own right. I structure the study into four parts. Chapter 1 forms the first, which establishes the study within the context of British military and political planning during the Second World War. Three main themes, each treated as a separate part, are then identified: those that are essentially political, those that are military, and those that are hybrid tasks performed by the military government. Chapters 2–4 introduce the first theme. They concentrate on the political environment of the early 1940s, of which the Moscow Declaration of 1943 is taken as the culmination. But, before this point is reached in Chapter 4, the evolution of British policy towards Austria is traced through the processes by which it was crystallised and, finally, co-ordinated with those of Britain’s Allies. The military theme follows in Chapters 5–8. It covers the allocation of responsibility for planning to the military, the development of the viii

Preface ix

British Element of the proposed Allied Commission, the actual occupation of Austria and the establishment of a military government and a civil affairs organisation. The hybrid nature of the task, when the relationship between political principles and military pragmatism was particularly complex, is covered in Chapters 9 and 10. The organisation and workings of the Allied Commission are central to this phase. Such a division of material is inevitably artificial because there was a constant interplay between the various organisations involved. Political developments in the European Advisory Commission (EAC), for instance, played a formative role in setting the aims and objectives of military planning, but nevertheless it makes analytic sense to treat the military’s responsibilities separately from the more political concerns of the EAC. For this reason, a thematic, rather than chronological, approach has been adopted throughout (see Figure P.1). I am grateful to the typing department and library of the Joint Services Command and Staff College for their assistance. The opinions expressed in this book are mine alone and should not be regarded as representing those of any government department. Alice Hills Pewsey

x

Figure P.1

Relation of themes to chronology

Abbreviations AAI ACA(B) or ACA(BE) AFHQ AMG AMGOT BTA CAO CCAO CCS COS COSSAC DCA DCCAO DP EAC G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 JPS JSM PHP PHPS POW SAC SACMED SCAEF SHAEF SMGO UNRRA

Allied Armies in Italy Allied Commission for Austria, British Element Allied Force Headquarters (Mediterranean) Allied Military Government Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory British Troops, Austria Civil Affairs Officer Chief Civil Affairs Officer Combined (Anglo-American) Chiefs of Staff Joint (British) Chiefs of Staff Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander Directorate of Civil Affairs (War Office) Deputy Chief Civil Affairs Officer Displaced Person European Advisory Commission General Staff, Adjutant General’s branch General Staff, Psychological Warfare General Staff, Special Operations General Staff, Logistical Plans General Staff, Civil Affairs Joint Planning Staff Joint Staff Mission Post Hostilities Planning Sub-Committee of the COS Post Hostilities Planning Staff Prisoners of War Supreme Allied Commander Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theatre of Operations Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (North-West Europe) Senior Military Government Officer United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration xi

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1 A Hybrid Task

More than half a century ago, British army forces, along with Russian, American and French troops, occupied Austria during the closing stages of the Second World War. The Russians were the first to enter, occupying Vienna from the east on 13 April 1945. The Western Allies did not arrive until several weeks later, as conflict had dragged on in north-east Italy. However, after the surrender of the German SouthWestern Armies to the Allied forces in Italy on 2 May, British Eighth Army forces were finally able to cross the Austrian border into Carinthia (followed by a column of regular Yugoslav troops) several days later. The Allied occupation of Austria was completed by the US Fifth Army, which came up from Italy to meet the US Seventh Army, moving south from Bavaria, at the Brenner Pass. The French Army entered Austria from the direction of Lake Constance at the same time. The immediate task of the Eighth Army was to establish a military administration in the proposed British zone of the southern Austrian provinces of Carinthia and Styria, and in the British sector of Vienna. But it found Yugoslav troops – who had also entered Austria from the direction of Ljubljana – occupying many villages in Carinthia, and the Russians firmly in control of Vienna and much of Styria. The conditions of the populace were better than expected and local administrations were soon able to function, though the presence of many thousands of refugees and displaced persons (especially those fleeing Marshal Tito’s regime in Yugoslavia) presented unexpected problems. Allied troops occupied Austria in order to demonstrate Germany’s defeat, Austria’s liberation from German domination and to establish Austria as an independent state. Austria was to be reconstructed, rather than re-educated, as was the case in Germany. Four-Power Allied military governments were to be the means of this policy, with civil affairs 1

2 Britain and the Occupation of Austria, 1943–45

as the instrument of the British administration. Each military government was to operate in its allocated national zone, with all four Allies co-operating from their national sectors in Vienna. The authority to which the military commanders were to pass their responsibility for control of the civil administration was to be an Allied commission, which was to be established as soon as possible. Preliminary work on the problems likely to be involved in the occupation had begun in the War Office three years earlier, though political guidance on the future of Austria had been under consideration in the Foreign Office from even earlier in the war. Responsibility for planning for military government shifted as the strategic situation developed. It passed from a deputy chief civil affairs officer in 1942, to the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) and then to the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in England, so that by the spring of 1944, when detailed planning officially began, responsibility for it in Austria, before a German defeat or surrender, lay with the supreme commander in the European theatre (SAC). As soon as it seemed as if the occupation of Austria would instead take place from Italy responsibility for detailed planning was transferred to the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean (SACMED). Then, when plans changed to emphasise the occupation after, rather than before, a German surrender, the British and American Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that neither of these commanders should have the responsibility.1 In June 1944, they stated that responsibility should instead lie with the nucleus of the tripartite control machinery then under consideration by the European Advisory Commission (EAC), which had been established by the Allied Foreign Secretaries at their conference in Moscow in October–November 1943. The Moscow conference was of great significance for both military and political planning because it formally established that Austria was to be liberated, and that the EAC was to make recommendations on the surrender terms to be imposed on states with which the Allies were at war, and on the machinery necessary to fulfil the terms of surrender. That the allocation of responsibility to the military remained ambiguous was made clear less than a month later, in July 1944, when it seemed that Germany might suddenly collapse in the autumn. In response to pressure for instructions from both SCAEF and SACMED, the Combined Chiefs of Staff directed SACMED to plan for the possibility that his forces might enter Austria before further post-surrender political directives were received. In the event, the initial advance into Germany came from the west in the spring of 1945, increasing the like-

A Hybrid Task 3

lihood of SCAEF’s forces occupying north-west Austria. It was decided that any responsibilities temporarily assumed by SCAEF would, however, be transferred to SACMED, who was, in any case, to occupy and establish a military government in any parts of Austria entered from Italy. Planning arrangements had, in the meantime, been made for the central administration in Vienna on the lines laid down by the EAC, with civil and military deputy commissioners appointed to the British Element of the commission in the summer of 1944. By the time the Eighth Army entered Austria in May 1945, the main body of the British Element was already in Italy, ready to move to Vienna as soon as possible. The identification and development of policy and strategy were, unsurprisingly, more confused and less rational than this brief account suggests. Indeed, it is reasonable to describe British policy towards Austria as having evolved from a morass of sentiment and rationalisation, and strategy as evolving from the resulting mix of political principles, policy guidance, pragmatism and military contingencies. British policy evolved through a process of sifting, stating and restating existing guidance and knowledge. The process was then reiterated through the negotiations required to co-ordinate British policy and strategy with those of her Allies. One reason for the hesitation and sifting characterising British policy was that very little was known about the situation in Austria during the war. Even in the spring of 1945 opinion in Italy and London was shaped by guesses and beliefs, because there was no real knowledge of what conditions in Austria were like. In fact, the circumstances of the time meant that it was entirely plausible that the Allies should know so little, for Austria was by then at the centre of the German Reich. An investigation of British policy and strategy is thus made all the more complex and interesting, because it was for the occupation – ‘liberation’ – of a European country which was also enemy territory. The uncertainty meant that British plans had to incorporate an extreme spectrum of scenarios, ranging from desperate combat to a peaceful entry, from the Allies converging and meeting in Austria, to the Red Army entering Austria first, to between one and four Allies administering Austria. This created a number of dilemmas for planners, not least of which concerned the probable intentions of the Soviets. All possible eventualities had to be considered before being discarded, adapted or accepted. Furthermore, Austria presented Britain and her Allies with a unique problem. Logically, Austria was part of the Reich and should have been regarded as enemy territory. But sentiment, guilt at the way


in which the West had accepted the German incorporation of Austria in 1938, and strategic calculations meant that Austria was, according to the Moscow Declaration of 1943, to be liberated and restored to independent status. Special problems to be solved included: • • • • •

clarification as to what was happening in Austria, the shape a future independent Austrian should take, what entry conditions might be like, how Allied policies could be co-ordinated, how planning responsibilities should be allocated to the various government departments and military headquarters, • how military government should be organised, • how control machinery should operate.

The justification for military administration It was a fundamental British assumption that occupation would be necessary, and that it would need to be followed by a temporary military government. As Sir Geoffrey Harrison of the German department in the Foreign Office said in March 1943: It should be emphasized that it is in the interests of the United Nations and of Austria itself that the abolition of the Nazi Regime should not be followed by chaos. Occupation will be necessary, but will only last until a democratic regime fully representative of urban and rural interests and fully competent can be established by the Austrians.2 (At this time, the term United Nations referred to the major allies and associated countries.) In 1943, the War Office was responsible for establishing military governments in liberated territory, but the government had some reservations about a British occupation in Austria. One objection to the continuation of military responsibility in peacetime was that the War Office and Parliament would not long agree, after the conclusion of the war, to expenditure and manpower demands on the scale required by a prolongation of military responsibility. There was also the practical consideration that Britain was experiencing a manpower shortage, and that the War Office would find itself ill-equipped to handle the problems of the future Austrian control machinery. But such considerations were evidently not seen as fundamental, and did

A Hybrid Task 5

not prevent planning continuing. The question of whether it was appropriate for a democratic state to enforce or maintain a military administration did not arise during the war. The objects of military government were given in detail in September 1944.3 It was thought that, on occupation, either before or after German surrender, the Austrian administration would have broken down and a political vacuum would ensue, together with a consequent deterioration in civilian life. The objects of military government (which had been defined six months earlier) were, therefore, to relieve combat troops of the necessity of providing civil administration, to restore law and order and normal conditions among the civilian population as soon as possible, to procure food supplies for them so as to ensure freedom from civil unrest, and, where necessary, to provide relief from available resources. It was also to make available to the occupying Powers the resources of the occupied country, to demonstrate to the Austrians the complete defeat of Germany, including Austria, and, most importantly, to ensure the immediate and complete termination of German control over Austria. In the broadest terms, the object of military-government planning was to put into the field a temporary administrative pyramid, military in personnel, outlook and loyalties, but predominantly civilian in function, paralleling, if possible, any existing or previously existing administration. This insistence on a civilian outlook in military government was an important theme in British planning, and it moulded the attitude to be adopted towards Austria from the beginning. For, despite American suspicions, although Britain did not wish to impose a right-wing government on Austria, its conception of military government was conservative in that most existing laws were to be maintained and personnel be kept in their offices, except where they clearly conflicted with military necessity or political aims. The basis of the administrative pyramid was to consist of civil affairs officers working in the field, initially with military formations and later with civil territorial administrative areas. The apex would have to be fitted into a military headquarters at the appropriate level, while intermediate regional and formation headquarters and specialist officers would be incorporated into the pyramid at various levels as necessary. The AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories) theory, as employed in Sicily, whereby the civil affairs organisational pyramid, with the Chief Civil Affairs Officer (CCAO) at its apex, would be separate from military organisation, had been firmly rejected by SHAEF by September 1944.


The Chiefs of Staff provided a justification for British military government on 17 August 1944, when they laid down the behaviour required of the military forces occupying countries after defeat. First, the short-term conditions of peace must be observed: the enemy must be controlled, military works must be dismantled, war material disposed of, and prisoners of war repatriated. Occupation was necessary, the Chiefs of Staff said, because: The civil and military committees set up to supervise the fulfilment of the peace terms may be expected to meet difficulties ranging from administrative breakdown to passive resistance and sabotage, and, in the worst cases, to actively hostile interference. If the committee are to do their work efficiently they must be backed by armed force.4 In other words, military government would require the use of combat troops because defeat would lead to the disruption of all normal life in Austria. In any case, to do his work efficiently, the executive commander would need a police force and control over transportation and labour. And ‘If the mere presence of troops does not restore order, the imposition of curfew and movements restrictions, coupled with active measures against resistance will eventually be effective.’ Later, in February 1945, an additional principle was defined. This was the benefit for the governed: Justice, honour and humanity are the principles for which the British fight. We cannot afford not to display them when we ourselves are called on to govern, least of all when we govern by the sanction of armed force. Moreover, a harsh, unjust and oppressive government will not achieve the immediate objects nor contribute to its ultimate aim of a favourable and enduring peace.5 The fundamental principles necessary for military government were, therefore, five in number: (1) the commander in the field should be the supreme and only lawful authority in the occupied territory; (2) the security and welfare of the occupying forces was of paramount importance; (3) the best way to achieve this was to upset the normal life of inhabitants as little as possible; (4) military courts should be set up to deal with offences against the occupying forces; and (5) unity of control was to be ensured by the appointment by the army commander of a chief civil authority to administer the occupied territory.

A Hybrid Task 7

In the last resort, the justification of occupying or liberating forces in establishing military government (which was essentially civil affairs by a force commander) rested on the principles of necessity and duty. Military government could be justifiably established by virtue of the military necessity underlying the laws of war.6 This was recognised by English common law. If there was no administration, as in Austria, or, indeed, a hostile or ineffective administration in or near areas of active operations or communications, it might be militarily necessary to establish a government to guard against disorder and to prevent outbursts of epidemic diseases which might distract the forces from their primary military task. In such a case, military government was to be established as a right. But it might also be established as a duty if, as a result of military operations, the authority of the lawful government could no longer be exercised and had therefore passed de facto to the forces conducting operations. This was the second fundamental justification. The type of situation requiring a military government to be run as a duty placed a responsibility on these forces accepting it. The establishment of military government then became necessary to provide a minimum of care and administration for the population of the territory. The legal basis for the military authorities assuming governmental responsibility, whether as a right or as a duty, varied considerably, as did the classification of occupational enactments: ‘proclamation’, ‘ordinance’ and ‘laws’ were all used to designate instruments having the force of law. Austria was defined as an enemy country for these purposes in August 1944, as the Post Hostilities Planning Staff had recommended in May of that year. This meant that the justification for a military administration was found in the laws of war, themselves part of (consensual) international law, and, more particularly, in the Hague Rules. These applied to Austria, which was to be treated as annexed and therefore according to the normal rules of international law governing the conduct of belligerent nations. The Law for Military Government in Occupied Austria was laid down in August 1944 by General Maitland-Wilson, then the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean or SACMED:7 Under International Law the powers of government in an occupied territory are vested in the Commanding Officer of the occupying forces. In order to establish orderly military government within the limitations of International Law, it is customary to issue proclamations, ordinances and other directives specifying what the civilians within the occupied territory must or may not do.8


These were to be posted in prominent places, and were to consist of Proclamations 1 and 2, which would announce the entry of Allied forces and their general intentions; Decree 1, which was general, to cover all other essentials; Decree 2, covering financial matters; and Decree 3, to deal with frontier control. Ordinance 1 dealt with the dissolution of the Nazi Party; Ordinance 2 covered the suspension of all Nazi discriminatory legislation; and Ordinance 4, dealt with arms and offences. Civilians charged with offences against any of these provisions were to be brought before Allied military-government courts. Provision was also made should the Allies enter Austria before a German surrender. In that case, there could be no question of the population having assented to the establishment of military government, and so the above rights would, according to the Legal Branch of AFHQ, be exercised by virtue of military occupation. The Allied commander was therefore to state: In order to provide for the security of Allied forces and the proper administration of the country, Military Government is established in the territory occupied by the forces under my command. Supreme legislative, judicial and executive authority is vested in me as Supreme Commander and Military Governor on behalf of the Governments of the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.9 This would be the source of the authority of military government. That Austria presented a problem for the planners seeking to justify the proposed occupation and its enabling legislation is summed up in the interim directive issued to AFHQ in April 1944. This instructed SACMED that: You will prepare your plans on the assumption that the territory is that of an enemy belligerent and your mission is to obtain and thereafter maintain military control. However, it is possible that the allied Governments will, prior to or upon your entry into Austria, direct that the position of Austria will be that of liberated territory, which it is proposed to restore to the condition of an Independent and Democratic State.10 The situation was less clear should Germany have surrendered before occupation. The question would then arise as to whether certain rules of law, such as the measures by which military government proclaimed

A Hybrid Task 9

its legislation, still applied. Part of the legislation promulgated could only be understood in the light of the declared war aim of the destruction of Nazism, and this had led to measures clearly beyond previously accepted practice. Article 43 of the Hague Rules of 1907 stated, for instance, that the only changes an occupant could make in law or administration were those temporarily necessitated by his interests in the maintenance and safety of his forces and for the realisation of the purposes of war. One of the attractions of unconditional surrender as a war aim was its perceived ability to accommodate such issues. An occupant’s authority was generally assumed to be of a temporary character. But the laws planned by the Allies went far beyond this, and, unsurprisingly, legal wrangles resulted. For Austria, which was in the awkward category of liberated enemy territory, it was necessary to rely on the general principles of military necessity underlying the laws of war, subject to the limitations imposed by those laws, and on the Allies’ declared war aims. It is difficult to say whether the occupying powers intended to claim sovereignty in their declared aim of separating Austria from Germany. To do so would assume the exercise of supreme power. But it is unlikely that sovereignty was claimed, since the word was absent from the relevant agreements, authority was clearly intended to be exercised for a limited period only, and it is difficult to explain the use in proclamations of the words ‘supreme authority’, which, legally, implied something less. An example of this was Field Marshal Alexander’s Second (undated) Proclamation for Austria, which stated: ‘Supreme legal, judicial and executive authority and powers within the territory occupied by forces under my command are vested in me as Commander of the Allied forces.’ The precise legal status of the Allied commander’s authority was therefore unclear. Much of his authority in dissolving Nazi laws went beyond military necessity, but such action was part of the Allies’ war aims and could be presented as a restoration of ‘natural justice’. There was also the question of whether military government should be direct or indirect. An AFHQ memorandum of 13 February 1945, by the Planning Section, defined the difference between the two as being direct if military government took the place of the central administration, and indirect if the central administration operated in accordance with the orders of the military government or under its supervision. But whatever machinery was used, civil affairs doctrine – the tool of military government – emphasised the desirability of indirect control, for its advantages were many. It meant economy in manpower, as


fewer officers were needed to supervise; there were fewer language difficulties; and the local administration could be educated rather than broken down before a new system evolved. Austria was, after all, to be reconstructed rather than re-educated. The result of such considerations was that, for a liberal democracy such as Britain, military government was a temporary measure, arising out of conditions of war. There was the assumption that responsibility for administering a territory should pass to civilian authorities as soon as possible. In liberated British or friendly territories, few difficulties were encountered in this process, but an occupied territory such as Austria inevitably posed a problem, since there could be no question of transferring responsibility to an indigenous government for a long time – in 1945 none existed in Austria or in exile. It was, however, desirable that the military authorities transfer these responsibilities to a civilian organisation as soon as possible. Hence it was necessary, as in Germany, to create an organisation that could fulfil this function. In Austria it was the Allied Commission, or ACA.

The central executive The authorisation and implementation of military government was never a wholly military matter; it was always driven by political imperatives and frequently expressed in political terms. The relationship between policy and strategy was tight in the circumstances of total war, and the translation of military activity into the administration of a European state required significant levels of political guidance. Steady political guidance, a well-understood chain of command and the maintenance of close liaison between the various parts of the organisations responsible were required. This was particularly noticeable in the case of planning for Austria because the selection of a suitable strategy (and the allocation of military planning responsibilities) did not arise until late in the war, so policy – and the politicians and diplomats involved in its development and implementation – dominated developments before 1945. The influential role of Foreign Office departments in the development of policy for Austria is covered in the next three chapters, but the Foreign Office response must be placed within the context of the central government machinery, for the conduct of war was in the hands of the War Cabinet and its various subordinate bodies. The chain of command running through this organisation (Figure 1.1) was, in fact, assured by the fact that War Cabinet ministers, each in his own

Figure 1.1

War Cabinet organisation for military affairs, June 1994 (CAB 21/779) 11


field, ensured that all conclusions, both military and civil, reached in subordinate committees were in accordance with Cabinet policy. The War Cabinet Office, through its responsibility for notifying the decisions of the Cabinet to those who needed to know them, helped to make the component parts of the machine work in accordance with general Cabinet policy. This is key to understanding the relationship between policy and strategy. The balance between policy and strategy in planning must be understood in relation to the links developed between the military and civil sides of government which encouraged co-operation. One such development, initiated in August 1943, was the creation of a Reconstruction Department in the Foreign Office, which worked on postwar problems with the Military Sub-Committee of the Chiefs of Staff organisation (responsible for as much forward military planning as was possible). This resulted in a new sub-committee of the Chiefs of Staff, the PostHostilities Planning Sub-Committee, under the chairmanship of Gladwyn Jebb from the Foreign Office. It proved influential in planning for Austria. This willingness to co-operate was vital. Jebb recorded in his memoirs that the idea of a civilian presiding over distinguished officers was greeted with incredulity by the Americans, ‘as being almost contrary to nature’.11 According to General Ismay (who was the main channel of communications between Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff, of whose committee he was a full member), the comparatively smooth co-operation between politicians and the military that existed during the war was due to a combination of factors. These included many ministers having served in the forces, Churchill’s determination to work closely with the Chiefs of Staff, the existence of an established Cabinet machinery with its integrated secretariat, and the fact that men such as Sir Edward Bridges (permanent secretary of the War Cabinet Office and secretary of the War Cabinet) recognised that, in a total war, it was impossible to separate civil from military affairs. Bridges himself was described by contemporaries as a splendid fixer. In addition, the composition of the War Cabinet Office was itself halfcivil and half-military. The secretary of the War Cabinet was a civilian, while the head of the military side of the Office was also chief of staff to the minister of defence, and all members of the Office were described as assistant secretaries. The unity imposed by the same secretariat handling all business of the Prime Minister, the War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff and their subordinate bodies was of fundamental importance. For a decision

A Hybrid Task 13

taken in one part of the governmental machine could quickly be made known to other parts affected by it. The integration was further emphasised by the fact that when Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940 he assumed the additional role of Minister of Defence and, with this, responsibility for the general direction of the war effort, subject to the support of the War Cabinet and the House of Commons. This was important, because one man in control meant that great drive could be imparted to the formulation and execution of policy. There was never an Austrian problem in the sense that there was a German problem, so the War Cabinet never devoted much time to Austria, but planning for Austria was still shaped by the characteristics of the central organisation. For responsibility for the conduct of the war and the occupation of Austria lay with the War Cabinet, with the Chiefs of Staff acting as their professional advisers. The Prime Minister (and Minister of Defence) supervised the work of the Chiefs of Staff Committee on behalf of the War Cabinet, assisted by the Defence Committee. The Cabinet itself dealt mainly with questions of a predominantly political nature, strategic matters being brought before it less and less because Churchill’s prime instrument for waging war was, for the first few years of war, the Defence Committee which had replaced the old Military Co-ordination Committee. The Defence Committee met when he wanted it to and was attended by those he summoned.12 But its proceedings were not of importance to Austria, because Churchill dispensed with the need for regular meetings of a ministerial body during the last two years of war. More importantly, he preferred to use the Chiefs of Staff and their system of military committees which, by the middle of the war, was extensive. Their work focused on the formulation of strategy under the aegis of the Deputy Secretary (Military) of the War Cabinet, Ismay, who was also on the Chiefs of Staff Committee. A number of committees also acted for the Chiefs of Staff in a particular capacity or when they were absent. Subcommittees were at work too, the most important of which were the Joint Planning Staff, who was engaged in preparing long-term appreciations and strategic plans, including those for south-east Europe, and the Joint Intelligence Committee, who provided the necessary data on which the Joint Planning Staff founded its work, and who, at the same time, advised the Chiefs of Staff in intelligence matters of factors affecting strategic policy. The combination of Churchill and his Chiefs of Staff worked well in practice. The best answer to questions about how strategy was made, who took the initiative, or whether both relied upon the expert work


of the elaborate sub-committees, was given by the official historian, John Erhman: ‘The system met the demands because the personalities met the circumstances.’13 Individually, and as a body, the Chiefs of Staff conveyed an impression of strength because they were able to stand up to Churchill when convinced that professionally they were right. Also, the three senior members, Field Marshal Brooke, Marshal of the RAF Portal and Admiral Cunningham, enjoyed a high professional reputation and were able to provide an individual and collective responsibility for advising on defence policy. The Chiefs of Staff did not specifically formulate strategy towards Austria. During the last two years of war they never seemed to have devised a way of separating considerations of strategic policy from their ordinary daily business; they had few agenda dealing with strategy in its own right, relying heavily on the Joint Planning Staff. But, if these arrangements did not stimulate speculation on strategy, stimulus was given by Churchill. He exercised influence in this sphere in various ways; through meetings with and memorandum to the Chiefs of Staff, occasionally through direct contact with the Joint Planning Staff, and through correspondence with theatre commanders. For Churchill dominated all stages of the war: the content of his files convey a vivid impression of the range of his control. Occasionally, the Chiefs of Staff opposed his wishes, as in the case of reinforcing Allied forces in Italy in the summer of 1944, but more often they deferred or agreed. In the case of Italy, they saw value in Churchill’s stand, but the policy of Washington prevailed for political reasons. The role of the War Office within this system was limited but important in terms of military responsibilities for Austria because it was concerned with the postwar world – military government was initially its responsibility. This should not be exaggerated though, because it was naturally more concerned with operational matters during war than after it. Control of the War Office and the army was vested in the Army Council but, in practice, supreme control was, once again, exercised by the Minister of Defence, Churchill, through the Chiefs of Staff Committee. In this way the work of the war secretary and the Army Council was largely confined to army administration, organisation and expenditure. The result was that, despite the influence of the Chiefs of Staff, civil influence remained paramount. The role of the Foreign Office was central to this. Inevitably, many problems normally dealt with by the Foreign Office in peacetime declined in importance, and others increased, because of the war. The important fact was that, although

A Hybrid Task 15

political considerations often had to give place to military issues, it was the responsibility of the Foreign Office to see that they were not overlooked in strategic discussions. This was partly ensured by a Service Liaison Department, by providing Foreign Office representatives on the Joint Intelligence Committee, and by the tradition of importance attached to their views. It was also ensured by the calibre of many of those involved, men such as Gladwyn Jebb, Roger Makins, Frank Roberts, Orme Sargent and William Strang. In recalling the then Foreign Office later, Lord Gladwyn said that what distinguished the Office during the 1930s was ‘an intellectual liveliness and complete liberty, inside the machine, to say what you thought and to press your own point of view, provided that outside you were reasonably discreet about the official line.’14 This remained the case during the war. New departments and committees (such as the Economic and Reconstruction Department and the Post-Hostilities Planning SubCommittee) were set up and changes of responsibility occurred to accommodate wartime changes. There was also overlapping with other departments, such as the Ministry of Economic Warfare, all of which helped give the Foreign Office a comprehensive picture of events. This was important because the Foreign Office played an increasingly important role during the last years of the war by, for example, their political directives for the shaping of postwar Europe. For by 1944 a change had taken place in the overall shape of the war. After the success of OVERLORD, the grand design for Europe disappeared, to be replaced by a series of local designs. Operational strategy became increasingly the concern of theatre commanders, while the consequences of this change became more the concern of the Foreign Office, who were brought into close contact with the details of local planning. Thus the linkage between policy and strategy had tightened by May 1945, paving the way for a politicisation of the military task in the reconstruction of Austria.

2 British Policy before 1943

The most important influence on the manner in which Britain planned for, and carried out, the occupation of Austria, was the declaration made on 30 October 1943, in Moscow, by the Foreign Ministers of the Allied governments. The declaration stated that: The Governments of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States of America are agreed that Austria, the first free country to fall a victim to Hitlerite aggression, shall be liberated from German domination. They regard the annexation imposed on Austria by Germany on 15 March 1938, as null and void. They consider themselves in no way bound by any changes affected in Austria since that date. They declare that they wish to see reestablished a free and independent Austria … Austria is reminded, however, that she has a responsibility which she cannot evade for participation in the war on the side of Hitlerite Germany; and that in the final settlement account will inevitably be taken of her own contribution to her liberation.1 The Moscow Declaration was the key statement of Allied intent. It was based on British proposals and summarised existing British policy. It also emphasised the ambiguity that characterised policy towards Austria throughout the war years. By 1943 British war aims were, in so far as they could be made explicit, similar to those of her allies. They were for the surrender of German armed forces and the destruction of Nazism, with which Austria was tightly linked. Yet Austria had provided the Nazis with their name, their symbol and their leader, 2 and had been formally incorporated into Greater Germany by the Anschluss, or union, of 1938. Hitler’s policy of gleichschaltung, of co-ordination, had eliminated all known opposition in Austria, producing strict conformity 16

British Policy before 1943 17

between German and Austrian culture and politics. Logically, therefore, Austria should have been subject to the same treatment as Germany. Yet this was never seriously considered as a policy option by the Allies: Austria was to be liberated, rather than formally occupied (both terms were in use). A military government was to achieve this. Military control was to be handed over to civilians as soon as was practicable. Austria was to be helped towards independence.

The commitment to an independent Austria It has been argued by Mair that the British commitment to an independent Austria was an emotional one.3 Mair considered there to be a sentimental attachment to pre-1938 Austria in which older affluent sectors of British society felt ties with the Vienna of the Habsburgs, while younger people remembered an Austria made fashionable by the Prince of Wales in the 1930s. Mair is correct. Furthermore, such sentiment was underpinned by an irrational (but widespread) sense of guilt about Britain’s reaction to the Anschluss. The words of Wing Commander Shackelton to the House of Commons typify this: ‘It was through our weakness in 1938 that Austria was overrun by Germany … I therefore feel that we have a special responsibility for that unhappy country.’4 Britain had not acted to prevent the Anschluss, but Shackelton’s judgement was unrealistic. He did not say what Britain could realistically have achieved in the circumstances, nor did he acknowledge the fact that 1938 was not the first attempt at union between the two countries. Allied affirmation of Austrian independence went back to 1919, but so did the issue of Anschluss: in November 1918, the Provisional National Assembly in Vienna unanimously agreed that ‘German-Austria was an integral part of the German Republic … We are a single race.’5 Austrian independence after 1919 had been founded on her weakness rather than her strength, and there had been moves towards Anschluss in 1931 and 1934, for instance, as she faced repeated internal crises. Not surprisingly, British policy towards Austria in 1936 was summarised by Lloyd George as: ‘There is one thing that the people of this country have made up their minds definitely about. Whatever government is in power they will never go to war again for an Austrian quarrel.’6 Baldwin’s replacement by Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister in 1937 strengthened this view. Chamberlain was convinced that a guarantee to Austria would only irritate Berlin, with whom he considered a settlement possible. This understanding was


reinforced by the failure of the Austrian Chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, to stand up to Hitler at Berchtesgaden in February 1938.7 The acceptance of guilt as a determinant of policy is most clearly symbolised by later reactions to the policies pursued by Sir Nevile Henderson, British ambassador in Berlin, 1937–9. In 1938, Henderson declared that ‘he … had himself often advocated the Anschluss’.8 He later denied this. What Henderson did record in his memoirs is that he never doubted that Hitler intended to incorporate Austria, and that Hitler’s claims were, in this respect, based on the principle of self determination. Henderson’s conclusion was that a negotiated settlement should not, therefore, have been an impossibility. Eden, who had recommended Henderson for the Berlin post, commented, with the benefit of hindsight, that ‘Henderson’s confidence in Nazi good intentions and his support of their claims in Austria … accelerated events which it was his duty to retard.’9 But Eden’s own position was equivocal because, according to his private secretary, Oliver Harvey, he also thought some form of Anschluss inevitable. In addition, the Chiefs of Staff told Chamberlain that Britain was not in a position to wage war, and that Italy and Czechoslovakia were, in any case, indifferent to Austria’s fate. So when, on 11 March, Schuschnigg appealed to the British minister in Vienna for advice from the British government, the answer received from Lord Halifax (by then Foreign Secretary) was that London could not take responsibility for advising him to take action which might leave Austria exposed to dangers from which Britain could not protect him. It is easy to criticise Halifax and his colleagues 50 years later, but very few people in Britain would have been willing to fight for Austria in 1938. As Harvey, by then principal private secretary to Halifax, noted in his diary on 15 February: A.E. [Eden] determined not to get into the false position of giving the Austrians advice and then being saddled with the responsibility if they accept the advice and the situation gets worse. We cannot fight for Austria and we must be careful not to raise false hopes … My instinct is not to take this too tragically: the prohibition on Anschluss has been wrong from the start; it was a flagrant violation of the principle of self-determination, and perhaps the weakest point in our post-war policy.10 Harvey believed that the majority of Austrians had always favoured Anschluss: ‘Anschluss is probably inevitable, and to stop it from outside is impossible.’


It thus seems that London accepted Anschluss as inevitable; it was the form it took that was objectionable. For Britain had effectively accepted union long before 1938, except to express a wish for a reasonable solution reasonably achieved. Macmillan (at that stage a backbench MP)11 summed this attitude up a few days after the German marched in to Austria when he said that what had shocked the world was not so much the fact of union so much as the method by which it had been achieved. He was offended by the blatant disregard for world opinion shown. So too was the British press. On 12 March 1938, The Times commented that Anschluss brought about the complete triumph of Nazism, but the Daily Mail of the same day said that Britain could not have offered military support anyway. In the event, the only formal protests came from China, Mexico, Republican Spain, Chile and the Soviet Union. Chamberlain’s reaction was both righteously indignant and conciliatory. The government had been in close touch with the situation throughout, he told the House of Commons, and both Halifax and Henderson had protested to the German government.12 At the same time, Chamberlain implied that the Anschluss did not present Britain with any especially difficult problems, and he made it clear that Britain was willing to continue discussion of colonial issues with Germany. It was much easier for the opposition to condemn the Anschluss. In his reply to Chamberlain, Clement Attlee, leader of the opposition, replied that ‘whatever may be ones ideas … with regard to whether Austria and Germany should be one State, there can be one opinion in deploring the manner in which it has been brought about.’ Sir Arthur Henderson, who had been Foreign Secretary from 1929 to 1931, was more outspoken: ‘The British Government has failed’; it had not carried out its pledge, in connection with the League of Nations, to protect Austrian independence. ‘We require firmness, even if the Prime Minister wishes also to be prudent.’ It was Churchill’s speech, however, which gained the most attention. He questioned the effect on the balance of power, now that Vienna, the centre of Danubian communications, was Nazi. And he warned that Nazi Germany could, if matters were left, dominate the whole of south-east Europe. He was indeed correct in seeing the Anschluss as marking a decisive change in the European balance of power. The German Army was now placed on the edge of the Hungarian plains and the Balkans. In the south, Germany now had common frontiers with Italy and Yugoslavia, while in the north, she was in a position to outflank the Czech defences.


By the outbreak of war in 1939, there was thus much material to feed British feelings of guilt. Such sentiments were, in many respects, irrational, though there was undoubtedly a degree of evasion in the Government’s response in 1938. It is noticeable, for example, that, in the House of Lords debate which took place on the same day as Churchill’s speech, Halifax stated that the attitude of the Government was consistent with that of its predecessors: Germany’s special interests had always been recognised, and Britain had always been ready to contemplate a revision of the peace treaties.13 This was untrue. There had been no indication of a reversal of policy in central Europe in either the controversy surrounding the Austro-German Customs Union debate of 1931, at the Stresa Conference or later. Even Berlin could not have gained such an impression, at least until Sir Eric Phipps had been reposted to Paris in the spring of 1937, when Henderson was appointed to Berlin. Phipps had been British Minister in Vienna, and was known as a firm supporter of Austrian independence, as were his successors, Sir Walford Selby and Michael Palairet.

Factors influencing policy The British proposals presented at the Moscow Conference, several years after these events, had evolved from a mix of sentiment, calculation and rationalisation. Not surprisingly, such policy guidance as existed towards Austria in the first two or three years of the war was more the result of emotion than objective assessment. The Foreign Office was well aware of the extent of uncritical thinking about Austria. Indeed, this was one reason why there was a reluctance to debate Austria’s position in public. The Foreign Office reaction to a House of Lords debate, in February 1943, about whether Austrians in Britain should be regarded as friendly aliens (as they were in the USA), made this clear: ‘The fact is that we are so far committed only to the liberation of Austria from Nazi domination and that we have not assumed and do not wish to assume any more precise commitment to restore an independent and democratic Austrian state.’14 The statement of intent issued in Moscow was also the result of two other factors: Austria was of minor importance in comparison with Germany, and very little was known about what was happening inside the country. Not surprisingly, the views of those responsible for policy proposals were flexible, if not actually vague in many cases. The general impression that officials had of Austrian attitudes and resistance to Nazism was accordingly very influential in conditioning


perceptions and shaping policy. Thus the ambitious declaration from the Moscow conference must be set against the exasperated judgement of Sir Geoffrey Harrison in July 1944: Were it not for the strategic importance of keeping Austria separate from Germany, we could let this flabby country stew. It is clear that Austria is doing next to nothing for herself and we shall have the greatest difficulty in infusing life into her after the war. There are no political leaders inside or outside the country who can command any following. Austria will fall into the first arms which are opened to her.15 Any consideration of the development of policy must therefore be seen against the background of what the Austrians actually did, or were believed to do, in both Britain and Austria. Austrians in Britain The behaviour of the 9,000 Austrians estimated to be in Britain did nothing to make Harrison change his mind about Austria’s flabbiness. Many Austrians tried hard to make the British Government recognise Austria as a sovereign state still in being, but there was never any question of a group enjoying the prestige of a government-in-exile. Austrian attempts to set up a united Austrian organisation in London were miscellaneous, uncoordinated and confusing. As a Foreign Office brief of April 1943, noted, ‘We are faced at the outset with the handicap that there is no Austrian government in exile representing the Austrian unity that has been destroyed … Nor is there the slightest prospect of building up a representative Austrian council or committee from the material available in the USA or elsewhere outside Austria.’16 Certain individuals, amongst whom Sir George Franckenstein was prominent, sought to publicise the Austrian cause, but with mixed results. Franckenstein was highly regarded by Churchill, who considered him the best representative of Austria in Britain, but Harrison described him as ‘elderly and has monarchist inclinations. His name probably means little in Austria …’.17 Other Austrians, particularly those forming specific organisations,18 made determined efforts to publicise their cause by letters to prominent officials. Indeed, Mr M.F. Cullis (then in the Ministry of Economic Intelligence, but later head of the Austrian section of the Central Department of the Foreign Office) described the Free Austria Movement as essentially an organisation of prolific letter writers. They exasperated, rather than impressed, Foreign Office officials.


Austrian resistance to Germany By 1943, political – and sentimental – considerations dictated that, despite Austrian disunity, British policy should be formally based on the premise that Austria had been the victim of Nazi aggression, and that she was awaiting her liberation by the Allies. At the same time, Harrison’s evaluation of Austria was widely shared by his colleagues, both then and in later years. Indeed, the dominant belief since then has been that there was no resistance in Austria worth mentioning and that patriotism was only rediscovered when the Allies entered Vienna in 1945. It is difficult to prove or disprove that Austria’s new found patriotism was not sheer opportunism. Austria had always lacked a sense of national identity, and the events of the 1930s had reinforced this. Parliamentary democracy had been suspended in 1933, and the Democratic Labour movement destroyed the following year by Dollfuss. This so narrowed the basis of Austrian politics that the authoritarian rule of the ‘Fatherland Front’ – the only legal political movement – was unable to resist the twin pressures of National Socialist terrorism and German economic pressure. Furthermore, as Frank Roberts of the Central Department in the Foreign Office noted, ‘The most disconcerting feature of the Austrian question has been the enthusiasm with which Austrian troops have fought in the German Army.’19 The scepticism expressed by many British officials was, in many cases, built on the reactions of Austrians to Anschluss. It may have seemed to ordinary Austrians that foreign powers had not only reconciled themselves to the Anschluss, but condoned it. But the Anschluss was enthusiastically welcomed by both Austrians and Germans. As General Guderian (who took part in the operation) later wrote: ‘No untoward incident marred the occasion that had for so many years been longed for by both sides … Children of one nation, split by unfortunate politics into two during so many decades, were now happily united at last.’20 The Anschluss meant different things to various sectors of the Austrian population. So, for the traditional pan-Germanist, it brought about the fulfilment of a dream of reunion. For others it was a breadand-butter question. For many industrialists it meant wider markets, and for many professional men wider fields of work; for Austria’s 400,000 unemployed, in a population of 6.5 million, it meant the hope of regular work. Certainly before the polling day for Hitler’s 10 April plebiscite arrived, the legations of the Western Powers in Vienna had


recognised the fact of union, discreetly converting themselves into consulate generals, so setting the diplomatic seal of approval on events. This move was made by Britain as a logical consequence of her recognition that the Austrian state had been abolished as a legal entity. Three other factors must also be borne in mind. First, there was Austria’s weariness in her search for foreign protection and internal stability; she had had to date one conflict approaching the scale of civil war,21 at least two abortive putsches, and numberless acts of terrorism. Second, there was not a single neighbour of Austria, except Czechoslovakia and neutral Switzerland, where authoritarianism was not triumphant. Third, Austria’s diplomatic isolation was complete. Mussolini was by then cynically indifferent; he told Ribbentrop that he was tired of guarding Austrian independence. France was concerned, but unable and unwilling to move without Italo-British support. And, as Grandi, the Italian ambassador in London, had predicted to Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law and Foreign Minister, Britain’s attitude was one of indignant resignation. In the event, Austria’s religious and political leadership welcomed the Anschluss and all that it entailed. The Catholic Bench of Bishops went so far as to issue a proclamation praising ‘from innermost conviction and free will, the splendid work of Nazism in the social field and as a bulwark against Bolshevism’. 22 And even the Socialist exChancellor, Karl Renner, said: The 20 year old stray wandering of the Austrian people is now ended … The sad intermezzo of the half century 1866–1918 thus becomes submerged in our 1000 years of common history.23 With the exception of the Austrian president, Miklas, there was no Austrian statesman who could later be unreservedly proud of the role he played: some fled and some connived, but the majority dithered. Seyss-Inquart, for instance, appointed Minister of the Interior after the Berchtesgaden meeting, refused to apply formally for the Chancellorship as Berlin demanded, but still became Chancellor for a few days under the Nazis, and was made viceroy for Austria as a reward for his role in the Anschluss. 24 Only Miklas battled on, rejecting Goering’s repeated ultimatum with the words that Germans could not tell him whom to appoint. British officials were aware of the need to balance scepticism with a more generous attitude. It was acknowledged that the Austrian attitude was irrelevant in the face of the German conception of union. There


was no question of Austria’s entry into the Reich as a fully equal federal state. She was immediately subjected to a policy of economic and political integration that was aimed at destroying everything that was Austrian. The Austrian Nazi-dominated regime, under SeyssInquart, was allowed to go through the motions of power only from 12 to 14 March. A Gauleiter (provincial party leader) was then appointed. Even the name of Austria was eliminated – the country was renamed the Ostmark (the East March), and later the Donau und Alepengau. The original nine provinces were transformed into seven Reichsgau, all vestiges of Austrian central government were finally dissolved and orders came directly from Berlin. In the face of such pressures, Austrian resistance was likely to be, at best, limited.25 Unlike the French or the Italians, the Austrians had to begin by acting in the face of generations of pan-German sentiment and tradition. Austrians lacked a compelling sense of national identity. They were also faced with serious practical difficulties, such as the fact that, according to figures given by Seyss-Inquart’s defending counsel at Nuremberg, in the first days of German occupation the total of firstwave arrests in Vienna alone was 76,000 from a population of some 2 million.26 Parallel with this went the German penetration of all positions of influence in politics, culture, industry and science. There was also the military call-up. The Austrians were not second-class citizens, but regular ‘Ostmarker’ of the Reich, and the steadily increasing recruitment drive of the German Army presented resistance organisers with severe problems. In addition, Austria was geographically isolated, especially from direct contact with any of the Allies; contacts were made through Berne, Ankara and Stockholm but, until 1944, these links were tenuous. One of the greatest problems was that of language; unlike any other occupied country, Austrians did not enjoy the protection afforded by a different language. This lightened the task of the Gestapo. As some British officials recognised, conditions in Austria could only be compared to those in Germany, rather than Hungary or Czechoslovakia. The technical efficiency of the police was as great. In other words, open sabotage or opposition could not be expected from the Austrians, and appealing for it could have resulted in exasperation at British ignorance and perhaps even a lessening of whatever active opposition did exist. Nevertheless, there was some justification for Foreign Office scepticism, even if some of hesitancy underpinning it can be attributed to the lack of knowledge about what was happening in Austria. 27 An admonitory line was undoubtedly adopted in pronouncements to


Austria, but this was partly in frustration at the lack of any sign of resistance to German rule. Cordell Hull, the American Secretary of State, for example, warned Austrians in September 1944 that the time for them to make a contribution for the Allies to take into account had almost expired. A month later, Sir George Franckenstein broadcast an appeal to Austrians to ‘throw off their chains’. And in March 1945, Eden had to tell the House of Commons that the position of Austria as an integral part of Germany was ‘rather special’. It was not conceivable that she could be placed on an equal footing with liberated or allied territories, he said. It had repeatedly been made clear to Austria that, in the final settlement, account would be taken of her contribution to the overthrow of Nazism. He wished to remind Austria that time was running short.28 As Harrison later minuted: ‘’The fact is that we have no indication of any serious resistance in Austria. It is doubtful whether these unfortunate people ever get much beyond talking.’ 29 Harrison thought that the Austrian attitude was a continuation of a traditional ‘wait and see’ attitude, combined with a reliance on outside help. The Austrians’ ‘prominent feelings of guilt and responsibility’, he thought, had been transformed into fear, so that they said, ‘the Germans are to blame, not we.’30 Resistance movements never became factors of military or political significance in Austria. Resistance existed mainly in the attitude and behaviour of individuals or of small groups and, as such, was usually as subjective as Austrian Nazism itself. There was a failure to form any effective organisation until the last months of war, and such movements as existed in Austria at the end of the war were submerged by the rapid normalisation process. It was partly this situation that allowed opportunism to flourish immediately after the war, when many so-called resistance groups emerged to claim a reward for having made an important contribution towards the overthrow of the Nazis. Although in some cases these organisations had provided valuable services to the Allied cause, it was clear that many employed the resistance label as a means of political bargaining. Intelligence officers with British troops in Austria in 1945 thought many of the groups were not created until the post-conflict period.31 After the war, a number of self-justifying articles were written about the extent of resistance activity in Austria, but the overall picture remains ambiguous; many were written for their propaganda effect, while others were by individuals with knowledge of only a particular region. During 1946–7, when the question of Austrian responsibility for participation in the war was again raised in connection with the


drafting of an Austrian treaty, the Austrian Government hurriedly put out Part 1 of a Red-White-Red Book. Unfortunately, this unrelated jumble of documents and isolated descriptions failed to give a comprehensive picture of Austrian resistance activity. Part 2 was never issued, possibly because not everyone then in influential positions wanted to be reminded of the role he did or did not play during the seven years of Anschluss. Later accounts by sympathetic commentators, such as Shepherd, have conveyed a picture of opposition to the Nazis, but perhaps the safest conclusion is that of the (admittedly biased) RedWhite-Red Book: ‘one thing is certain, that the expectations which Hitler himself connected with the Austrian theatre of war were not fulfilled.’32 Vienna never became another Breslau.33

Propaganda to Austria Supplementary evidence for the hesitancy characterising British policy towards Austria can be found in the propaganda of the time. British political warfare was, inevitably, influenced by the behaviour of Austrians in Britain and the paucity of information about what was happening in Austria. This was reflected in a marked reluctance to commit to firm future action and in the passive nature of the encouragement given to Austrian resistance activities. Although public broadcasts, such as that by Eden on the sixth anniversary of Anschluss, emphasised that Austrians had ‘an essential part to play in the liberation of your country from a tyranny which too many of you willingly accepted’, acts of overt resistance were discouraged.34 Austrians should be given every incentive to carry out acts of sabotage and damage the German war effort, advised the Foreign Office, but this should be by passive resistance and other methods, and appeals to the Austrian people to revolt were to be avoided until the final moments of the war.35 In other words, the objectives of Allied policy were to inflict the maximum damage on the German war effort and to prepare the way for a post-Armistice settlement for an independent Austria with the least expenditure of British effort. BBC broadcasts were chosen as the best means of encouraging patriotism. As Harrison said, ‘having declared ourselves in favour of a free and independent Austria after the war, provided that the Austrians play their part, the next step is clearly to convince the Austrians that we mean business.’36 Harrison thought that the BBC should be allocated free time to encourage this, with the ruling, first, that propaganda should not run counter to that of the Soviets, and second, that it


would be wisest to direct propaganda to the future; that is, to foster a sense of independence after liberation. His argument was accepted, with the result that the BBC put out twice weekly broadcasts to Austria in a German-language programme. Unfortunately the service left much to be desired initially; when the programmes were not over-heavy with nostalgia, the language in which they were presented was (according to some BBC officials) so vulgar as to be incomprehensible to all except Viennese cab drivers.37 The activist line adopted by Moscow, which insisted on militant patriotism and an avoidance of wasting time on the ‘idle future’, was avoided. The BBC never broadcast instructions or encouragement comparable to that given to the Czechs, though they did stress that the task for Austrian patriots was to form partisan groups and fight. The closest the BBC came to an activist line was in a speech by Sir George Franckenstein on 20 October 1944.38 His basic point was that Austrians in the German armies should desert and fight with the Allies. He claimed that such action was not contrary to international law because, he said, the British Government had never formally recognised the de jure incorporation of Austria into the Reich. But this incitement was unusual. It is, in fact, unsurprising that the BBC made little effort to encourage resistance by the means available to them, for they later complained to the Foreign Office that they did not receive sufficient information about Austria.

Emergence and development of an official view The result of British perceptions of Austrian activities, in both Britain and Austria, was that official opinion on the future of Austria was cautious at best during the first four years of war. There was a limited assessment of the political situation in Austria, but this was isolated from any firm or coherent set of ideas (let alone policies) on the future of the country. London had (along with the Soviet Union and France) tacitly recognised the de jure as well as de facto incorporation of Austria into Germany in 1938 – Austrians were regarded as German citizens – but no commitment to the future was made before 1943 because the Foreign Office considered it to be premature.39 A pattern of restrained comments was set early by career diplomats in the face of the proAustrian public pronouncements made by some politicians. The proposals eventually presented in Moscow emerged from several years of confused debate. The records show how, partly empirically and partly by what can only be described as intuition, the British


Government made up its mind on critical issues, such as the influence of Nazism in Austria, which were then debated repeatedly and indecisively. The obvious reluctance to make a firm statement was probably sensible in view of the shortage of information on which to base policy decisions. There were, of course, research committees which provided useful analyses and recommendations, particularly about the future of Austria. The Foreign Office Research Department’s committee under Professor Arnold Toynbee was one such committee, as was the Foreign Office Research and Press Service at Balliol College, Oxford. Their reports, according to some (Frank Roberts was one), did much to clear the minds of Foreign Office officials, but others (such as Gladwyn Jebb of the Economic and Reconstruction Department) found Toynbee and his colleagues useful merely as purveyors of information. According to Jebb, most of the researchers had little experience of government and, even if they had, would have proved incapable of coercing political departments and actually formulating policy. But, whatever the case – and Jebb was undoubtedly correct – hesitancy remained characteristic of most of the recorded public and private discussions. The treatment to which a postwar Austria should be subject and the means by which she could be freed from German domination remained uncertain until much later than 1943. The fact that the pervading reluctance was not shared by Churchill does not invalidate the assertion. As usual, Churchill had few doubts and strong convictions about the need for a firm commitment to liberate Austria. In a Mansion House speech on 9 November 1940, for example, he specifically declared Austria to be one of the countries for which Britain had gone to war. It was to this speech that Eden referred a question in the House of Commons on 9 September 1942, when asked whether the liberation of Austria was a war aim. 40 Again, on 18 February 1942, Churchill proclaimed that ‘with the victory of the Allies liberated Austria will again take up her place of honour. The British people will never leave the cause of liberty in Austria in the lurch. We will fight for her liberation.’41 But such exhortations, also echoed by Sir Robert Vansittart, Chief Diplomatic Adviser, were insufficient to drive policy on their own. Although public utterances on Austria remained more commonly hesitant, by early 1943 there was a clear need for a more definite and detailed policy, if only on which to base general propaganda; the lack of forcefulness in existing propaganda methods, reflecting the uncertain attitude towards Austria’s future, arousing criticism in some government quarters. Yet hesitancy was sensible in the circumstances.


Austria’s past was controversial, and her future would inevitably be influenced by policy towards Germany. Furthermore, an impasse existed between Churchill’s thunderings and the cautionary Foreign Office view – succinctly expressed by a clerk in the Central Department who noted, in January 1941, that many Austrians accepted the union with Germany. The clerk, Grey, was afraid that ‘any lead which we gave would only appeal to a minority and would antagonise the majority who would feel that we ourselves were seeking to impose a solution without taking Austrian views into account.’42 Grey also noted that the very fact that Britain did not want to impose a solution made it even more difficult to be positive and constructive about her future. As Grey was well aware, there were good political reasons for this attitude. Just as the Austria of 1919 had turned out to be an artificial creation, so an independent Austria after the war could be even more artificial; it was too early to see what the shape of postwar Europe might be. The disparity between the past, present and the uncertain future situation meant that no decision had been taken on the restoration of an independent Austria by the summer of 1941. The debate about Austria’s future status, which was inevitably seen as of secondary importance in the circumstances of the war, then rumbled on until an important new factor emerging in late 1941 introduced an additional note. When the Soviet Union became an ally, Eden went to Moscow to negotiate an Anglo-Soviet treaty. While there Stalin presented him with the draft of a secret protocol on future European frontiers, which provided that Austria be restored. 43 In the event, Eden agreed with Stalin’s proposals, but he was not ready to make a public statement. His position was undermined, however, when Lord Cranbourne, UnderSecretary for Foreign Affairs, stated in the House of Lords on 2 February 1942 that the liberation of Austria was one of Britain’s war aims, although the future status of Austria ‘would depend on the Austrians themselves, the great majority of whom are now fighting in the ranks of our enemies’.44 This was undoubtedly a premature announcement because negotiations for the treaty were continuing. Moreover, the British Government was pledged to the United States not to accept any commitment in regard to other countries, except with their knowledge. 45 Not surprisingly, Roger Makins, then diplomatic adviser to Harold Macmillan, the British Minister Resident at AFHQ in Algeria, described it as a ‘dubious statement’, an opinion no doubt shared by many of his colleagues. 46 Makins, in whose remit Austria fell (and whom Churchill described as having mental muscle), doubted the wisdom of a commitment to an


independent Austria when London was not committed to establishing any frontiers in central Europe. He thought the proposed statements on Austria were difficult to reconcile with the fact that Britain was bound by the Atlantic Charter – which specifically left governmental decisions to the peoples concerned – and by the fact that she wished to encourage federalist tendencies in Europe. And, like so many of his colleagues, he questioned whether the commitment to an independent Austria had been considered on its own merits. Could Austria survive on her own? He questioned whether the British Government was prepared to contribute the regular subsidies which would be necessary to ensure such a territorial commitment. Such reservations annoyed Churchill who, on 2 June 1942, had characteristically minuted to Eden: I do not propose to subject myself to any special inhibitions about Austria. I certainly look forward to the liberation and thereafter its liberation as a separate state or as the centre of a mid European Confederation.47 Eden said that he, too, favoured independence, but no fresh public statements were made, and on 9 September 1942 Eden took an evasive line in the House of Commons in reply to a question from an MP, who asked for an assurance that at the peace settlement the future of Austria would not be influenced by the changes in, and since, 1938. Eden replied: ‘While His Majesty’s Government could not commit themselves to any particular future frontiers in Europe, they equally do not regard themselves as bound by any changes effected in Austria in or since 1938.’48 Policy, such as it was, was characterised by ambiguity, confusion and prevarication. But in the circumstances this was inevitable. Britain’s major concern was to ensure that Austria could never again be used to support German militarism. For this reason the government had publicly welcomed the creation of a future independent Austria, which they insisted accorded with the wishes of most Austrians. But at the same time a number of statements were issued to the effect that the situation in Austria would depend largely on the actions of the Austrians themselves and that they must make their own contribution, alongside the Czechoslovaks and the Yugoslavs, to defeat the common enemy. Matters were left at this level of generality for the rest of the year. The result was that, although public proposals to wean Austria away from her traditional association with Germany were many and various


(ranging from making Vienna the capital of a Danubian confederation to the formation of an Austrian fighting unit in the British Army), no formal authoritative commitments or statements were made by either the British or their Allies before the Moscow Declaration. Indecision was considered acceptable because of the limited nature of resistance to Nazism within Austria, and the fact that individual and group acts of resistance were never likely to become factors of military or political significance. The ambiguous guidance provided to those directing the propaganda campaign to Austria reflected the confusion and prevarication characterising official thought at this time. The policy expressed in Moscow in 1943 thus evolved from sentiment and calculation almost independently of Austrian action.

3 Crystallisation of British Policy

At the beginning of 1943, Britain was still taking care to avoid a definite commitment on the future of Austria as an independent state. Policy statements made by senior government figures, such as Eden in September 1942, had only been to the effect that Allied victory would bring liberation from Germany. But, in January 1943, an advance was made on this position by a Foreign Office memorandum prepared to give guidance to the Political Warfare Executive, whose task was to encourage the maximum possible resistance to Germany and to stimulate the political consciousness of Austrians so as to encourage a sense of independence. It ran as follows: As part of their plan for preventing a revival of German militarism, HMG are determined to ensure that Austria is never again used as a springboard for German expansion …. For this reason, and also because in the view of HMG it accords with the wishes of the Austrian people themselves, HMG would welcome an independent Austria, freed from the Nazi yoke, and playing its full part in the reconstruction of Central Europe. … however [the situation] in Austria after the War depends largely on the actions of the Austrians themselves. If the Austrians desire the aid of the United Nations after the war, they must make their own contribution now, alongside their heroic neighbours, the Czechoslovaks and Yugoslavs, to the defeat of the common enemy.1 The memorandum is worth considering in some detail because it lays out the major arguments for and against a public pronouncement on Austria’s future treatment. It also shows that hesitancy was itself seen as useful by the government. 32

Crystallisation of British Policy 33

The memorandum represented an advance on previous work because it involved a definite statement by the British Government for the establishment of an independent Austria. It gave an explanation for the adoption of the policy – that it was designed to prevent a resumption of German expansion and because it was thought that it accorded with the wishes of the Austrians. It involved an appeal to the Austrians to resist the Nazis. The arguments for and against the public pronouncement of the policy were then weighed. The factors favouring the public adoption of such a policy included the fact that the majority of Austrians were thought to dislike their incorporation into the Reich.2 This feeling could be turned to account in the war effort, it was thought, if the Austrians were given a clear lead and some indication of what an Allied victory would have in store for them. The public announcement of the policy would also allow a definite appeal to the Austrians to resist the Nazis, which might produce useful propaganda results. But there were also a number of good reasons why there should be no further statement. First, Britain had not definitely decided that she wished to see the establishment of an independent Austria after the war. The indications were that such a solution might prove to be the most suitable initially, but it was unwise to commit Britain until the trend of events could be seen more clearly. It was hoped that the Foreign Research and Press Service at Balliol College, Oxford, would clarify the situation. Second, there was little direct evidence to show that the majority of Austrians desired an independent state, and their apathy made any sacrifice unlikely. Third, any British statement favouring the separation of Austria from Germany would be exploited to the full by German propaganda as a further indication that the Allies intended to bring about the destruction and dismemberment of Germany. Fourth, the successor states of the old Austrian Empire would look upon such a suggestion with suspicion as an unwelcome show of tenderness towards Austria. And, lastly, the memorandum pointed out that Britain had promised to consult the United States before undertaking any new commitments, and the present time, it was intimated, was not suitable to suggest that the moment for such an advance had come. Harrison noted by the side of this: ‘We shall probably have to consult the Soviets first.’ The range of independent action by Britain was limited. The memorandum concluded that, on balance, it seemed best for London to stand by previous statements, it being arguable from the point of view of political warfare that Britain’s purposes would be best


served by keeping the Austrians guessing as to her intentions, rather than by holding out any promises. But such policy guidance should, the memorandum continued, bear in mind that there was probably something to be gained by putting out an occasional broadcast on the lines of the statement in the name of a private individual, and as representing his views and not, in any way, committing London. Such a broadcast would provide an opportunity of testing Austrian reactions. The existing hesitancy of policy could be exploited. In this way, the documents reveal how, partly empirically and partly by what can only be described as intuition and opportunism, the government made up its mind on critical issues. Policy appears to have been gradually sifted out of the repeated reworking of basic ideas already common at the outbreak of the war. Information about the state of affairs in Austria remained poor, so decisions tended to be based on specific papers, which then appear to have been considered almost in isolation, judging from the repetition involved in both their content and the reaction to the ideas expressed. One such Foreign Office research paper, typifying this, was received by the Reconstruction Department in February 1943. ‘The Future of Austria (Confederation in Eastern Europe)’ introduced nothing new, but was judged to provide a concise summary of Austria’s administrative system, the probable situation immediately after the war, and strategic political and economic considerations.3 The paper focused on the postwar shape of Austria. It stated that there would be no insurmountable difficulties in establishing an independent Austria, and that, in the early stages at least, independence would almost certainly be preferable to inclusion in a federation. But it argued that the fundamental issue was not so much whether Austria should be placed in a federation, as whether or not international economic control could be achieved over the whole of south-east Europe, and the crises that had followed Austrian independence in 1919 averted. Certain other important points related to reconstruction were raised in passing. There was no government in exile, so internal reconstruction must be initiated by one or more of the Allies.4 These were difficulties that were already accepted. As Roberts pointed out: It must be remembered that Austria’s history and geographical position do not clearly define her future destiny. She has been at different times the leading state in a German Confederation, the head of a largely non-German Empire in South-East Europe, an independent


state, and an integrated part of a unitary German state. Any one of these situations might recur in the future, though the last would be the least acceptable.5 The paper thought that effective measures for Austria would be best undertaken if regarded as an integral part of measures for the whole of south-east Europe. So there was an argument for a federation. But it was agreed that independence must come first, and Roberts, for one, questioned whether this was wise in a country that might, for all Britain knew, contain a large number of fifth columnists or Nazi sympathisers. The other countries involved might feel a greater security if Austrian integrity was guaranteed by the United Nations, since the whole of postwar eastern Europe was likely to be in need of assistance for relief and reconstruction, and the maintenance of order by the United Nations.

Proposals for Moscow That the sifting of ideas represented a strong trend is clear from events during the next few months. Two papers prepared for the Foreign Secretary illustrate this. The first was a memorandum on the future of Austria, summarising official debate and listing the options open to the Allies, which Eden issued in May. 6 It gave a brief résumé of British policy to that date, stressing its non-committal nature. It emphasised the strategic importance of Austria: Austria could either provide a German salient by which an aggressive Germany could destroy all resistance in Danubia, or she could form the only line of defence for the area against such a Germany. The future of Austria was then discussed. She could be associated with Germany; but the Austrians were probably hostile to Germany, and all strategic and political considerations argued against this. She could be included in a south German confederation; however, much the same reasons were adduced against this course. She could remain independent. But there was no government in exile, and the Austrians would probably make little effort to help themselves; Allied help would be needed. She could form part of a Danubian confederation, but the successor states of the old Empire would be against such a move. Eden’s conclusion was that, in the interests of peace and security, it was essential to encourage Austrian resistance to German domination. And the first step towards this would be the recreation of an independent Austria. Eden did not favour a punitive attitude towards Austria; once


restored, Austria must be given preferential treatment to Germany. Austria would only survive if the United Nations did not penalise her for past misdeeds, and afforded her active support in the political and economic fields. Failure to do this, Eden warned, would mean a return of Austria to the German fold. However, in another brief prepared several weeks before, for Eden’s visit to the United States, it was stated that the uncertainty surrounding Austria’s future meant that matters must not be hurried.7 Although this did not contradict the May memorandum, it deliberately dampened expectations. Roberts, to name one dissenting voice, was unconvinced by its proposals. He thought the time had come for a more positive line, at least in propaganda to Austria, and that Austria should now be treated separately from the rest of the Danube basin. The following month, Eden let it be known that he too wished for the adoption of a more positive line; he did not want a public declaration of British policy, but he thought a joint Allied declaration would be useful. He warned that progress was likely to be slow. This was the first definite step towards the issue of a joint declaration that culminated in the Moscow Declaration. The proposal for a more positive approach to Austria’s future was adopted in the next few months. In June, the War Cabinet agreed that Eden’s earlier memorandum might be adopted as a broad statement of British policy for the purpose of preliminary discussions on postwar matters. The way was then open for an approach to the USA, the Soviet Union and the Dominion governments. In the meantime, Harrison minuted, the Political Warfare Executive were to slant their broadcasts to Austria so as to give greater encouragement to the hope of an independent Austria. Harrison had mentioned in passing that a lot of work had already been done on the economic aspects of an independent Austria, but Eden’s comment that ‘Our Austrian policy has been crystallised and approved in principle to a greater degree than is the case of most debatable areas in Europe’ is still surprising.8 It was not strictly true. It was even more untrue in relation to the Allied approval British proposals would require. By the beginning of 1943, Washington, for example, had expressed little interest in Austria. There were few attempts to raise the question of the future of Austria in the USA, although Archduke Otto, the eldest son of the last Emperor and the most prominent Austrian refugee in the USA, had tried. He hoped for a time to be recognised as the head of an Austrian government in exile, and, in nation-wide lectures, spoke of himself as ruler of the Czechs, Slovenes and Hungarians. But he was essentially an irri-


tant, and more powerful considerations shaped American policy. Interdepartmental battles between the State and War Departments, for instance, hampered the formation of a clear policy for postwar Europe. There was also an American attitude to the relationship between Allied military and political goals which ensured that the USA was concerned with the destruction of the German Army, rather than postwar alignments. Roosevelt thought, in any case, that the Balkans were a British responsibility.9 Another reason was that the USA did not wish to keep troops in Europe. It was considered inadvisable, since it might encourage the growth of spheres of influence which it was feared the British and the Soviets were trying to do. Plans to keep American troops in Europe were thought likely to be ineffective also, since the Red Army might get there first. And such plans would be impracticable, since American public concern was with the Japanese war. Consequently, Admiral Leahy (Roosevelt’s personal chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) could say, in November 1944, ‘there still remains a hope that we might succeed in avoiding entangling ourselves in European political difficulties’.10 In contrast, the Soviet government had expressed interest in Austria. After Eden’s visit to Moscow in December 1941, he reported to Churchill that Stalin, in outlining his plan for postwar Europe, had suggested, with apparently no qualifications, ‘the reconstruction of Austria as an independent state’. More importantly, after the Anschluss, prominent Austrian Communists had fled to the Soviet Union, where they spent most of the war living as government guests. They included Johann Koplenig, the former Party secretary, and Franz Honner who, in June 1944, flew to Yugoslavia and organised the first of what became Austrian Freedom Battalions, fighting alongside Tito’s partisans. Like her Allies, Moscow issued no clear policy statements, preferring to keep the Austrians – and the Allies – guessing. The main themes of Communist propaganda on Moscow Radio were nationalism and the formation of a National Front, themes which were, however, treated flexibly; the Communists did not oppose, either before or after the Moscow Declaration, the proposals of non-communist groups in London for the restoration of the Republican Constitution of 1920 (as revised in 1929), as a provisional basis for postwar reconstruction. Like her allies, Moscow did not appear to have clear policy guidance on matters concerning Austria. Despite this, London’s proposed joint statement was ready for dispatch to Washington and Moscow by 12 August. Part A consisted of a historical review, and Part B contained the draft declaration:


Having taken council together in the spirit of the Atlantic Charter, they hereby declare that they regard the union imposed on Austria by Germany on 15 March 1938 as null and void. They regard themselves in no way bound by any changes effected in Austria since that date … they wish to see re-established a free and independent Austria which shall enjoy, in association with those neighbouring states which will be faced with similar problems, that political and economic security which is the only lasting basis for peace. The Austrian people must, however, remember that they have a responsibility which they cannot evade, and that in the final settlement account will inevitably be taken of the part they play in assisting to expel the German invader.11 The reference to ‘association’ with ‘neighbouring states’ alluded to the Cabinet’s pet idea of a Danubian federation. This was certainly the interpretation adopted by the Foreign Office. By June, Moscow had made it clear that it did not favour such a plan, but no notice appears to have been taken of this by the War Cabinet. Washington agreed to make a joint declaration, but the State Department insisted on recasting the original draft. Their reasons for this were as follows. First, since Washington had not made any definite statement about a federation, it preferred that the declaration did not carry the implication that independence was conditional on ‘association with neighbouring states’, however desirable Austria’s inclusion in some regional structure might be. Second, the sentence that the Allied governments ‘are determined to liberate the Austrian people’ could be interpreted that they were disregarding the possible wishes of the Austrians. And, third, the State Department wished that the opening paragraph be redrafted, since it alluded to events preceding the formulation of the Atlantic Charter. The Charter, of 14 August 1941, had stated that the Allies ‘desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned’. The amended version was then sent to London, and the British Government adopted it in preference to their original draft.

The Moscow Conference, 1943 Since all three powers appeared to agree on proposals for Austria’s future, a declaration should not have been too difficult to achieve. Inevitably there were many difficulties in practice. Philip Mosely, one of the American delegation at Moscow in October, has given a good


account of what happened.12 At one of the first sessions between Eden, Cordell Hull (the American Secretary of State) and Molotov (the Soviet Foreign Commissar), it was agreed that a declaration on Austria should be issued, encouraging the Austrians to ‘work their passage home’ and promising them independence. The American draft ‘loaned’ to Eden was put before the meeting, which presented it to a drafting committee. It was at this point that evidence of a change in Soviet policy appeared. At several sessions of the drafting committee, Andrei Vyshinsky, the Soviet member, who sat alongside William Strang (the British representative) and James C. Dunn (the American representative), pressed for the inclusion of a clause saddling Austria with ‘full political and material responsibility for the war’. In view of the previous statements issued, this new clause was overstating the case, although it should be remembered that the Soviet Union alone had experience of German troops, including many Austrians, fighting on her territory. The British and American delegates at once protested that this was inconsistent with the declared intention of treating Austria as a victim of aggression. They argued that not only had she ceased to exist as a state after 1938, and could not therefore be held responsible for German aggression, but that to speak of ‘material responsibility’ implied she would be subject to reparations. Such a demand would be incompatible with a professed desire to re-establish Austrian independence and, further, the total resources of the Austrian economy would cover only a fraction of the cost of German war damage. Despite their insistence, Vyshinsky refused to give way, and eventually it was the other two who changed their position. They agreed to the modified phrase, ‘Austria has a responsibility which she cannot evade for participation in the war on the side of Hitlerite Germany.’ The phrase had a ring of truth about it. Austria did take part in the war on the side of the Nazis; it was only her ability to have done otherwise that was in question. But, the sentence bedevilled later negotiations concerning Austria, especially at the Potsdam conference of 1945. The text of the declaration was soon agreed and printed in the communiqué issued after the conference. Moscow made it quite clear that it expected to have a predominant voice in the affairs of eastern and south-eastern Europe, even though all three Allies had accepted Eden’s suggestion that no separate spheres of influence should be carved out of Europe, but that joint responsibility should be the basis of operations in all liberated and conquered territory. Molotov made his intentions clear by refusing to resume


diplomatic relations with the Polish government in exile, and by sharply rejecting a proposal by Eden to allow federations of the smaller European states. The reason for this change in Soviet policy, from Stalin’s remark to Eden in 1941, was probably because of the great increase in Soviet self-confidence. In 1941 German armies had been at the outskirts of Moscow. Soviet prestige had been at its lowest, and Stalin may have believed that the Western Allies were planning to come to terms with Hitler. By 1943 Soviet military victories had ensured that the German military position was reversed. Initially, the general communiqué issued from Moscow was greeted as fresh evidence of the harmony of the Allies. But some observers were more discriminating. A leading article in The Times on 2 November, for example, congratulated the Foreign Ministers on not making detailed policy pronouncements, but noted that the declaration on Austria formed ‘an exception to this good rule’. The Austrians were, the paper commented, anxiously awaiting their liberation from Hitlerite Germany at the hands of the Allies, but they would only have the will and power to maintain themselves as an independent unit in a Europe whose political and, above all, economic organisation differed fundamentally from that of 1919. But the principle that decisions about the future organisation of Europe as a whole must take precedence over detailed questions about particular countries, and that the nature of the organization would condition those directives, applied ‘with special force to the Austrian question’. The British had less confidence than the Americans in the value of statements of general principles, and Eden raised most of the specific issues at the conference. It was also at his suggestion that the Foreign Ministers agreed to establish a European Advisory Commission (EAC), which Britain had first proposed in July. Significantly, the Moscow Declaration introduced a note of ambiguity into political and military postwar planning for Austria. In this sense, it accurately reflected the situation and existing national policies in Britain and her Allies. On the one hand, Austria was ‘a victim of aggression’ who was to be liberated and was, by inference, to be treated the same as France, Belgium and Holland. But, on the other hand, she was partly responsible for German aggression, and so was liable to retributive treatment. In this way, her independence was put in doubt. Also, once the partial identification with Germany had been introduced, it could not be easily removed. Planning for Austria was now inevitably tied to that of Germany. Consequently, whatever might be said regarding her importance, she was always viewed as a smaller, and accordingly, less urgent problem.


British policy in 1944 The achievement of the Moscow Declaration did not significantly alter the characteristics of British policy towards Austria. Nor did it alter those of her Allies. Furthermore, British policy remained indecisive. This is made clear by a paper on the continuing nature of the problem as it appeared to the Political Warfare Executive (which was responsible for propaganda to enemy and enemy-occupied territory) in June 1944.13 The PWE was admittedly considered to be ineffective, if loud in self-advertisement, by men such as Ivone Kirkpatrick, later head of the political section of the German Control Commission. But the paper is characteristic of government planning in 1944, for it restated problems, listed alternative suggestions – and ignored Churchill’s favoured solution of a Danubian federation. The PWE task was to stimulate the political consciousness of Austrians so as to encourage a sense of the independence which the Allies were by then publicly committed to. That it faced considerable difficulties in achieving this goal is undeniable, yet the paper shows that it was still considering other possible postwar solutions to Austria’s position. None of the proposals was new. Austria could theoretically be reunited with Germany, since this was considered (by the PWE) to have been only partially discredited by the Anschluss. It would, however, go against the official belief that Austria had been annexed against her will, and the conviction of most policy-makers of the vital necessity of separating the two countries. Austria could have a lone existence, but the paper considered this possibility to have been too severely discredited by the events of 1919 to 1938 to be worthy of attention. The paper did, however, give serious consideration to the possibility that Austria could become associated with Italy, as Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, had earlier suggested when he said that Austria should be encouraged to join a frontier customs union of self-governing states such as Italy and Yugoslavia. 14 But the PWE thought that Austrian contempt for Italy ruled this out. The paper did not pay special attention to Churchill’s preferred solution to the form postwar Austria should take. Churchill had promoted Austria’s inclusion in a Danubian federation on a number of occasions in 1943. It had also been seriously considered as a possibility by the Foreign Office three years earlier – ‘the solution which would probably suit us best is that of an Austria bound up in some sort of Danubian Confederation’.15 But interest in the matter then faded. Churchill had certainly advocated to Eden at the time of the Moscow conference,


minuting his hope that Vienna would become the centre of such an organisation, but Eden thought such a proposal would simply alarm the Czechs and the Poles. Both Churchill and Roosevelt had referred to the subject at Teheran in November 1943, but although no further attention was lavished on the matter, the possibility of Austria forming part of a federation was not finally disposed of until February 1945. It is not clear that Churchill seriously considered any alternative plans. According to Gladwyn Jebb, ‘The fact was … that Churchill was quite allergic to any proposals for postwar action that he himself had not engendered, or at least discussed personally with the President.’16 One reason why the possibility of confederation could be raised by Churchill with Stalin so often was that, although Stalin had supported an independent Austria in a federation in 1941 during Eden’s visit, Soviet policy was very difficult for Britain to follow. In 1943, the Soviet press was loud in its denunciation of such plans, claiming that it was a plan to restore the Habsburgs. 17 Izvestia denounced as unjust the fact that Nazi satellite states would be placed in such a favourable position, and claimed that it was part of a Western attempt to re-establish the 1919 cordon sanitaire.18 In the meantime Molotov announced that only an independent Austria was acceptable. In 1943, Stalin claimed that a Danubian confederation would have no vitality; yet, at the same time, he expressed fear that, with German help, a new great power might come into being.19 His real objection was probably contained in his curt question as to whether Hungary and Romania, states in which he was vitally interested, ought also to belong to the confederation. He passed very lightly over Churchill’s counter-enquiry as to whether he wanted a Europe composed only of small states. In October 1944, at Moscow, Churchill again raised the issue. On this occasion, Stalin, contrary to his previous position, said he would be ‘glad to see Vienna the capital of a federation of South German states, including Austria’. 20 Stalin had probably changed his mind because the Danubian federation, as he proposed it, would not include Hungary which, with Poland and Czechoslovakia, would then form ‘a realm of independent, anti-Nazi, pro-Russian states’. In telling Roosevelt of the new agreement, Churchill probably repeated Stalin’s words without understanding their significance. It was not the new federation that was important to Stalin, but the attractive proposition that it would be governed from Vienna. Hungary seemed in a condition of imminent collapse, the capture of Vienna by the Red Army seemed at hand and, in contrast to Berlin, there was no agreement about a three-power occupation of Vienna.


These arrangements between Churchill and Stalin were, however, dependent on endorsement by all three powers. They were not at once opposed by Roosevelt, who showed that he was willing to discuss them at the forthcoming meeting at Yalta in February 1945, but neither was the matter taken further; Churchill thought it too complicated to be settled in five or six days, and referred it to the foreign ministers. No further study of a Danubian confederation was proposed, and on 9 May Richard Law, a junior Minister of State, said in answer to a parliamentary question that Austria was not discussed at Yalta. 21 The Declaration on Liberated Europe did, however, he said, apply to Austria.22

Table 3.1

Major Foreign Office officials referred to in the text23

Departments and Supervisory Under-Secretaries

Clerks

Business

Head

GERMAN O.C. Harvey (also UnderSecretary, Western Department)

[Sir] G.W. Harrison (transferred in 1944). [Sir] Con O’Neil J.M.K. Vyvyan M.F.Cullis

Post-war German and Austrian problems; planning for the control and occupation; current affairs

J.M. Troutbeck

NORTHERN O. Sargent (also Under-Secretary, Southern Department)

W.D. Allen (transferred from the Central Department in 1944)

In this connection, the Soviet Union

C.F.A. Warner

CENTRAL RECONSTRUCTION

F.K. Roberts [Sir] J.G. Ward Viscount Hood

Peace treaties; civil affairs; relief; civil governments in liberated countries; League of Nations; reconstruction; war crimes

H.M.G. Jebb (Lord Gladwyn)

44 Britain and the Occupation of Austria, 1943–45 Table 3.1 (cont.) Departments and Supervisory Under-Secretaries

Clerks

RESEARCH

SERVICES LIAISON A. Cadogan

[Sir] R. Allen

Business

Head

Special research; foreign press reviews; Foreign Office handbooks

Professor A.J. Toynbee

Co-ordination of intelligence; Foreign Office representative on the Joint Intelligence and Joint Planning Staffs

4 Co-ordinating Allied Policy

The most difficult – and frustrating – tasks confronting planners arose from the need to reconcile British and Allied policy. The necessary political machinery for this was provided by the three foreign ministers at the Moscow conference in the form of the European Advisory Commission (EAC), which sat in London. Each government appointed delegates to the EAC at the Teheran Conference of December 1943: Sir William Strang represented Britain, John Winant, the American Ambassador to London, represented his country, and Fedor Gousev, the Soviet Ambassador in London from 1943, was his country’s delegate. Later, on 11 November 1944, the Provisional Government of the French Republic was invited to become a member of the Commission, and M. Massigli, the French Ambassador in London, joined them. Each delegate was assisted by political, military and other representatives. For its briefs in all negotiations, the British delegation, whose representative was the only member to devote all his time to the commission, used papers prepared by the Post Hostilities Planning Subcommittee and the Armistice Terms and Civil Administration Committee, or, from April 1944 onwards, the Armistice and Postwar Committee (Ministerial). When necessary, the delegation referred back to these committees. The task of the Post Hostilities Planning Subcommittee was to advise the Chiefs of Staff Committee and draft instruments of surrender. Close liaison was maintained with the armed services’ departments by the simple expedient of each nominating a representative who also continued to work in his own department. Foreign Office interests were recognised by the appointment as chairman of Gladwyn Jebb, head of the Reconstruction Department. The Armistice Terms and Civil Administration Committee advised the War Cabinet Office of matters connected with armistice terms and 45


instruments of surrender, with the military administration of enemy occupied territory, of the co-ordination of these matters with the Allies, and on general policy and military questions in the postwar world. It operated at ministerial level, under the chairmanship of Attlee, the Deputy Prime Minister. The EAC was required generally to ‘study and make recommendations to the three Governments upon European questions connected with the termination of hostilities which the three Governments may consider appropriate to it’. In particular, one of its first tasks was to make detailed recommendations of ‘the terms of surrender to be imposed upon each of the European states with which any of the three Powers are at war, and upon the machinery required to ensure the fulfilment of these terms’. 1 The terms of reference, as laid down, reflected a sharp divergence between British and American views. The Foreign Office had wanted the EAC to receive a broad mandate to settle promptly, during the war, many questions concerning both enemy and the smaller Allied states of Europe. 2 According to their proposals, the EAC should have competence to deal with the proposed future regimes to be established in France, Poland, Yugoslavia and elsewhere, and also to settle minority and boundary disputes. The reason was to settle as many major questions as possible during the war while the major Allies were compelled by necessity to act together, and the United States still had many troops in Europe. Eden claimed this was successfully achieved in that ‘Here for the first time we have the beginnings of practical collaboration between the three Powers on specific tasks of the first importance.’3 This was not the American view of how the EAC should be used. The dominant view in Washington was that it would be unwise to attempt to solve postwar problems while hostilities continued, except for establishing a United Nations organisation. For there was doubt as to whether the Executive could commit the USA on matters usually settled in peace treaties. There was uncertainty about the degree to which American public opinion would maintain interest in specifically European problems after the war. There were fears that groups of Americans of foreign birth would be distracted from the unified war effort if attempts were made during the war to settle boundary issues. Consequently, Washington favoured limiting the mandate of the EAC primarily to working out arrangements for the surrender of the Axis states. Winant was left to understand that the EAC would deal with the minimum of what was set out in its terms of reference.

Co-ordinating Allied Policy 47

The practical consequences of this were serious. It meant that the EAC was rarely able to ‘study and make recommendations’ to the three governments on its own initiative because it could only work when all three representatives had full instructions from their governments. In other words, it was not a co-ordinating body so much as a negotiating one. It could only present recommendations if they were approved in advance by the governments. This meant that the Commission’s pace of work varied enormously, the speed depending upon the governments being prepared to make the concessions and amendments necessary to reach agreed policy. It had periods of intense work and others when it was unable to reach any decision at all. Delay was, in any case, an inevitable accompaniment to working with the Soviets. The Soviet representative was unable to negotiate, exchange information, make comments or suggest policy recommendations until Moscow sent precise instructions. The Western habit of continuous negotiation was entirely alien to the Soviets, who could not understand that their Western colleagues had both the opportunity and responsibility for presenting, and even advocating, policies. The most frequent situation was one in which Soviet negotiators were strictly bound by detailed instructions, rigidly pressed. Each point at issue then became a test of will and nerve. So, instead of trying to reduce the number of points of friction and to isolate and diminish the major conflicts of interest, the Soviets often seemed, to exasperated Westerners, to take pride in finding the maximum number of disputes and on dwelling on each of them to the full. The British Government had the greatest interest in making the EAC work, for it alone considered that an early political settlement was vital in view of the developments in the military sphere.

The issue of tripartite division An organisational meeting of the EAC was held on 15 December 1943, but the Commission only began its formal meetings on 14 January 1944. As has been stressed, the Austrian question was overshadowed by the problem of Germany, but the Moscow Declaration contained a number of important implications for the EAC’s future work on Austria. Provision would have to be made for the establishment of an independent Austrian government, the country re-established as a sovereign state, and Nazi control and influence eradicated from every aspect of her national life. It was agreed that occupation would be necessary. One of the Commission’s major tasks, therefore, was to


make a suitable division of responsibilities between the Great Powers. Tripartite division was not, at first, considered. American hesitation to accept a role in Austria slowed developments in the EAC from the beginning. Earlier, in December 1943, a member of the Foreign Office had made a reconnaissance visit to Washington to find out whether the Americans were prepared to take the initiative in presenting proposals to the EAC. In view of known American attitudes (and the lack of supporting documentary evidence), it can be assumed he reported that no rapid formulation of policy was to be relied on. So in January 1944 the Foreign Office took the initiative by presenting proposals concerning Germany. The British plan for the zoning of Germany, circulated on 15 January, allocated to the United States a zone comprising southern Germany and the whole of Austria – Britain sending only a token force to Vienna. The British and Soviet zones in Germany were to be in the north-west and north-east, respectively. This fitted into the general British concept of an invasion of central Europe from either Italy or France, for which the major share of troops would be supplied by the USA, then predominant in Italy. The US contested this because they wished for a north-western zone in Germany from which to transport troops to the Far East as soon as hostilities with Germany were concluded. At the third meeting of the EAC, a Soviet proposal was circulated. This accepted the eastern zone of Germany, but also suggested the separation of Austria from German zonal planning, and its occupation by all three powers instead of by the power occupying southern Germany. Gousev indicated that his government was indifferent as to which zones Britain and the USA occupied. The issue was theoretically reserved for later consideration, but none of the proposals were acceptable to Washington and, in March, Roosevelt sent Winant the proposal that the USA should occupy a zone in north-west Germany, and leave the occupation of the south and Austria to the British. This move was prompted by two main considerations. First, Roosevelt was very sensitive to criticism that too many American resources were being concentrated in Germany to the detriment of the Japanese campaign, and that the redeployment of American troops after the defeat of Germany would be easier from a position within convenient reach of the north German and Channel ports than from deep inland. Second, it seems that the occupation of south Germany and Austria was connected in his mind with the risk of American entanglement in British and Soviet rivalry in the Balkans. As he told Hull:


I do not want the United States to have the postwar burden of reconstructing the Balkans. This is not our natural task at a distance of 3,500 miles or more. It is definitely a British task. It is essential that American troops of occupation will have no responsibility in southern Europe and will be withdrawn from there at the earliest practicable date.4 Another important consideration (for the War Department if not the State Department) was the possibility of postwar disorder in France which, it was thought, might endanger American communications in southern Europe. Tripartite division was also a controversial issue in Britain. The Foreign Office thought it should be avoided. As Harold Macmillan, Resident Minister with AFHQ, later said in May 1944, to divide Austria into three parts would form an effective barrier towards the unification of all seven Gau, which was the main purpose of a military government separate from that of Germany. 5 In addition, so much of the population and industry was located in Vienna and in Lower Austria that it was impossible to divide the country into three parts on an approximately equal basis bearing any relation to the Gau or administrative areas. But this argument was, in a sense, also unrealistic since whatever misgivings Britain might express it was unlikely that the Soviet Government would disclaim all interest in Austria. The latter were acutely aware of the demands of their national security, and feared the West was attempting to create a cordon sanitaire. Yet it was unlikely that Moscow had any specific plans to incorporate Austria within its own sphere at that time. At the most, the Soviets could hope to occupy Vienna and the eastern half of Austria. In view of the smallness of the country, the results of complete incorporation would not justify the antagonism it would arouse in the West, something which the Soviet government was anxious to avoid until late 1945.6 But the fact that Moscow should demand a say in the arrangements for Austria was understandable in view of the strategic importance of the country and, according to the Moscow Declaration, justified. The British Government still hoped to restrict the role of the Soviets in Austria. But, if there was to be tripartite government, they preferred to accept the proposals outlined in a planning paper by the Austrian Planning Section of the American Army. 7 In the light of later events, the latter’s paper on suggested bases for Soviet participation was unrealistic and its proposals most unlikely to be accepted by Moscow, but


the fact that it was considered favourably is indicative of the vacuum in which planning so often took place. The paper proposed the following alternatives. The Soviets might be limited to an advisory mission at the Headquarters of the Allied military government, to advise and consult with the Chief Civil Affairs Officer (CCAO) and chiefs of various departments at the highest levels. No Soviet CCAO or specialist would be directly in the military government through the mission. Second, they might be limited to a few senior officers at headquarters. But it was not thought likely that the Soviets would agree to this. Third, they could be placed on an equal footing with British and American national headquarters, providing, say, 50 out of 150 officers. At the Gau level the representation would consist of a senior Soviet officer in each, with a British or American deputy. Or there could be full integration at all levels of command. This could be modified so that the military government could be fully integrated at the level of Vienna, the balance of the country being divided into three zones. This would reduce the inevitable inequality in zonal importance. The last two suggestions would, it was thought, face considerable language and administrative difficulties. So the third suggestion was considered to be the most acceptable to both sides. Macmillan continued to consider tripartite division unrealistic, though others, such as Richard Law, a junior minister, welcomed it, since it might bring the Americans into Austria. Doubts as to the viability of tripartite government did not, however, prevent research on the subject being carried out in Britain by the Post Hostilities Planning staff (PHP), whose papers were then given to the British delegate at the EAC. Typically, the PHP staff envisaged occupation and control falling ‘naturally’ into the three stages which actually occurred. The first would occur in the immediate aftermath of hostilities and on the completion of military occupation. Supreme authority would rest with each commander in chief within the area occupied by his troops. He would also exercise control over his civil affairs organisation. In the second period, tripartite military government would function in Vienna. The third period would see control by a tripartite civil control commission as soon as the military situation permitted and the Austrian administrative machinery had been restored. The type of control to be set up was to be the same as that of Germany. Clearly, despite the Moscow Declaration, Austria was not seen as so very different from Germany. Indeed, a little later, during May 1944, there was general agreement by the PHP Committee that Austria should be treated as an enemy country and disarmed and demilitarised as soon as possible. In the


meantime, the Committee continued to be concerned with the forces Austria was to be allowed to maintain after occupation, mainly for frontier control, police and customs work. In Austria, as in Germany, the Committee proposed that Allied staffs should mix at the highest levels. But, because it was still uncertain whether the US would send more than a token force to Vienna (she did not accept a zone until January 1945), the Committee suggested that Austria should be occupied jointly by British and Soviet troops established in separate zones with a command around Vienna. The details of the control commission thought necessary for the third phase is illustrated by Figure 4.1.8 Britain’s eagerness for American acceptance of a southern German zone was based on the initial disposition of forces in Italy. Even when the original situation no longer existed and General Eisenhower (the then Supreme Commander in the Mediterranean) was transferred to SHAEF, the original British concept was retained. There was also the further consideration that if a zone was later allotted to France it could conveniently be taken out of the American zone in the south, bordering on France, and could be expanded when American troops were withdrawn, in accordance with Roosevelt’s known intention for their redeployment. This difference of opinion was further complicated by sharp differences of opinion over the matter in the American administration itself. The British delegate had all the advantages of being situated in his own capital, with direct personal access to his government. Consequently, he was usually able to receive clear political guidance relatively promptly. Interdepartmental conflicts could be resolved through joint committees where the primary responsibility of the Foreign Office for matters concerning foreign policy was recognised, or through the functioning of the Cabinet Secretariat, and, if necessary, through reference to the War Cabinet. But the American delegate had none of this. Winant worked under the direction of a Working Security Committee in London which was theoretically empowered to agree to instructions issued on behalf of the State, War and Navy Departments, amongst whom, however, disagreement was notorious. For a time, the civilaffairs section of the War Department refused to co-operate on the grounds that the surrender and occupation of Germany was a purely military matter, and that there was, therefore, no need for the existence of the Working Security Committee or, for that matter, of the EAC. Not surprisingly, planning for Austria lagged when even Germany was treated in such a cavalier fashion.

52

Figure 4.1

Initial British proposals for Allied control machinery


In view of the continuing difficulty of obtaining decisions on American participation in the occupation, Winant had flown to Washington to seek guidance in May 1944. At the same time the State Department presented Roosevelt with two papers on ‘The Treatment of Austria’. One of the proposals was that Austria should be jointly occupied, but that the occupation and administration should be left to the Power that occupied the southern zone of Germany. The other two powers would, however, furnish civil affairs representatives and liaison officers. The President approved, although it was contrary to the views he had expressed in February 1944. Winant thus returned with Roosevelt’s qualified agreement to participate in the control of Austria at the ‘national level’, that is through American representatives situated at a joint headquarters in Vienna, and in touch with any established central authority. But this did not include participation in zonal government, and was without commitment as to the size of the occupation force. He announced this concession on 31 May. But the move had been made without the knowledge of the State Department or the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And, on 9 June, the latter issued, despite SHAEF’s earlier directive, a directive insisting that no American forces would be used in southern Europe, including Austria. The subsequent confusion lasted until October. Meanwhile, after the invasion of Europe began on 1 July, the Soviet delegate in the EAC proposed that the three Powers should jointly occupy the whole of Austria within the national boundaries of December 1937. This at least allowed an advance on a separate protocol for Austria, which had been suggested by Gousev several weeks earlier. On 18 July, Winant was able to discuss it, and accepted the draft protocol by which the three agreed that Austria be occupied jointly, with an American contingent in Vienna. But delay, often prompted by British concerns, characterised all of these proceedings. Immediately after Winant’s acceptance, for instance, Strang (conscious that Britain could not withstand the Soviet Union on her own) tried to include a clause providing for auxiliary contingents from other powers in the occupation.9 The result was that the resulting deadlock continued for three or four meetings, and no further progress could be made until the matter was resolved. On 21 August, Strang presented more zoning proposals, with a three-power control system at the centre. But, apart from the principle of the German Kreis and Gau boundaries being used as a basis for zonal boundaries, this proposal never became an important factor in the final agreement, for it was set aside in favour of later British proposals based on quadripartite zoning.


The central problem of the allocation of the two western zones of Germany remained undecided, and this further delayed plans for Austria. On 5 September, a Foreign Office memorandum reported that it was still not known if the EAC had agreed to recommendations put forward on the question. It was not, in fact, until Churchill and Roosevelt met at the second Quebec conference (OCTAGON) late in September that Roosevelt accepted the original British proposal for an American zone in the south-west of Germany. He also agreed that Austria should be treated separately from Germany. This concession broke the long-standing Anglo-American deadlock over German zones and made it opportune for the Soviet delegate to present a new proposal for the tripartite zoning of Austria. Strang later minuted that they had agreed to this long ago, but three months of suspicion between the Allies had prevented it.10 Some of the American and Soviet suspicions of Britain were, in fact, justified; they were understandably unhappy about the number of leaks concerning EAC negotiations appearing in British newspapers. Gousev presented his new draft proposals in November. They provided for the Soviet occupation of the eastern halves of Lower Austria and Styria; British occupation of the western halves of these provinces and Carinthia; and American occupation of Upper Austria, Salzburg, Vorarlberg and the Tyrol, including the East Tyrol. The Soviet plan provided for the tripartite occupation of Vienna, giving themselves the north-east sector including the Innere Stadt, Britain the north-west sector, and the United States the southern sector. Gousev’s proposals also provided the first indication that the Soviet definition of the area of Vienna was different from that adopted by the British Government, which had chosen to use the Land limits of the capital, instead of the smaller old city boundaries. Boundaries then became the focus of attention.

The issue of boundaries In planning the Austrian zones, the western Allies maintained that, as had been agreed on German zones, zonal boundaries would follow existing provincial, or Länder, boundaries. Any other procedure would involve a complicated and detailed reshuffling of administrative, police, rationing and other arrangements. Gousev, however, refused to follow these precedents, and insisted on cancelling all changes in administrative boundaries that had been made since 1938. His reasons were simple enough. The Land of Vienna had undergone a long overdue expansion after the Anschluss. If the 1938 Land was

Soviet proposals for tripartite zoning

55

Map 4.1


occupied by all the Allies, then Lower Austria, which was under Soviet occupation, would be much reduced in area, population and resources, especially industrial ones. The Western position was admittedly based partly on the factor of administrative convenience. But, at the same time, the West was also insisting on the rejection of Soviet demands to occupy large parts of Styria and Carinthia, and to limiting the Soviet zone to Lower Austria and the Burgenland. Such proposals inevitably reinforced Soviet suspicions of the West’s intentions. Two new factors introduced Two new factors affected British reactions to Gousev’s proposals. First, during a visit of Churchill and Eden to Moscow in October 1943, it was arranged that the new French Provisional Government be invited to join the EAC. Britain had been pressing for this for some time because of her concern at the implications of American withdrawal from Europe, and because London was more concerned with France’s future than her past. French acceptance was a foregone conclusion, and because all of the EAC’s decisions had to be unanimous, this meant that once France could vote in the Commission everything so far settled would have to be renegotiated. Second, the experiences of the US in Bulgaria showed that, in any liberated country, the influence of a power was in direct proportion to the number of troops it had on the spot. In Bulgaria, real power lay with the Soviets, even though the Control Commission was nominally international, because Soviet military officials and troops supervised the demobilisation of Bulgarian forces. This had aroused a certain amount of public reaction in the United States, with the New York Times of 5 September 1944 calling for the policing of Austria by all three powers so that she was ‘the protege [sic] and guinea pig’ of all three instead of one, ‘as may be the case with some of her neighbors’. And, on 30 December 1944, the newspaper made it clear that Washington thought a three-power occupation would make for a closer alliance on the basis of the Moscow Declaration. The first of these two considerations acted as stimulants to the EAC delegates to try to get the German zonal agreements signed, which they were on 14 November, just before the formal admission of France. And the second was an important factor in persuading Roosevelt that it would be advisable to have a full American zone in Austria after all, especially as its supply was less of a problem now that the US had accepted a south German zone, adjacent to Austria. But it was not until early January that Winant was instructed to accept the Soviet proposal,


subject to certain amendments put forward for military reasons. These were that, first, the East Tyrol be transferred to the British zone, as it logically belonged there because of the Alpine barrier that cut it off from the proposed American zone. Second, that transportation facilities by road, rail and air and via the Danube be guaranteed by the Soviets. And, third, that the city of Vienna’s boundaries be extended to include a suitable airfield for American requirements. So, after holding out for nearly a year, the US finally accepted equal responsibility for the occupation and control of postwar Austria. An additional consequence was that the French delegate also asked for a zone in Germany when the US decision to accept a full zone became known, but stressed that there would only be enough French troops to take part in Austrian control at the national level. In fact, participation by the French remained notional until the spring of 1945, leaving General Alexander, whose headquarters were planning for the military side of the occupation of Austria, to complain that the absence of direction as to whether the French Provisional Government would participate in the occupation was an embarrassment in planning.

The British proposals of January 1945 The American acceptance gave the British an opportunity to present a counter-proposal to those of Gousev. The Soviet proposals were unacceptable to Britain because they cut across provincial frontiers, reduced British communications to one railway to the south, and ensured that all the important agricultural and industrial areas lay in the Soviet zone. When combined with the reduction in the size of Vienna, Gousev’s proposals would not (London argued) facilitate Allied control. Furthermore, Soviet proposals would ensure that Britain had an unwanted responsibility for the Austro-Yugoslav frontier. Britain had originally accepted this because her main supply route was to have run through Trieste and along the Udine–Villach railway. But, as Hood commented, this was now under review in light of the fact that trouble was expected from Tito’s claim to Carinthia and Trieste; recent events in Greece having made Britain eager to avoid clashes with local partisans, or to have to suppress local disturbances. If the Brenner supply route was chosen, then Britain would have no common frontier with Yugoslavia. Hood accordingly proposed that a better zonal division would be if Britain had Tyrol-Vorarlberg, Salzburg and Upper Austria, while the Soviets were given Lower Austria, Styria and Carinthia (Map 4.2). Unfortunately for Britain, this was unrealistic in view of

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Map 4.2

Lord Hood’s zoning proposals, January 1945


the developments regarding American and French participation, and Hood was forced to admit that it would be better if one Power were responsible for the Austro-Yugoslav frontier, and that Britain would be preferable to the Soviet Union. The Chiefs of Staff (on whose professional responsibilities this directly impinged) agreed with him. Strang presented Britain’s objections to Gousev’s proposals at the end of January. He put forward counter-proposals that would zone Austria and cover the period of Allied control; from the surrender of Germany, or the cessation of organised resistance in Austria, until the eventual establishment of a freely elected Austrian government. His proposals were presented somewhat hesitantly for several reasons, all of which were reflected in the opinions of his colleagues in London. In terms of detail, Harrrison, for one, thought the views of the United States and the French should have been elicited first. Harrison was also afraid that Britain was giving away too much for fears that might never materialise. The fears he was referring to concerned Yugoslav claims to areas of Carinthia, where there was a Slovene minority (which Yugoslavia had failed to obtain under the plebiscite of 1919), Trieste, and as much of north-east Italy as possible. It was only later that they also asked for an Austrian zone, something the British government considered quite inadmissible. Harrison’s thoughts on the subject were minuted on a report from the Armistice Terms and Civil Administration Committee, which advised that American and French intentions should be found out before any proposal was presented to the EAC. The Committee had also concluded that the allocation of Carinthia, Styria and Lower Austria to the Soviet Union was practicable but undesirable, especially if the Americans and the French later asked for a zone. 11 They admitted, however, that this might be outweighed by the importance the British government attached to avoiding sole responsibility for the Yugoslav frontier. It was factors such as these that caused the committee to reach an unusual conclusion. They wrote that ‘It seems impracticable to devise any system of occupation of Austria by forces of three or more Powers without giving a strongly predominant position to the USSR.’ But their report then went on to say that the committee thought that ‘a Power with no zone of occupation is likely to exercise more influence than a Power with a zone of minor importance. Consequently, an occupation by two Powers only would seem to be preferable.’12 The power with a zone of ‘minor importance’ referred to a possible French zone of Carinthia. It was not until several weeks later that Tyrol-Vorarlberg was suggested as their zone. Although Strang’s


proposal was unaffected by these reservations – probably because American and French intentions had by then been ascertained – the War Office (which was represented at the meeting) was also concerned about the British draft proposal. It thought a reconsideration of zonal division essential, since the EAC had to consider that Allied forces might be in Austria before a German surrender – in which case full tripartite control would be impossible at that stage. They pointed out that the draft agreement gave no authority to the commanders of the occupying forces in their zones. If all went smoothly this would present no problem, but, if it did not, there would be no formal authority responsible for any action, even though commanders would be forced to act. The Foreign Office disagreed, arguing that Austria should be treated as a single unit. To follow War Office suggestions would split Austria into independent zones, thus preventing the creation of a centralised state; zonal headquarters would merely set up new centres of authority. There would then have to be three centres of control – Vienna, the provinces and the zones – instead of Vienna and the provinces which corresponded to the structure of the Austrian state. The practicalities of zonal division were questioned. Could four nationalities administer so small a country? For such a division would make it necessary that in matters affecting Austria as a whole the Allies prepare and enforce precise and voluminous regulations instead of general instructions to be transmitted to the provincial authorities from Vienna. It seemed to the Foreign Office that there were three possibilities. Discussion could proceed on the basis of the November agreement, involving direct administration by all the Allies in the early stages. This could be modified by integrating the divisions of the Allied control machinery, though this would be a difficult procedure, and would still necessitate co-ordination at higher levels. Alternatively, proposals could be made on a radically different basis by altering the time when Allied control was to operate and by providing that this would not be until an Austrian central administration had been set up. Pending this, control could be on a zonal basis, subject to co-ordination at the centre. The main centres of control would then be at the zonal level. The production of proposals and counter-proposals would, no doubt, have continued for many weeks if it had not been for the fact that the Red Army had broken through on a wide front by the middle of January 1945, crossing the East Prussian frontier, leaving the German Second Army close to breaking point, and into Czechoslovakia. It was becoming increasingly urgent for some form of international agree-

Map 4.3

Original Foreign Office zoning proposals 61


ment to be settled regarding the principles on which Allied occupation and control were to be based. This finally galvanised the Foreign Office into submitting revised proposals, which gave Britain the zone of Carinthia and Styria. Three alternatives for the other national zones, outlined in Table 4.1, were offered.13 The proposals meant that the Austro-Yugoslav frontier would be in the British zone, but it was now thought possible to get an Allied agreement for joint responsibility and action if necessary. British zonal proposals at the end of January also contained a number of significant variations from the earlier Soviet proposals. They envisaged not only a French zone consisting of Vorarlberg and the Tyrol, excluding the East Tyrol, but also French participation on an equal footing with the other three powers by the inclusion of a French element in the Allied Commission and the establishment of a French sector in the south-east quarter of Vienna. The British draft was important because it laid out clear proposals for control machinery. It proposed there should be an Allied Council, an Executive Council, and staffs appointed by the four governments; the whole being known as the Allied Commission for Austria (ACA). Under these arrangements, the Allied Council was to consist (initially at least) of four military commissioners, each of whom was to be in supreme command of their national forces of occupation. The military commissioners were to be replaced by civilian commissioners as soon as military conditions permitted. All four were to ‘jointly exercise

Table 4.1 First draft of British zoning proposals, January 1945 BRITISH ZONE

SOVIET ZONE

AMERICAN ZONE

Carinthia, Styria Population 1,500,000 ALTERNATIVE 1

ALTERNATIVE 2

ALTERNATIVE 3

Lower Austria

Lower and Upper Austria

Population 1,500,000

Population 2,400,000

Lower and Upper Austria north of the Danube Population 1,700,000

Salzburg, Tyrol-Vorarlberg and Upper Austria Population 1,900,000

Salzburg and Tyrol-Vorarlberg

Population 900,000

Salzburg, TyrolVorarlberg, and Upper Austria south of the Danube Population 1,600,000


supreme authority’. The functions of the Allied Council were to initiate plans and agree decisions on the chief military, political, economic and other questions affecting Austria on the basis of governmental instructions; as soon as possible to recreate an Austrian central administration through which the Allied Council could administer the country, and, before that, to use the occupying forces for that purpose; to ensure zonal conformity; and to direct the administration of ‘Gau Vienna’ through a quadripartite inter-allied organisation. The Executive Council of the ACA was to consist of one highranking representative of each of the four commissioners. Its functions were threefold. It was to carry out the decisions of the Allied Council through the Commission’s appropriate branches, such as the economic and legal divisions; it was to supervise and control the work of the divisions, and it was to control the activities of the Austrian central administration once established. Article 6 of the British draft laid down the details of the divisions, and Article 7 stated that a delegation of the Allied Council was to be established at the seat of each Austrian provincial administration to act as a channel of communication between the latter and the divisions. It was to be responsible to the Executive Council. Article 8 dealt with the inter-Allied governing authority, the Kommandatura, which consisted of four commanders jointly directing the administration of Vienna. Each was to be chief commander in rotation. They were to have a technical staff and were to operate under the general direction of the Allied Council, receiving orders through the Executive Council. The urgent need for some agreement helped ensure that the proposal was accepted by the EAC, even though it contained a number of significant variations from the Soviet proposals of November. Briefly, the variations included the fact that, apart from including the French in the control of Austria, a different system of zones was proposed. Instead of the delimitation of the British zone proposed by Gousev, which ignored both the German Gau and the Austrian Länder boundaries and cut the provinces of Styria and Upper Austria in half, the British proposed a division that, although based on the Austrian national boundaries of December 1937, would follow the German Gau boundaries in marking out the zones. It was thought that this would facilitate control by making use of the existing provincial machinery. The changes effected by the Nazis were, in most cases, insignificant and, by 1945, were well established. According to the proposal, the Soviet Union was allocated the whole of Lower Austria, including the northern half of the Burgenland; the


United States was to have Upper Austria and the Tyrol; the French were allocated Vorarlberg; and the British Carinthia, the lower half of the Burgenland and the East Tyrol. It was proposed that the sectors in Vienna follow the boundaries of Gau Vienna, even though Gousev stated that to accept the Gau would ridicule the anti-Nazi stance of the Moscow Declaration, which declared all Nazi changes as null and void. In this larger Vienna, the British gave themselves a south-west sector, the United States a north-west sector, and the Soviet Union a northeast sector. The Innere Stadt was to be occupied by all four powers under arrangements to be made by the Kommandatura. The whole agreement was to come into force as soon as the military position allowed, and not later than the date of German signature on an act of military surrender or the end of organized German resistance. Except for two important qualifications, the Soviet delegate accepted these proposals as far as they concerned national zones. The qualifications were that Gousev wished to include in the Soviet zone part of Upper Austria to the north of the Danube, and the Styrian part of the Burgenland, the latter as it was before the Nazi boundary changes of 1 October 1938. These two territorial amendments were of great importance, since they would give the Soviets control of the whole length of Austria’s frontiers with Hungary and Czechoslovakia and also the whole length of the north bank of the Danube within Austria. Despite this, both demands were met. The first, despite Winant’s objections, because it involved no military considerations of importance. In his memoirs, General Clark implies that the US concession was not made until the early summer, some time after American forces had entered Austria, but this referred only the troop movements giving effect to the American concession that had been made in March. There was no official explanation given of this important concession. The second amendment was agreed to by the British in the hope that the Soviets would accept Gau Vienna. Strang referred to it as ‘a small area’, and said he was surprised by the mildness of the demands, but Brigadier (later General Sir) T.J.W. Winterton later said that the British were aware of the consequences of their agreement. 14 The Soviet amendments were the only ones to be made on the national zones proposed by Strang; no further substantial changes were introduced. So, by March, the British draft, as amended, became the basis of the final agreement, even though the draft was formally merely ‘under consideration’. In essentials, the control machinery was the same as that proposed for Germany. The difference lay, as the Moscow


Declaration had made clear, in the objects of the control to be established. In Germany, there was to be no question of the early revival of sovereignty; in Austria, control was to ensure separation from Germany, and there was to be the earliest possible revival of a freely elected independent government.

Unsatisfactory progress, January to June 1945 The agreement on the Allied council represented a significant step forward in the work of the EAC, which otherwise continued in a somewhat intermittent fashion. There was a gap of two months between meetings from 29 January until 5 April. Mr W.H.B. (later Sir Henry) Mack, the designated Deputy Commissioner (Civil) of the British Element of the Allied Commission, attributed this to the fact that the Soviets insisted on the question of the zones being taken to the EAC, but then refused to let it meet because they were dissatisfied with security arrangements.15 He suggested that Britain could try to move matters along by tabling proposals at the EAC, but thought that this was unlikely to have any practical effect. Britain could also approach the Soviet Government through the Moscow Embassy, but they would need American support in this. Alternatively, they could tell Gousev that they hoped the Soviets would not take unilateral action on reaching Austria (for it was clear the Red Army would be there first) that would prejudice the aims of the Moscow Declaration. There was some support for this last suggestion, and Strang believed that the control machinery should be set up even in the absence of any real knowledge of Soviet intentions, the only problem being that this might saddle Britain with responsibility but no real power. Sir James Grigg, the War Secretary, thought this fear should not be too greatly emphasised, since Britain must take positive action. So Strang was instructed to propose to the EAC that the Control Commission, with full powers in the area occupied, should be set up in Vienna directly after the capture of the city. If the Soviets objected, then he could propose that the Commission in Vienna handle political and administrative affairs, and so relieve the commanders of all but operational matters. If the Soviets would not let it wield any authority in the military period, Britain should seek the dispatch of a mission to Vienna to observe and report on the situation, even if they could not exercise executive functions. The lessons learnt from events in Bucharest and Sofia made this an important consideration. It was clear that, once the Soviets took a decision, they would not reverse it, and, even if it was


impossible to reach an agreement, there was value in telling them of British views, preferably in the EAC. When the EAC next met in April, the question of zones and sectors was again raised because Western requirements had been defined more precisely. The War Office told Strang that it was prepared to accept the proposals for sectors in Vienna, provided that the requirements of the Air Ministry for airfields were met, that adequate buildings for the accommodation of the Allied Commission and the British garrison were available, outside the city limits if necessary, and that British troops and members of the Commission could move without hindrance in the Gau for recreation and training. These were the basic requirements of all the Western Allies. In the meantime, the controversy over the size of Vienna continued, resulting in hours of verbal wrestling. If the old city were used to define the size of the city, Vienna would consist of an area of 107 square miles and a population of 1,874,000, and if the Gau were used Vienna would consist of 469 square miles, with a population of 1,912,000. 16 Gousev was intransigent, but Strang was given authority to settle the question as well as he could, because the whole question of occupation centred on this issue in early April, and the fact that the Soviet Government wanted the Inner Stadt to be in their sector. Britain would not agree to this, for the Inner Stadt contained the best facilities, and Soviet control of it would symbolise the supremacy of the USSR. Even if they allowed the Western Allies the use of the available amenities, the Soviets could still procrastinate and prevent their effective use. Strang was instructed to take a firm stand on this issue, even if it meant that the Allies could not enter Vienna as quickly as hoped. Strang also reported that Gousev had seemed surprised at the mention of four sectors in Vienna; he said that he understood from a letter from the British Ambassador in Moscow, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, to Molotov of the previous October, ‘that all we had in mind was the exercise of control in Vienna’. Not surprisingly, Strang considered it necessary for there to be an interim Allied Commission to promote the establishment of a central administration as soon as possible and to supervise any local administration and give effect to Allied policy. The Foreign Office was also eager for such an interim commission, because it was feared that Moscow, following its action in Hungary, would try to set up a provisional Austrian administration at an early date – which was precisely what happened.17 The danger was clearly recognised by those attending a two-hour meeting at the War Office of the British Element; pessimism was


shown by all concerned about the likelihood of the Russians allowing the Western Allies any say in the interim control of Austria. If this was what, happened then the Foreign Office thought Britain was justified in asking to be consulted over its personnel and in asking the EAC to lay down policy to be followed in Austria. The Foreign Office wished for an Austrian advisory council with terms of reference similar to those of the Advisory Council for Italy, which had been created to advise the Allied commander in chief in his capacity as president of the Allied Control Commission. But it was unlikely that details of this were explained to Moscow, for in Italy Soviet representation was only nominal. The interim Austrian commission was to control areas not designated military spheres of action. Hood commented gloomily in February that, if it was not possible to gain an entrance for military missions to Vienna, ‘we can wash our hands of Austria during this period’.18 But he admitted that this was a defeatist view, and that it ought to be possible for something viable to be worked out. In the meantime, Gousev refused to discuss the issue.

A note of urgency is introduced, April 1945 Late on the night of 9 April, the Soviet High Command announced that Marshal Tolbukhin had captured Vienna. At this point, Stalin began to increase pressure on the Western Allies to come to an agreement about Vienna. Negotiations in the EAC had completely failed to produce agreement over the Western demands for facilities, and the British ambassador in Moscow reported that, owing to this delay, Stalin thought Allied officers should be sent to Vienna as soon as possible, since the question of sectors urgently needed to be settled. Some of the attention previously focused on the EAC shifted to the arrangements for sending missions to Vienna as a result. Britain and the US informed Stalin that they would be glad to send missions, provided that the points left undecided by the EAC, that is the area of joint occupation and the subdivision of that area, be discussed. The Foreign Office confirmed this, and agreed to send Mack to advise the military delegation, since he was aware of all the details of recent negotiations in the EAC. The omens regarding the success of this mission did not augur well. As Roberts noted on 22 April: I cannot help feeling … that our representatives may have great difficulty in working out respective Vienna zones and airfields on


the spot. Marshal Tolbukhin’s troops are already in complete occupation and our experience in other capitals occupied by the Red Army shows that it is very difficult for our representatives to obtain satisfactory results from negotiations concluded locally with the Soviet military commanders. Our people will, in the initial stages at least, be entirely dependent on the Russians for their communications, accommodation and supplies, etc. In such circumstances they will not only have considerable difficulties in maintaining their prestige in the eyes of the local population but will also be severely handicapped when arguing, for example, about the necessity of airfields under the independent control of each of the four powers.19 In the meantime, work proceeded on Western requirements in Vienna, for many practical issues remained unsettled, particularly in relation to Allied requirements for freedom of movement, accommodation, recreation and training areas. The matter of airfields was a particular problem, because Britain wanted the airfields of Aspern, Schwechat and Zwollfaxing, together with their installations, to be under the administrative and operational control of the Soviets, Americans and British respectively. It was considered essential that the occupying forces should have unimpeded access to the Schwechat and Zwollfaxing airfields from the city of Vienna. But these requests bore little resemblance to the Soviet concession, which allowed the three Western Allies to share only Tulln airport, some 12 miles north-west of Vienna. At the same time, however, the Soviets said that they accepted the Western requirement that the Innere Stadt should be under an interAllied governing authority, thus lessening the number of outstanding major matters. Inevitably, many minor issues remained unsettled. There was disagreement as to whether the three military forces should be separate as the West wanted, or under one division as the Soviets wished. And nothing definite had yet been settled about the Western missions that it was proposed should go to Vienna. The position of negotiations in the EAC at the end of April was that the Allies had only agreed that Vienna city as opposed to Vienna Gau could be considered as international, provided that certain conditions were observed. As it was, the Allied missions were unable to enter Vienna during April. The Soviet refusal to allow them to resulted in deadlock and left the Soviet Government in complete control of Austria. The situation


was compounded by the fact that Moscow announced that they could not enter Vienna until a decision was reached in the EAC. But, as Moscow was no doubt well aware, it was impossible for the EAC to reach any agreement about zones in Vienna and the provisional control machinery until the missions had reached Vienna and seen conditions for themselves. At the same time, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that questions of airfields and other amenities could only be discussed by the EAC. But this would have introduced further delays which Britain, in turn, considered unacceptable. The need for discussion in Vienna was seen as vital by Churchill, who commented that he had no wish, as suggested by Vyshinsky, to transfer from the EAC to Vienna the question of the examination of the zones. Churchill was only too well aware that the Soviet representative had altered his own recommendations to the EAC when the Soviets discovered that part of their proposed zone had been destroyed; Britain was also entitled to examine the physical factors bearing on her proposals to the EAC. Churchill wanted British representatives to go to Vienna because he realised an impasse had, again, been reached with the Soviets. Moscow was expecting the Western Allies ‘to buy a pig in a poke’, if anything was settled in the EAC before the missions had entered Vienna, even though – as Vyshinsky argued – the zones of occupancy in Germany and Berlin were established by the EAC before Allied troops entered German territory. The British position was not helped by the fact that Washington’s position on the matter was different again; the State Department was convinced that the most important consideration should be to get an agreement for control machinery in the EAC regardless of whether or not the proposed visit of the Allied mission to Vienna took place. Things continued in this vein for some days, justifying the Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence’s tart reference to ‘this leisurely consideration of the problem of Austria’. 20 The Foreign Office did try to progress matters by instructing Eden (then in Moscow) to persuade Molotov to agree to Strang’s proposal for joint responsibility during the first period of occupation. But, as far as they knew, he did not have a chance to do so. Since there was still deadlock on the question of the freedom of movement and training facilities in Vienna during May, Strang adopted the attitude that he should agree to continue discussion in the EAC, while standing out firmly for an early settlement. Meanwhile, Britain would seek to consolidate her position in the areas occupied by her forces in Austria.


Agreement is reached, June 1945 The background to this deadlock was the worsening of relations between the three Allies. The Soviet Union was still smarting over her alleged exclusion from the secret surrender negotiations carried out, through intermediaries in Switzerland, by SS General Wolff for the surrender of German Army Group C to Alexander. Wolff, who was responsible for liaison with Mussolini’s Republican government and for the internal security of German-occupied northern Italy, had first made approaches the previous year, but the most serious (and ultimately successful) set of negotiations began in early February. In addition, Roosevelt’s death on 12 April had broken the wartime partnership between the three leaders. There were also sharp disputes between the Western Allies and Moscow over Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. And Churchill and Eisenhower had exchanged sharp words over the latter’s decision to swing southwards towards the supposed National Redoubt, rather than advance on Berlin. More importantly, the announcement by Radio Moscow of the formation of a Provisional Austrian Government came as an unpleasant shock to the West. Obstructive tactics began to play an increasingly important role in the EAC; counter-proposals and subsequent amendments were introduced with increasing regularity, and negotiations became tortuous and prolonged. Matters were complicated by, for example, Gousev’s request that there be three agreements, not one; that is, one agreement covering the national zones, one for Vienna, and a third consisting of amendments to the first two. This would make unanimity on the sectors of Vienna even more difficult to achieve, so the West insisted on a single agreement based on Gau Vienna, with an airfield for each Power, and a joint administration for the Innere Stadt. The Western delegates also requested that all four governments should make available certain facilities on a mutual basis. Finally, after three months of debate and counter-debate, settlement was reached in June. Gousev abandoned his claim for three agreements, although on 25 June he still pressed for one on Vienna based on the old city limits, for Soviet occupation of the Innere Stadt, and for one airfield (in the Soviet sector) for the use of all. He also proposed that the covering report be dropped, and all detailed arrangements be left to the commanders in chief on the spot. This degree of unanimity between the Allies came after a series of events during the preceding three weeks, though the precise linkages


are not easy to identify. After more delays and last-minute arrangements, British, American and French military missions, under the leadership of Generals Winterton, Flory and Cherrière respectively, had arrived in Vienna on 3 June. (The mission is considered in more detail in Chapter 9.) They held a number of useful preliminary discussions while there, even though the scope of their activities was severely restricted by the Soviets. Churchill and Truman then sent a further message to Stalin stressing the urgent nature of settling the Austrian question, and that the Red Army should evacuate the part of the British zone it was still occupying at the same time as the British and Americans moved out of the Soviet zone in Germany. In his reply, Stalin merely reaffirmed his opinion that the EAC should first complete its work. Agreement in the EAC was reached shortly afterwards and, on 27 June, a draft agreement on the control machinery was laid down, which closely followed the earlier British draft. Consent was not reached easily, though, for differences of opinion over the question of airfields and the covering report prevented agreement until the very last moment, and Gousev only received instructions allowing him to accept the draft proposal after the British delegate, by then Lord Hood, threatened to break off negotiations unless these issues were satisfactorily settled. 21 On the one hand, the Western Allies accepted the smaller Vienna in consideration of Soviet acceptance of international control over the Innere Stadt and of the working out of a covering report. On the other hand, the West secured partial control over their own air communications by obtaining Tulln airport for the United States, Schwechat for joint use by Britain and France, and transit and communication rights between these airfields and Vienna city for all. Matters moved quickly after this, and agreement was soon reached on the division of sectors: Britain received five districts in the southwest and south-east; the United States six districts in the north-east and the south. The Innere Stadt was to be under the joint control of an inter-Allied governing body. Adequate recreational and collective training areas beyond the city limits were to be arranged by mutual agreement of the commanders. The zoning agreement was finally signed on 9 July, and the necessary notification of ratification by the governments were received by 24 July. The agreement setting up the control machinery which was to manage the Allied occupation of Austria had been accepted in the EAC on 4 July. Supreme authority was vested in the Allied Council, consisting of the four commanders in chief, each of whom had supreme

72

Map 4.4

Vienna: sectors of occupation


authority in his zone. Below the Council there was, as planned, an executive council, responsible for ensuring implementation, through the subordinate national staffs, of the Council’s decisions on matters affecting Austria as a whole. The staffs appointed by their respective national authorities, and including both civilians and military personnel, were to be organised in 12 divisions: Military, Naval, Air, Economic, Finance, Reparations (included at the insistence of Moscow), Internal Affairs, Labour, Legal, Prisoners of War and Displaced Persons, Transport and Political. The Council was organised on much the same lines as that for Germany. The primary task of the Allied Commission for Austria – it was not a ‘Control Commission’ – were listed as: a. To ensure the enforcement in Austria of the provisions of the Declaration of the defeat of Germany signed at Berlin on 5 June. b. To achieve the separation of Austria from Germany. c. To secure the establishment, as soon as possible, of a central Austrian administrative machine. d. To prepare the way for the establishment of a freely elected Austrian Government. e. Meanwhile to provide for the administration of Austria to be carried on satisfactorily.22 The EAC was formally dissolved at the Potsdam conference in July and its authority delegated to the national commanders in chief. Although many issues remained to be dealt with at the level of the commanders and their governments, particularly in relation to the allocation of sectors in Vienna and the Allied Commission, the EAC had achieved its objectives. It had been the central forum for the reconciliation of Allied policies. Although it focused on political issues associated with the end of the war, its directives and guidance had had a formative effect on the pace of military planning throughout the year and a half of its existence. Many of the issues raised at the EAC overlapped with those of the military headquarters responsible for planning, or with the British Element of the future Allied Commission, and it is to these two topics that attention now turns. Although political developments played a formative role in setting the aims and objectives of military planning, it makes analytic sense to treat the allocation of responsibility to the military in the last two years of the war separately from the more political concerns of the EAC

74

Map 4.5

Zones of occupation, November 1945


and Foreign Office. The concerns and reactions of these last bodies were tremendously important for military planning, and the two strands merge when the Allied control machinery is considered in more detail in Chapters 9 and 10, but focusing in this way identifies the hybrid nature of the military task in post-conflict operations. It emphasises the dependence of effective military planning on political guidance, its links with the issue of policy directives and the confusion characterising planning for future post-conflict operations. Most importantly, it emphasises the importance of a clear allocation of responsibility. The initial distribution of responsibility for planning for the occupation and military administration of Austria is discussed in Chapter 5. The work of the British Element in developing control machinery for Vienna, from 1944 until the occupation itself, is then covered in Chapter 6. Combined with the material on the EAC’s negotiations presented here, Chapters 5 and 6 provide the background against which the British occupation and administration (discussed in Chapters 7 and 8) should be seen.

5 Planning and the Military

There was a constant overlap between issues raised in political organisations, such as the EAC, and those concerning military headquarters, because planning for the occupation was dependent on political directives and strategic developments. The occupation was a military responsibility which might involve warfighting – as, indeed, it did for the Red Army – but post-conflict operations belonged within the wider political framework. This was emphasised by the fact that guidance on the military role in it was given through directives from the EAC or, failing that, by London. But planning for the establishment of a military government was primarily a military responsibility. In practice, military planning was marked by inefficiency and duplication throughout 1944. This situation was a consequence of an early, comparatively simple, failure in decision-making, which resulted in avoidable complications before matters were smoothed in January 1945. The key stages in this process were four: the issue, by the Combined Chiefs of Staff in April 1944, of a draft policy directive for the military government of Germany, including Austria, before defeat or surrender; SCAEF’s interim directive allocating responsibility for planning for military government to AFHQ in the same month; a telegram from the War Cabinet Office Council giving AFHQ instructions to plan, while at the same time relieving SCAEF of all responsibility for planning, in September 1944; and the visit of the British Deputy Commissioners of the British Element of the Allied Commission to AFHQ in January 1945.

Ambiguity characterises planning Just as 1943 marked a significant point in the crystallisation of policy towards Austria, so it also marked the beginning of formal planning for 76

Planning and the Military 77

the occupation and military administration of Austria. The main difference between the political and military strands of the planning for a secondary state such as Austria was that, although the pace of AngloAmerican military planning was set by strategic developments, planning for the military government before 1945 did not need to be so urgently reconciled with that of the Soviets. Most planning acknowledged the need to consider Soviet plans but proceeded in isolation from operational considerations. Soviet policy was, in any case, one of the largest unknown factors. Even so, the direct link between timely directives, the unambiguous allocation of responsibility, and efficient planning proved a major theme throughout 1944 and 1945. This chapter makes it clear that not only were political directives not issued when needed, but that the failure unambiguously to allocate responsibility for planning to either SHAEF or to the AFHQ resulted in unnecessary confusion. This was, perhaps, inevitable given wartime conditions, but it added immeasurably to the difficulties of planning, especially at AFHQ, which was concerned with political (including psychological warfare) and economic questions associated with the areas with which it was involved. One reason for the ambiguity is to be found in the fact that SHAEF was never intended to become so involved with political questions. Its relations with liberated countries were supposed to be handled by military missions to Supreme Headquarters from the governments of those countries. Consequently, political guidance was (theoretically) never as important to it. Yet there were strong reasons for placing responsibility firmly on SHAEF, rather than AFHQ, in 1943 and 1944. Responsibility for the preliminary study of the problems involved in military government had, for instance, been initially placed on the inter-services staff, set up in March 1943, responsible for planning the invasion of Europe. This took its name from the initials of the post to which its head had been appointed: Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander, COSSAC. In February 1944, COSSAC was transformed into SHAEF, with whom responsibility for Austria was therefore assumed, by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at least, to rest. Eisenhower, as SCAEF, was (pending final military decisions) given the authority necessary to give directions on all phases of Austrian planning to the then Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean (SACMED), General Maitland-Wilson, by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Wilson was expected by them to work without detailed plans. In practice, the situation at the beginning of 1944 was that neither SAC nor SCAEF had officially been given responsibility for planning.


This was regarded as particularly unsatisfactory by SAC and AFHQ, because AFHQ had been closely concerned with the Austrian situation since at least the beginning of 1942. The fact that Clowder mission, which had been supporting resistance groups inside Austria and gathering information about the political, geographical and economic problems of Austria, was linked to AFHQ is proof of this. (Clowder is considered in more detail in Chapter 7.) As a result of the ambiguity, both SHAEF and AFHQ claimed responsibility for planning, at the same time as they publicly disagreed on a number of issues relating to the occupation. The fact that they agreed on other matters did not alleviate the frustrations both experienced. Both agreed that there would be an interim period after the surrender of Germany and before the establishment of an independent Austria, during which Austria would be subject to Allied military government. Both thought it impossible that an acceptable government would emerge overnight, although the possibility that some body claiming to be the government might exist when the Allies reached Austria was admitted. Both thought that the most important task would be to build a central administration in Vienna to take over the tasks previously undertaken by Berlin. And both thought it best to build this from the bottom: elections for local authorities would be held before general elections. It was accepted by all that it would be impossible to establish an Austrian government in less than a year after the German surrender; a military government was therefore necessary to bring this phase to a close as soon as possible. But such agreement added to the confusion, for it emphasised that the allocation of responsibility was being circled around, rather than addressed directly. A key to the necessary decision could have been found in the fact that the two main questions for Eisenhower at SHAEF in early 1944 were whether the troops for Austria would come from the Mediterranean, and what the nationality of those troops would be. A decision on this would have clarified where military responsibilities lay. If British troops were to be used, Eisenhower for one thought that AFHQ should assume responsibility for all preparations. But if American troops, then preponderant in Italy, were used, then SCAEF should be responsible for all the civil affairs directives needed for the establishment of military government. And, to ensure continuity, it would be necessary that he issue policy directives as well. If the troops were American, SCAEF would be involved, regardless of whether they came from Italy or west Europe. That the Combined Chiefs of Staff


thought that entry into Austria would be effected from the west does not seem to have been accepted by Eisenhower.1 The situation was further complicated by the fact that the British Cabinet did not wish to give SCAEF responsibility. An unsigned note of 21 January 1944 stated that SCAEF could not assume additional responsibility for planning.2 And, the note continued, if responsibility did not lie with SHAEF, there was no need for that organisation to bother about Austria, apart from noting its affinity with southern Germany (which Britain proposed should be an American zone). What was clear, according to the note, was that whoever had the responsibility for Austrian planning should be authorised to undertake the issue of policy directives from the beginning, in co-ordination with the other headquarters involved, prescribe policy and review plans. In the event, SHAEF simply continued to work on a new edition of its manual Standard Policy and Procedure for Combined Civil Affairs Operations in North-West Europe regardless of informal discussions on where responsibility should lie. This was more than a routine manual because, although it had been through many editions, this one had an air of finality about it. It was important because it marked SHAEF’s repudiation of the AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories) theory of civil affairs, followed in Sicily and Italy; the manual promoted instead the idea that the civil affairs organisation should use military channels of communication. Standard Policy and Procedure was designed to be reinforced by the issue by SHAEF of directives dealing with political, legal, financial and other matters, and of civil-affairs instructions, country manuals and staff studies, as required. It did not, needless to say, influence AFHQ’s planning. AFHQ had not received political guidance on the status of military government, so it concentrated on details through necessity, selecting and training personnel for a single, integrated, military government, and building up a series of appreciations and reports on the internal situation in Austria. 3 As Makins commented to Jebb (who worked under Strang on plans for postwar Europe), unless the EAC was on the point of producing a general directive, latitude should be given to AFHQ, in consultation with SHAEF, to go ahead with essential detailed planning.4 This was, in fact, a matter of some urgency in AFHQ, for Alexander, the overall commander of the Fifth and Eighth Armies in Italy, appeared to be in a position to exploit German weaknesses in the spring of 1944. Attempts were made to resolve the issue of responsibility through discussions on related matters, but they were half-hearted and, all too


often, added to the confusion. Little was achieved, though both AFHQ and SHAEF continued to work on the detailed requirements of military government. Indeed, repetition characterised much of the relevant staff work, especially at SHAEF. 5 (The fact that SHAEF was overstaffed encouraged this.) Significantly, in March the SHAEF officers concerned asked whether the Moscow Conference had reached any decisions, apart from the principle of re-establishing Austrian independence. For SHAEF, like all other planning bodies, was, in the end, dependent on this. Since the EAC had so far failed to produce directives, there was only the Moscow Declaration to rely on for general political guidance.

CCS’s interim directive, April 1944 The role the Combined Chiefs of Staff could have played in settling the allocation of responsibilities is open to debate. It appears that they assumed that responsibility rested with SHAEF, as inheritors of the COSSAC role. Accordingly, it was to SCAEF that they issued their policy directives for the military government of Germany, including Austria, before defeat or surrender. Drafted in April 1944, the Draft Directive for General Political Guidance and a Special Political Guide for Austria laid down the policy to be applied by SHAEF in areas of Germany or Austria that might be overrun by his forces, subject to such alteration as might be necessary to meet the recommendations of the EAC in the pre-surrender period. It included a ‘Political Guide to Austria’ that stressed the fundamental difference between the political aims of the occupation of Austria and those of the occupation of Germany. It referred to the possibility of a friendlier attitude on the part of the population. And it added to the instruction for the elimination of Nazism and the maintenance of public order a reminder of the policy directives of the Moscow Declaration. 6 Thus the directive provided a certain amount of political advice which could be added to the general guidance of the Moscow Declaration, but failed unambiguously to answer the question of where military responsibility should lie. One important result of the continuing ambiguity was an informal meeting of representatives from SHAEF and AFHQ at the Foreign Office to discuss civil affairs policy at the end of April 1944. 7 According to Colonel Maxwell, a political adviser at SHAEF, the meeting was called because SCAEF proposed to send an interim directive to SACMED on Austrian policy, the main purpose of which was to provide a basis on which planning could proceed at AFHQ.


Both SHAEF and AFHQ thought that planning should be fundamentally reassessed, basing their arguments on the fact that if all three powers were represented in the occupation and control of Austria, it would not be possible to slice the country into separate zones. Both evidently thought it would be necessary to organise a tripartite military government for the whole country. And both expressed some anxiety that an effort should be made at once to settle policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. As O’Neil of the German Department stressed throughout, Soviet policy was one of the most important unknown factors. SCAEF’s interim directive to SACMED, April 1944 Events in Italy during the spring of 1944 forced a decision, and SCAEF sent an interim directive allocating responsibility for planning to AFHQ.8 The SCAEF directive is instructive for a number of reasons. Its timing was the result of military developments, thus emphasising the reactive nature of much decision-making; it resulted partly from interAllied rivalries and partly from the absence of political directives; the reaction of the Foreign Office and the War Cabinet to it illustrates the close relationship between policy and strategy; decisions made about it impinged on more general issues, such as manpower; and it provides an excellent example of the way in which the need for flexibility in planning often acted to increase confusion. The strategy of the Allies’ Italian campaign for 1944 had postulated the surrender of Italy and the creation of fresh options, leading to either the Balkans or the Danube and Germany. But the failure of the Anzio venture in January, and the renewal of the German attack in February, had made this unlikely. The initial Allied air and artillery bombardment of Monte Cassino was unsuccessful in March, and the road to Rome remained blocked, for the Gustav Line held and there were two further lines between it and Rome. However, the position of Field Marshal Kesselring, the Commander-in-Chief South, responsible for all German forces in the Mediterranean, was never more than a defensive one, in a theatre of secondary importance.9 He could expect few reinforcements, and in May he was forced to abandon his positions south of Rome. Shortly afterwards, he had to give up Rome and order the retreat to the northern Appenine Gothic Line. Allied political and military priorities changed once more, as it appeared that the final campaign in Italy was approaching. Once again an Allied move towards Austria looked possible, especially since Churchill believed passionately in Alexander’s proposal whereby the Allied armies in Italy


would, after defeating the German forces, advance (via Ljubljana) to Vienna. In a long ‘Memorandum on the Command and Staff Organisation in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations’, Alexander had argued that the Mediterranean theatre must expand beyond Italy to include Austria and Yugoslavia. In fact, such a project was most unlikely to be achieved. On the last day of May, Churchill promised Alexander his full support for keeping his armies up to strength. But Churchill no longer had overriding influence on Anglo-American operations in Italy, and Alexander was obliged to relinquish part of his forces for an invasion of southern France (operations ANVIL or DRAGOON), complementary to OVERLORD. ANVIL turned out to be an unnecessary reinforcement of OVERLORD but, by then, Alexander had lost seven divisions and part of his airforce. In fact, Alexander’s project was never possible. Indeed, Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), thought it a dangerous fantasy which the Americans would see as further proof that the British, obsessed with southern and Danubian Europe, had their priorities wrong. He also thought the plan militarily unsound, given the weather conditions and Kesselring’s strength. Events were to prove Brooke right in that, although it seemed as if nothing could stop the destruction of Kesselring’s retreating armies, the failure of Allied cooperation (exacerbated by General Mark Clark’s anxiety to be first into Rome) provided Kesselring with a reprieve. Retreating in his own time, Kesselring reached the Gothic Line in August and then held the Allies until the autumn rains strengthened his position. Churchill and Alexander still hoped to reach Vienna, but the Americans refused to reinforce a secondary theatre, and gradually more Allied troops were withdrawn from Italy. The last hope of achieving a junction with the Soviets in Vienna had gone, though AFHQ representatives remained in close touch with the British officials negotiating with Soviet representatives in Algiers, in an effort to clarify the matter of Soviet participation in an occupation. Thus Brooke’s opposition ensured the project died, emphasising that the prospect of an early move towards Austria was merely a distraction. SCAEF’s interim directive was, however, an important development in the allocation of responsibilities because SACMED had previously received so little guidance. Such regulations as existed were contained in one chapter of the Manual of Military Law, which set out the general principles governing the occupation of enemy territory – but not the liberation of politically sensitive enemy-occupied territories. The


SCAEF directive in fact covered all the major points governing military planning. It defined the tone to be adopted by the military government and illustrates a number of continuing themes. SCAEF instructed SACMED to plan on the basis of a single military government for the entire territory of Austria (despite developments with the Soviets). Furthermore, because of Austria’s close connections with Germany, planning for both countries was to be co-ordinated – Austria having waged war as an integral part of Germany. AFHQ thought it best if both were controlled by one authority until the disentangling of Austria from Germany was complete. SAC was to prepare his plans on the assumption that Austria was an enemy belligerent; SAC’s mission was to obtain and maintain military control over the territory. If, or when, the Allied Governments redefined the position of Austria as liberated territory, then SAC must ‘temper with friendliness the firmness and vigour’ of military government. Existing commitments to demonstrate the complete defeat of Germany, ensure the complete termination of German control in Austria and disentangle Austria’s government, economy and society from those of Germany were reaffirmed. On the assumption that Austria was an AngloAmerican sphere of operations, SAC was to be responsible for the selection and training of personnel, who would represent both nationalities equally. If the Soviets should participate, the military government would be tripartite on a basis to be determined by the EAC. The SCAEF directive cannot be understood in isolation. The fact that no political directives had been issued to complement those of the military was, in some respects, deliberate. It was clear that, although the military might prepare plans for military government, without the authorisation of the political bodies who were to issue directives they could do little that might be useful in the long term. The most they could do was to plan, ‘just in case’ occupation took place before the necessary directives arrived. Thus the slowness of EAC negotiations ensured that the relationship between the military and political aspects of planning was inherently unsatisfactory. Strang was probably right to describe planning at this time as ‘a tangle’.10 Many Foreign Office officials, for example, were unconvinced that SACMED’s responsibility was practical. There were grounds for such concern, because it would not be easy to assemble the necessary experience and capability to create a new Austria at Algiers. Churchill further complicated the situation because he was convinced that such planning was premature. This is surprising, since he had always stressed the importance of the immediate reconstruction of an


independent Austria; he had spoken of this as Britain’s ‘inescapable commitment’. But he now wrote to Eden that the real problem was ‘the mob’ of missions and staff gathered around AFHQ. He insisted that there was no intention to make Wilson’s headquarters a place from which Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Austria would be dealt with until (or unless) British forces entered the countries. He concluded: ‘I should like to see you pour a bucket of cold water on all this.’11 Many in the Cabinet shared Churchill’s opinion; there was a strong feeling that neither SCAEF nor SAC should have full responsibility.12 The reasoning behind this was based on the assumption that no forces would enter Austria until after a German defeat. Consequently, the Cabinet thought that military government was a matter for the EAC to study and on which to make recommendations. Another restraining factor was that a number of Foreign Office officials remained in favour of planning continuing only in London. Eden, however, put a different light on the matter when he told Mack, then with Macmillan’s staff with AFHQ in Algiers, that he was well aware of these sentiments, but that it was not possible to make any definite plans – or progress – for Austria and the other ‘minor enemy satellites’ anywhere until the attitude of Washington and Moscow had been clarified.13 This was in spite of the fact that other Foreign Office officials believed the US would argue that there was no reason why a military-government organisation for Austria without American personnel should not be ready to function from the moment its services were required. And this might, of course, include the planning stage and the initial military period. Ward thought that the reason for this attitude was that a ‘higher authority’ had stated that the American German zone would be in the north west, so that no American forces would enter Austria. Despite these reservations, the British consensus appears to have been that in the meantime, if the Combined Chiefs of Staff approved SHAEF’s suggestion, SACMED should be instructed to go ahead with general planning for military government, pending a decision as to whether it would be integrated. If it was, then the next decision would be whether military government was to be bipartite or tripartite. London’s political reservations about AFHQ’s role were effectively ignored, because AFHQ refused to accept its relegation. On 3 May, for example, Maxwell of SHAEF reported that work had begun at AFHQ on the drafting of an interim directive on the collection of personnel, and the setting up of working parties on financial and other matters, such


as administrative problems and the study of Nazi discriminatory legislation.14 In practice, AFHQ’s plans emphasised the limitations of military planning for a politicised task when it was undertaken in isolation. As Maxwell acknowledged, no real progress was likely until a firm decision was taken on the nature and extent of Soviet participation in the military government. But the basic question of whether the Soviets would participate in the first place and whether the government would then be tripartite remained unanswered. If the answer was yes, a decision would be needed on how their work could be co-ordinated with that of AFHQ and SHAEF. Troutbeck, head of the German department, thought that Moscow had ‘apparently’ said they would take part, but he did not know how many Soviet troops might participate. The question of manpower The SCAEF directive also raised the matter of manpower, an issue which ran throughout British planning. Manpower was an emotive issue at a time when it was clearly essential to maintain numerical equality with the Soviets in Austria. An additional complicating factor was introduced when the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said on 25 May that ‘No US forces will be employed as occupation forces in Southern Europe, including Austria’. They ‘will be withdrawn as soon as practicable after the cessation of hostilities’. Winant told Strang that the American contribution at the national level of occupation would be ‘small’. The Post Hostilities Planning Committee reported that they considered the total necessary British land forces to be at least one division plus ancillary forces; that is, at least 25,000 all ranks. 15 These should not be provided at the expense of Germany, although air support would be provided by the Central Air Reserve, stationed in Germany. In addition, calculations must take into account the fact that 25,000 men would be necessary to protect the proposed lines of communication through Venezia Giulia in north-east Italy. Furthermore, the Committee said, one division would probably not be enough, since the Americans might withdraw troops while the Red Army moved in more. It had been suggested that British troops might be drawn from Germany, but the Committee considered this misguided because it was thought that SAC was likely to be responsible for entry into Austria. But even if the troops did come from Germany, there was still no need to base them in Germany, since the Trieste line of communication was thought best. In any case, the Post Hostilities Planning Committee told


the Cabinet, the British division required had not been specifically budgeted for.16 The need for clarification of responsibilities That SCAEF’s directive did not, indeed probably could not, clarify the allocation of responsibilities was emphasised in June 1944 when the Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that, since current plans did not provide for the occupation of Austria until after a German surrender, neither SAC nor SCAEF should be responsible for planning. The nucleus of the tripartite authority to control Austria after surrender (at that time under consideration by the EAC) should, they thought, be entrusted with the necessary planning. This understanding was popular in London where it was thought essential that civil affairs officers should remain integrated throughout Germany and Austria, irrespective of responsibility for zones of military government. The reasoning behind this was that the War Cabinet Office thought that ‘any co-ordination of planning must rest with the tripartite machinery in London since the control of Austria must initially be through Berlin, Austria now being an integral part of Germany’.17 This was relevant to SAC’s planning – and the London-based planning favoured by the Foreign Office – because 12 American and six British G-5 officers were then studying Austria at SHAEF in Britain, G-5 being the general staff division (known as G-5 in accordance with American practice) responsible for civil affairs. The plan was that the 18 would remain there until some of them transferred to the British and American Elements of the Commission planning nucleus when it was set up. Should forces from SACMED be on the point of entering Austria, the necessary G-5 staff would be transferred. In both cases, the planning nucleus in London would be able to keep in close contact with SACMED and SHAEF. This decision was probably not unconnected with an incident earlier in the summer over the separate responsibilities of London and SACMED. General Kirby, Deputy Commissioner of the German Control Commission, had (in an echo of earlier controversies) drafted a telegram which allocated responsibility for civil affairs planning to London. It was later said that the Foreign Office and Sir Frederick Bovenschen, chairman of the Post Hostilities Planning Sub-Committee, were led into agreeing to this against their better judgement. Whatever the case, more time was wasted before the Foreign Office made it clear that in its opinion responsibility for planning should revert to SACMED. The situation became increasingly unsatisfactory once a collapse of Germany in the autumn seemed possible, and SAC and SCAEF again


pressed London for instructions. The Combined Civil Affairs Committee, recognising the urgency of the request, reported to the Cabinet that, in the light of the military situation, RANKIN ‘C’ conditions looked possible. RANKIN ‘C’ was the contingency plan covering an unconditional German surrender and the cessation of organised resistance that had been produced in August 1943 by COSSAC, General Morgan.18 The Committee thought that, in the absence of agreed instructions from the EAC, SAC should plan and receive political, economic and relief guides as soon as possible. But it was SHAEF which replied a few days later that it would produce a handbook to be ready for 15 August. SHAEF, in fact, appears to have again taken over the initiative in planning from AFHQ. Indeed, a SHAEF G-5 note had been sent to AFHQ the previous week, requesting that they ‘make all necessary arrangements to terminate AFHQ responsibility for civil affairs planning for Austria turning over direction to such offices as may be designated by SHAEF G-5’.19 AFHQ, needless to say, did not accept this. That they continued to plan and train officers can be seen from the fact that, a few weeks later, London was informed that, if RANKIN ‘C’ conditions became imminent, Wilson proposed to occupy Austria with four British divisions and establish a military government. In August the situation became farcical. Planning was officially at a standstill, so AFHQ’s proceedings were unofficial. SAC no doubt felt that unless plans were made, even without a general political directive, he might be overtaken by events.

Directive from the Chiefs of Staff, August 1944 At the beginning of August, the Chiefs of Staff made an effort to define the planning responsibilities of London and SAC.20 On 29 August they issued a directive stating that planning for the central control and administrative machinery required in Vienna would be undertaken in London, as would arrangements (with the German Control Commission) for the unscrambling of Austrian affairs from those of Germany. On the assumption that an American element of the tripartite organisation would be set up, the British and American elements were to reach agreement on policy to be followed during the interim period after entry into Austria and before the setting up of Allied central control in Vienna. This would be without prejudice to any tripartite recommendation that might, in due course, be made in the EAC and then issued to SACMED. London was to produce general and


functional military-government handbooks for Austria, issue them to SAC, and review and amend them in line with the development of policy. London would advise SAC on the composition and organisation of regional and zone-control staffs, and on measures to be taken to implement established policies. London was to plan the control machinery for any international zone that might be created in Vienna. AFHQ was to prepare detailed plans and proclamations for zonal control, on the basis of the available handbooks, policy directives and advice. AFHQ was to collect and train the military-government personnel required to control areas not assigned to the Soviets. They were also to prepare administrative plans for ‘laying down the military-government carpet’. They would prepare the basic and functional militarygovernment handbooks. Close liaison between the Commission and SACMED planning staff was necessary for this, so it was proposed to send travelling liaison officers as soon as they were approved. SHAEF’s civil affairs handbook of August 1944 In the meantime, SHAEF’s civil affairs handbook arrived at AFHQ on 18 August. SHAEF made it clear that it was for planning purposes only and that, strictly speaking, it was not responsible for its production. The handbook had originated in the Armistice Terms and Civil Administration (Official) Committee that worked under the War Office, and had no direct authority of its own. O’Neil commented that it was ‘on the whole not a bad production and most of the important policy points have been got right’, but that it suffered from a ‘general uncertainty of tone’.21 This was hardly surprising, given that many issues had not been thought through, for there was still uncertainty about the treatment of a liberated country in matters such as the police, superimposed on the continuing uncertainty about the situation inside Austria. A simple matter illustrates this. The handbook laid down that, although fraternisation would not be forbidden, it would not be encouraged. Meanwhile the draft British political guide stated that there was no need to discourage a limited degree of fraternisation. Harvey, Supervisory Under-Secretary of the German Department, suggested a compromise by advocating that it should not be initially encouraged, but should be left to the discretion of the local Military Government Officer (MGO). Judging from the many letters passed between Troutbeck and Alexander discussing the matter, this bothered the Foreign Office greatly, because such discretion would rule out the possibility of uniformity in Allied policy.


That the handbook was unbalanced in its treatment of certain subjects is indicative of the continuing uncertainty regarding Austria. There were, for instance, only scattered references to the dissolution of the Nazi Party, yet there were controversial references to the elimination of all ‘Austrian totalitarians’. This could put the British in the invidious position of having to eliminate Communists as well as Nazis and Fascists. In addition, the handbook underestimated the difficulties that Displaced Persons would probably cause: the policy that SHAEF recommended would probably conflict with that of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association (UNRRA) which was supported by the British Government. Part Two of the handbook had a good chapter on education, but it advocated severe treatment of teachers, many of whom were to be suspended or dismissed, at the same time as it contained no reference to the necessity of forbidding the teaching of panGermanism. Sections on communications seemed obsessed with censorship, whereas the Foreign Office thought rather that there was a need to have communications functioning effectively as soon as possible. Despite this, the handbook could fulfil a useful role since many field officers might not have any experience or training of military government. Yet, when the handbook was delivered to AFHQ, it was accompanied by a note saying that it was purely provisional and that no detailed planning should be based on it. It is clear that work on the Handbook had been seriously handicapped by the lack of definite policy directives. Its production reinforces the suspicion that planning was effectively taken up by the military on their own initiative. Although there was not a policy vacuum as such, it is clear that circumstances forced the military to formulate low-level policy. As usual, the Handbook claimed to be based on the premise that the mission of military government was to put into effect the Moscow Declaration. It also stipulated that the term ‘civil affairs’ should be used in place of the more authoritarian sounding military government. This was perceived to make the more detailed sections of the handbook, dealing with the potential problems involved in controlling a country exhausted by five years of war and disorganised by defeat, acceptable. The major problems thought to face military government were those of public order, the economy, and shortages of food, shelter and work, leading to crime and disease. Because of the emphasis placed on an independent Austria, it was expected that the Allied troops would receive a ‘friendly welcome’ in spite of this, but it concluded with the warning, ‘Remember at all times that you are in what has been, until recently, an enemy country, and


that you must maintain an adequate military security.’ Ward minuted by the side of this: ‘Still is’. SACMED receives responsibility to plan, September 1944 Throughout the summer of 1944, planning continued to take place at AFHQ, SHAEF, and in the British and American Elements of the control machinery. It was not until 9 September that a telegram from the War Cabinet Office Council gave General Wilson his long-delayed instructions to plan. SCAEF was then relieved of all responsibility for planning, though this did not stop AFHQ’s complaints about the lack of general policy directives. On 24 September, for instance, Alexander told Sir Oliver Leese (GOC Eighth Army) that he found it difficult to reply to questions about military government organisation as he was still without instructions: ‘All we do know is that there is to be joint control’ (between British and American officers). 22 The alleged clarification of responsibility had evidently not achieved its purpose. Despite the various directives stating that SACMED would be responsible for all planning, SHAEF evidently continued to work on some issues, since a directive was issued late in September stating that SHAEF would shortly cease to be responsible for co-ordinating planning.23 This would leave the British responsible for planning for the central administration and control machinery, for producing general and functional handbooks, for advising SAC about zonal control staffs, reaching political agreement during the aftermath of hostilities, and the planning for control of any international zone. There was thus a continued overlap of activity. And SAC had still not received a directive indicating his final responsibilities. This was not forthcoming until the following month. Perhaps the delay was not solely the responsibility of the British, for Makins minuted on a report on RANKIN ‘C’ of 21 September that the Chiefs of Staff were anxious to give Wilson urgent instructions so that the necessary plans could be produced. SACMED’s reaction to this was somewhat unexpected in view of the number of requests that he had previously sent: he protested that he was being confronted with the problems of everything except setting up the Control Commission. He wrote to SHAEF that his first priority was the occupation of the four southern provinces which, he understood, would be his final commitment. He protested that no machinery had been provided to determine at what stage the Control Commission would take over; that he did not know what his manpower ceiling was for either the Commission or regional control; that he had received no indication of how the initial


period was to be determined; and that he had no idea to what extent the nucleus Commission would come under his control.24 His anxiety about these matters was increased by the fact that there was, once again, a belief that the move into Austria might be only a few months ahead. Indeed, in October O’Neil thought it possible that the Soviets might decide to occupy Vienna before the winter set in. So, in the belief that optimism was justified, that the Soviets would allow some form of tripartite control, it was decided that the draft proclamations already prepared could be used either by SAC or by a Soviet commander. They would also be appropriate, it was thought, if forces entered Austria before the surrender of Germany, or from the east and south-west simultaneously. Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, British ambassador in Moscow, even contacted Molotov at this time, suggesting that tripartite control be established the moment any of the Allies captured Vienna. No one seems to have had any realistic idea as to what might happen in the immediate future. O’Neil may have considered that tripartite control could not begin until after the defeat of Germany, but Troutbeck believed that, since the Western Allies would have invited the Soviets to take part in any tripartite commission at this point if they occupied Austria first, then the Soviets would probably do the same.25 Hood did not share this view. He thought that the best that would be achieved was for Britain to send a mission, if only to observe, as in Romania, whatever the legal problems. If the policy was, however, to be tripartite, ‘we should plan, in consultation with SACMED, for the selection of a nucleus element which would … proceed to Vienna as soon as the Russians occupied the area’.26 This was the best that could be hoped for in the circumstances, since Moscow soon made it clear that they would not accept tripartite control over the proposed zones. They were only prepared to receive Western missions after occupation – and a decision by the EAC – had taken place. In spite of this London continued to believe that it was vitally important to establish tripartite control machinery before then, so as to achieve co-ordination. Foreign Office optimism about achieving this was still remarkably strong in the autumn. In the meantime, the Combined Chiefs of Staff reported, there was talk of joining up with the Soviets to make a joint break into Austria – if Moscow broached the matter. Stalin had, in fact, suggested this to Churchill in October, saying that Anglo-American forces might join with the Red Army in the vicinity of Vienna by withdrawing forces from Italy for an advance through Yugoslavia. But his seriousness is


doubtful: it seems more likely that he was taunting Churchill. Not surprisingly, nothing came of the proposal. Given the nebulous state of affairs, it is not surprising that the military were not given the political directives that they asked for.

Visit of Winterton and Nicholls to AFHQ, January 1945 The uncertainty continued for the rest of the year, but in January 1945, in an attempt to progress matters, Winterton, Deputy Commissioner (Military) of the British Element of the Allied Commission, and Nicholls, head of the political division of the Element, went to AFHQ at Naples. The report that Winterton later prepared is a good indication of the state of planning at AFHQ, and of the continuing confusion.27 The general situation at the time of the visit was that General Wilson had gone to Washington to take up his new appointment as head of the British Joint Staff Mission, and Field Marshal Alexander had become Supreme Allied Commander. At the time of the latter’s visit to London in the middle of December, he had submitted a paper to the War Office pointing out that under the reorganisation of command that he proposed to carry out, the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI) would become 15th Army Group, an American command. It could not, therefore, be the headquarters of the British forces of occupation in Austria after all. It had, in fact, been AAI which had carried out the postconflict planning associated with this, rather than AFHQ as such, but a series of conferences took place between the two in the last months of 1944, and it was agreed that AAI would plan only for the immediate postwar period, aided by elements of the Allied Commission. Moreover, AFHQ was a fully integrated headquarters with an integrated G-5 staff, whereas the headquarters of the 15th Army was a partially integrated command, with no G-5 staff since a representative of the Allied Commission for Germany co-ordinated details between the two commands. In the event, Alexander nominated the Eighth Army for the position of headquarters of the British forces in Austria. The War Office accepted the nomination. At the time, though, the Eighth Army were fully engaged in active operations and so were not in a position to undertake detailed planning for Austria. Winterton had recommended that a special staff at AFHQ begin this on behalf of the commander, Eighth Army, but no decision had been reached by the time of his visit.


On their arrival at AFHQ, Winterton and Nicholls found that Austria was again under serious consideration. Alexander and his staff wished to consult Winterton on three main points. First, they asked if SACMED’s responsibilities for the British and American zones in Austria would continue until the establishment of the tripartite Control Commission. Winterton was unable to give a clear answer. Second, Alexander asked if he would be responsible for establishing the British element. Winterton thought that this must be so, in view of the close tie necessary between it and the occupying forces. The third, and most important, point was raised when Winterton and Nicholls attended a conference at which a draft ‘Outline Appreciation and Plan for Austria’, by the Mediterranean Joint Planning Staff at AFHQ, was discussed. The draft was designed to bring into the open various aspects of planning to which no detailed consideration had, as yet, been given. The ensuing discussion brought out the main problem raised during their visit, namely the question of the transition from the purely military operation of occupying Austria to the establishment of a central administration under the Allied Commission. During the subsequent sessions it became increasingly clear that the period between occupation and the establishment of a central administration might be considerable. If planning, during this period, for the headquarters of the occupying forces remained in the zones while tripartite business was handled in Vienna by a separate staff drawn mainly from the Commission, there were dangers that the commander-in-chief/commissioner would be advised by two staffs on matters of common concern. This would cause confusion. It would also be difficult to secure, on pan-Austrian questions, tripartite decisions at the highest level. It would inevitably lead to Austria being governed as three separate zones, and might cause difficulties in Vienna, which it was planned to administer on a tripartite basis. Exhaustive discussion took place before it was decided that these problems could only be overcome if the headquarters of the occupying forces moved at an early stage into close proximity with one another in Vienna. If they did this, tripartite business of a purely military nature could be handled by the military staffs of the HQ of the occupying forces, and the commanders-in-chief could be brought together round a table. Civil affairs was more straightforward. It was to be initially handled by the military-government staffs of the HQ of the occupying forces, both in the zones and in preliminary tripartite discussion at the centre. It was reckoned that the amount of business likely to arrive would,


however, prove to be more than could be handled by these small staffs. A decision was taken that, in these circumstances, the HQ of the occupying forces would call forward personnel, and eventually whole branches, from the Commission. In other words, control at the centre would be initiated by the HQ of the occupying forces, while the Commission would be built up in Vienna, initially as an increment to the HQ and gradually developing into the organisation agreed by the EAC. The advantages of this, if it could be brought about, were considerable. It would provide complete continuity, avoid the complication of the commander-in-chief having two separate staffs, give the personnel of the Commission a chance to acquire practical experience of their tasks before undertaking full responsibility, and make full use of the military HQs which had been in operation for some time. The outlined scheme met with Alexander’s approval, and staff at AFHQ began to work out the details. Importantly, the scheme was not dependent on a decision as to the direction of SAC’s responsibility in Austria, and it appears to have been uniform with the then Foreign Office proposals for control machinery. It also provided a clear guide for action. To put it into operation it was necessary for the main bodies of the British and American elements to assemble in Italy as soon as the occupation of Austria by Allied forces appeared to be imminent. In these circumstances, it was desirable to fix a date for the arrival of the British Element in Italy. This was provisionally agreed as 1 May. Winterton later said that the success of this move was due to the efficiency of Sir Geoffrey Humphrey of the Eighth Army. Winterton and Nicholls’s visit was useful because it smoothed liaison between London and Italy. It was unusual because it achieved results. How far this was due to the personalities involved is hard to judge, but confusion was undoubtedly lessened, and Alexander expressed his satisfaction at the way planning was proceeding.

6 The British Element of the ACA

Winterton and Nicholls’ visit emphasises the fact that planning at AFHQ and the British Element proceeded in parallel. Both were dependent on political guidance from the EAC, and close liaison between the two staffs was essential before and after the Element moved to Italy in May 1945. There were, however, clear divisions of responsibility between the two, and the British Element, both before and after entry into Austria, was kept as a separate entity. Its organisation did not follow the normal principles of military organisation, nor did it dovetail into existing headquarters. By the time of Winterton and Nicolls’ visit, the British Element had been in existence for several months. When the EAC had begun its deliberations in early 1944, it had been the Deputy Commissioner of the British Element for the German High Commission, Major General Kirby, who was responsible for preparing plans for the central control and administrative machinery required in Vienna, and for the unscrambling of Austrian from German affairs. Indeed, it was not until 29 August 1944, that the British Chiefs of Staff directed that the existing British military section of the German Control Commission in London should develop a cadre for Austria. This arrangement was a compromise. It resulted from a recommendation from the Post Hostilities Planning Committee that either the German section should be extended to include Austria until the ‘disentangling’ process of the two countries had gone far enough to allow the Austrian section to separate itself, or that separate machinery for the two countries should exist from the earliest possible time. The development of a separate cadre was sensible, given that it was going to be necessary to secure for Austria treatment more favourable than that accorded to Germany in matters such as relief. The extent to 95


which this was practicable remained to be seen, but the aim of the Foreign Office was, by the autumn of 1944, to differentiate between Austria and Germany in as many ways as possible. It would never be possible to treat Austria on the same footing as Allied liberated territory, but the objective remained consistent: Austria’s sense of separate identity and distinction from Germany should be developed, and she should be encouraged to stand on her own. The main tasks of the new cadre were laid down in a directive based on that issued for Germany. It was to enforce the terms of surrender, to ensure that efficient government was continued and to build up an Austrian governmental machine as soon as possible, after disentangling Austrian and German administrative machinery, to direct regional and local staff, and to co-ordinate the work of the Commission with that of the zonal staff. The cadre had been instructed to plan the military control organisation required by the proposed tripartite commission in Vienna, and for whatever area within the 1937 frontiers of Austria was not assigned to the Soviets; to advise SACMED; to arrange for the provision, training and mobilisation of the British military personnel required in Vienna, including intelligence, counterintelligence, signals and movement personnel; and lastly, to prepare basic and functional handbooks for Austria. Close liaison between the Control Commission and SACMED planning staffs was acknowledged as necessary to fulfil these tasks. General Kirby originally suggested that either the Austrian section be left entirely in the hands of Mack and the Foreign Office, or that the War Office appoint someone suitable to work alongside himself. It was the former suggestion which was accepted, and so (in November) Mack took charge as Deputy Commissioner of the British Element for the Allied Commission for Austria which, by then, had moved from Norfolk House, where SHAEF headquarters had been and where the German Commission was situated, to St Paul’s School, Hammersmith. It was thought necessary that the Commission remain in London, for it was only there that it seemed that an agreement favourable to the West could be reached in the EAC; that close liaison could be kept with the German Commission, especially on disarmament and the unscrambling of the two countries affairs; and that high-calibre specialists could best be obtained. The size of the cadre expanded once Brigadier T.J.W. Winterton was appointed as Deputy Commissioner (Military). Other staff had been recruited during October, and close liaison on selection matters was maintained between the British and Americans. In recommending per-

The British Element of the ACA 97

sonnel for service, the Provisional Austrian Control Commission had originally emphasised security as the main criterion for choosing personnel, but it now stressed that a knowledge of Austria ‘would be useful’, as would continuity of service – that is, that the individual concerned would be able to serve in both military and civil periods.

The question of organisation Although the EAC had agreed on the lines of Austrian control machinery by the autumn of 1944, the British Element was still without a plan of its organisation at the end of the year. Washington apparently proposed a structure, but the Foreign Office did not approve it since Mack insisted the proposed layout for Germany was still the most suitable. Once again, planning became hesitant and cautious. Once again, the slowness of planning prevented the British Element efficiently fulfilling its functions of providing and training personnel for the control machinery, and from providing policy guidance to AFHQ after consultation with the Combined Chiefs of Staff. A useful meeting, 11 November 1944 To some extent the British Element appear to have accepted this as inevitable and to have continued business in the meantime; policy outlines were often laid down during informal meetings. One example of the liaison they carried out in support of this can be seen from the minutes of a meeting on 11 November 1944. 1 The subject matter on the agenda, civil affairs, was again an indication of a disagreement on the allocation of responsibilities. At the meeting it was agreed to tell AFHQ that the American Element thought that participation in the general staff division responsible for civil affairs, G-5 (Austria), on a combined basis was necessary. This was because the plans and operations of the relevant staffs extended beyond the training and laying down of ‘the military-government carpet’, and because of the desirability of a smooth transition to the second period of control. The meeting noted that this was open to the objection that a combined or integrated staff would be difficult to separate later. Furthermore, it might appear as an Anglo-American front against Moscow. There was, in any case, continuing uncertainty as to how G-5 would fit into the control organisation. A serious attempt was made to address this in early November, and a memorandum was issued defining interim responsibility for G-5 matters in connection with the occupation.2 This went some way towards settling the issue by clarifying the


type of work that the British Element was to handle. According to it, the Deputy Commissioners agreed that a G-5 (Austria) section should have its own war establishment. It was to plan for the imposition of military government and the discharge of SAC’s responsibilities in the first period. As such, it was to be an agency subordinate to AFHQ and would, in due course, become the military-government staff of the commander. But, when available for the purpose, it was to merge into and become part of the British Element. The relationship between the ACA and AFHQ was further clarified by a division of responsibility for G-5 matters. The British Element (usually known as ACAB) was to be responsible for planning for the control machinery, including the enforcement of surrender terms, for the central administration, and the separation of Austria from Germany. They were to show AFHQ the lines on which policy was developing. In addition, their responsibilities were to include making all plans to be implemented in the tripartite period, providing and training all personnel for the ACA, and producing and revising editions of the Austrian handbook and functional manuals. They were also to liaise with the American Element and, if possible, with the Soviets. In the meantime, AFHQ G-5 was to be responsible for planning for the establishment of military government; to provide and train personnel for this; for the issue of interim directives and handbooks so as to enable detailed planning to proceed; for obtaining political guidance for SAC from the CCS; for liaison with SHAEF; and for co-ordinating such special activities as supply and Displaced Persons. Its channels of communication were to run from CCS to AFHQ to AAI (or any force nominated for that purpose) down to G-5 (Austria). In order to preserve continuity and the necessary contact with the British Element, it was contemplated that G-5 would be reinforced from the existing British Element. A number of specialist officers from the Commission would also be attached to it from time to time. The duties of the Deputy Commissioners were addressed next. The duty of the Deputy Commissioner (Military) was to set up and control, under SAC’s overall direction, military-government organisation for those parts of Austria occupied by British troops. Mack was to be Chief Political Adviser as well as Deputy Commissioner (Civil). He was to be responsible for preparing plans for disentangling the Austrian administration from Germany, to perform the usual functions of embassy and legation, to set up the necessary new machinery and to put militarygovernment plans into effect. Both Deputy Commissioners were


responsible to SAC and so their staffs were to follow, as far as possible, the principles of normal military organisation. This was to apply particularly to the intelligence and security branches. Close collaboration was to continue between London and AFHQ until all questions of policy were completed. These decisions went some way towards clarifying the situation, but they did not address the fundamental question surrounding the extent of the Deputy Commissioner’s responsibility for applying British policy to the development of Austria. Nor did they indicate through what channels instructions would be received. Mack, for one, was unclear as to what would take place, and he wrote to the Foreign Office asking for guidance on such matters as the position of the British Element in relation to SACMED.3 The answer was that central control in Vienna would belong to the headquarters of the occupying forces. This would gradually absorb the Commission staff until the latter outgrew HQ and took their place in the administration. If this took place SACMED could then command the British Element until the Allied Commission was established. Related to this was a further point. Because uniformity was necessary in the relations of the British Element to its Allied partners, and because the Commission must foreshadow the governmental organisation it was intended to establish in Austria, the British Element organisation would not follow the normal principles of military organisation, nor would it be dovetailed into the existing headquarters. It appeared to Mack that the necessary division of responsibility was most likely to be achieved by keeping the headquarters of the British occupying forces and the British Element separate entities in different locations, even though they would have a common head in the person of the commander in chief and the high commissioner. However, during Winterton’s visit to AFHQ in January, it had been decided ‘the conception is that control at the centre should be installed by the HQ of the occupying forces, and that the Commission should be built up in Vienna initially as an increment to HQ and developing into the organisation agreed between the four Powers.’ The advantages of this were thought to be considerable. It would provide continuity, avoid the complication of the commander in chief having two separate staffs, give the Commission personnel practical experience before taking up their full responsibility, and make full use of a well-developed existing military headquarters. This solution, which gained general approval, indicates the way in which policy developed from a sifting of ideas.


Future role of the British Element A week after Mack’s letter, an important meeting was held at the War Office by the British Element to discuss the question of control in Austria before the Allied Commission was set up and how the Commission could eventually be established.4 The meeting again listed what it considered to be the most important factors affecting future plans. They were the then state of Austria as an integral part of Germany; the degree of co-operation expected from the Soviets (who were not expected to admit more than a military mission from each of the Allies) for operational purposes and other immediate Allied interests, such as prisoners of war and repatriations; and the wish to lay the foundations of future Allied control. The three phases of occupation were then discussed as they might affect the British Element. If the Commission was set up in the first phase, when the Soviets were in control of Austria, then the British military missions could be attached for observing and reporting purposes. SACMED might also wish to establish military missions at the Soviet headquarters for operational reasons. The second phase would see British and American forces in Austria for operational purposes before the defeat of Germany, but not in their allotted zones. This might not arise, but if it did, both would be under SAC, so a SACMED military mission would be required. Missions to the Soviet delegation could continue in the third phase, when all three Allies took up position in their allotted zones, but, at the end of the phase, they would gradually be reabsorbed into their national headquarters. Upon the establishment in Vienna of the headquarters of the commander of the British forces, his G-5 staff would be enlarged by the incorporation of Commission personnel. This staff would then become the British Element of the Commission. The Foreign Office suggested some amendments to these proposals, prompted by the fact that Soviet co-operation was unlikely. If Moscow set up a provisional Austrian government at an early date, then Britain would be justified in pressing for the early establishment of the Allied control machinery to supervise the activities of the Austrian authorities. Britain would be justified in asking to be consulted over personnel and in asking the EAC to lay down the political policy to be followed in Austria. But she would not be justified in asking to supervise the actions of any provisional government in a Soviet military area. Hood agreed that the missions would undertake administrative planning for tasks such as the arrival in Vienna of the British Element


and its accommodation, but general planning was held to be in that Element’s province. Hood also envisaged an Austrian Advisory Council, with terms of reference similar to those of the Advisory Council for Italy. In Italy, the Council had been created to advise the Allied Commander in Chief in his capacity as President of the Allied Control Commission. The Allied Commander in Chief in Italy had always been left entirely free in his operational areas, and these areas were administered separately from the rear lines of communication area. The situation was thought to be different in Austria. The interim Allied Commission, previously mentioned, was to have control of those areas of Austria not declared ‘military areas’, but the meaning of this phrase was unclear. If it included lines of communication areas as well as any rear areas, all these would, of necessity, be under the Soviet commander. If it did not include them, the Soviet commander in chief would be left with supreme authority there. This would be important, though Hood did not mention it during the meeting. For Stalin’s expansionist policy required the implantation of a particular social system where possible: annexation of the area was not necessary since occupation sufficed. As he had told the Yugoslav, Djilas, in 1944: ‘This war is not as in the past: whoever occupied a territory imposes his own system as far as his armies can reach.’5 The sifting of policy options continued, with the matter of departmental responsibility emerging again in early 1945. Responsibility for the control of the British Element during the planning period, before it took to the field, lay with the Foreign Office, so the question became one of how soon the Foreign Office should hand over to the War Office. For the Secretary of State for War had already guaranteed full co-operation between the War Office, the military authorities planning for the second and third periods, and the British Element, which was planning for the third period of occupation. Responsibility for essentially military functions lay with the War Office; this included the training of military government officers and the supervision of local administrations found on entry and, indeed, all administration until the set up of the Allied Commission in Vienna. But they were also concerned with the activities of the British Element in the planning period. For this type of co-ordination, the Deputy Commissioners worked mainly with the Director of Civil Affairs, Major General Anderson. If this was not sufficient, then all outstanding questions of policy and principle which could not be settled by the Deputy Commissioners – within either the existing framework or the policy


directive under preparation – were referred to Strang at the Foreign Office. How long should this arrangement be allowed to continue? The Foreign Office, needless to say, thought that Mack should be allowed to correspond with them directly at every stage, just as Macmillan had concerning Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.6 But they acknowledged that War Office interests intervened into this neat arrangement because the military would be responsible for the first, operational, stage of occupation. And even if a second phase occurred, when responsibility for administration would begin to pass from the military government to a civilian control commission, the War Office would still need to retain responsibility because the military authorities would need absolute control over matters such as their lines of communication. It was only in the third stage of occupation, when the problems encountered would be political rather than military, that responsibility should lie on the Foreign Office. It was impossible to expect a clear answer as to when the handover would take place since there was such great uncertainty about the Austrian situation. In the end, the matter was resolved as follows: Mack corresponded with the Foreign Office at all times, and responsibility for the British Element as a whole was transferred from the Foreign Office to the War Office on 1 May, by which date the main body was in Rome under SACMED. The decision clarified some points, but it did not alleviate the major problems confronting the British Element in early 1945. The Element was now organised in accordance with Strang’s proposals to the EAC on 25 January 1945, but suffered from a lack of staff, especially at the higher levels. There were 695 personnel, as against an estimated requirement for 3,779, with the main deficiency being clerical staff. The situation was unlikely to improve in the near future because the rate of build-up depended on obtaining the right people, on efficient procedures in the War Office and the Treasury for passing the establishment, and for the vetting of personnel by military intelligence before they were appointed. Every assistance was given it in this, but the procedure still took approximately eight weeks to complete. The result was that the chiefs of civil divisions were obliged to concentrate on staff appointments rather than on policy. In the meantime there was no settled policy on which to base planning, and there was no liaison with the Soviets or the French. Final decisions were still urgently needed concerning details of the Allied Commission, policy directives for it, and details of zonal boundaries. All the Element could do was to keep recruiting and assume that London’s previous planning proposals would be put into effect. In the meantime, it made a detailed


study of the economic controls imposed by Germany on Austria, and did a survey of all industrial enterprises known or believed to exist in Austria, with details of their location, ownership, production and output. It also prepared the third edition of the Austrian handbook, the second edition of which was by then at AFHQ. Every effort was made by the Element to keep in close touch with AFHQ, but the demands imposed on commanders by active operations meant that liaison proved far from satisfactory. This was important since, in Alexander’s view, it was necessary for both organisations to proceed on parallel lines until all questions of policy and general procedure had been settled. AFHQ would then complete final plans. Liaison problems were exacerbated by the fact that the established procedure for communication was for the Commission to send telegrams direct to AFHQ and AAI, but telegrams from Italy addressed to the British Element had first to pass through War Office Signals, thus being delayed. AFHQ frequently complained of the slowness of the dissemination of information by London, but matters did not improve. Finally, AFHQ sent a G-5 officer to London, and in January 1945 Winterton visited AFHQ. Liaison improved slightly after these visits, even though discussions were confined to questions of procedure and machinery.

The move to Italy Despite the frustration, preparations for the issue of a timetable for the British Element were complete in January. The target dates set were that an advanced party was to be ready to move at a fortnight’s notice from 15 March, and the main body to move at one month’s notice by the same date.7 It was thought that by 15 March the EAC would have decided on zones of occupation, including French participation; the British proposals being due for discussion at the end of February. It was also hoped that, by that date, the EAC would have decided the allocation of sectors in Vienna, on the basis of Soviet plans submitted on 23 November 1944. Rear links between the British Element and London were to be decided by the Foreign Office and the War Office by 1 April. The Foreign Secretary was to have decided on the form the internal organisation of Austria should take after the occupation by 15 March. The Foreign Office was to issue directives to the commander in chief by the beginning of March; and they and the EAC were to decide Austria’s liability for reparations by the beginning of April. By the same date the legal basis of tripartite machinery and currency conversion was to have been settled.


In the event, the EAC did not keep to the timetable. Consequently, all plans were delayed by several months because the EAC still had not defined the zones of occupation in late April. Churchill was fatalistic, considering that Western forces would inevitably find themselves in occupation of territory outside the boundaries of their ultimate occupation zones. He tried to expedite matters at the end of April – several weeks after the entry of the Red Army into Austria – by suggesting that the Allied Commission should be set up in Vienna, and that Allied forces should take over their respective occupational zones, as soon as the fighting stopped. Churchill stressed that it was necessary to reach an agreement on the zones to be occupied in Austria at a forthcoming meeting of representatives of the Western commands in Vienna, but his words had little effect because little could be done to deal with the problems related to achieving it. Meanwhile, Winterton left for Italy on 3 April. The main body of the British Element assembled at Caserta, while 948 officers for other sections arrived in Italy at the beginning of May. The nearly 2,000-strong Element then assembled at the Air Ministry building in Rome. Responsibility for them was formally transferred from the Foreign Office to the War Office on 1 May, ACAB dealing directly with the War Office after this date. One basic problem still remained though, because it was not clear in what matters the British Element would deal with London and what with AFHQ. The urgency of the situation meant that this was now quickly decided in favour of consultation with London on all matters other than the armed services divisions. The embryonic Commission was attached to Eighth Army for integration. For the British commander in chief would command the occupying forces through the army division of the Commission, which would be expanded to include Eighth Army HQ as well. The Commission was to perform three functions for the commander. It would provide a holding and training centre for personnel who would eventually become members of the Commission, and would supply trained and specialised personnel as and when required, to the respective G-5 staffs of the Fifth and Eighth Armies. It would provide the necessary research bureau and rear echelons for these G-5 staffs. It would continue to make detailed plans for the second period of occupation, with the advantage of being within measurable distance not only of teams operating in the field, but also of the Soviets with whom its members would soon have to work. It would also be available to advise army G-5 staffs on long-term policy, to ensure that nothing done in the first stage would be inconsistent with plans for the second stage.


It was thought that these arrangements should deal with possible contingencies which, at that stage, appeared to be three. Case A would occur if the Soviets took the view that they proposed to govern the whole of Gau Vienna until such time as the tripartite Commission could operate. The Allied position was simple. The British and American occupying forces would enter their respective provincial or Gau zones and place them under military government on a coordinated plan. The army commanders of the Fifth and Eighth Armies would be in a position to augment their respective G-5 staffs from the American and British Elements, and would keep a reserve team for their respective areas in Vienna until the Commission was established. It was assumed, however, that the Red Army would welcome, or at least admit, a military mission to their High Command, which would presumably be situated in Vienna, and that this mission would include liaison officers from Eighth Army G-5 staffs to deal with day-to-day problems. A civil affairs increment, composed of specialist officers, might also be attached who would be able to discuss future policy with the Soviets. AFHQ thought it essential, even at the earliest stages, to have an integrated government for Vienna, although the city could conveniently be zoned for occupation.8 It was hoped that the Western and Soviet commanders would form themselves into a committee, meeting periodically, to which the head of the integrated administration in Vienna could report. The three commanders would have no authority other than what was vested in them by reason of their position as military governors of the areas occupied by their troops. But they would form a convenient and, in fact, the only possible body to which ‘the Governor of Vienna Gau’, be he British, American or Soviet, or each by rotation, could report. Not only would they provide the logical machinery for this purpose, but they would also provide a convenient apex where matters affecting all three forces could be discussed, and where future planning for tripartite administration could be made. Case B was essentially the same, except for certain refinements. In the event of active operations, Fifth and Eighth Armies might well be commanded by 15th Army Group, which would then co-ordinate the activities of their G-5 staffs. The mission for Vienna proposed in Case A would have a more urgent operational flavour, and the call forward of the more technical specialists from the Commission for the G-5 staffs might be delayed. But Case B would really only make local and easily improvised alterations in the main plan.


In Case C it was assumed that there would be no question but that British and American forces would enter Vienna very soon after the Red Army and on terms of complete equality. There would, at any rate, be no operational excuse for the Soviets to maintain otherwise. If this assumption was correct, then it was considered that procedure would be the same as in Case A. AFHQ believed that this outline was sufficiently flexible to meet any foreseeable combination of circumstances and, at the same time, provided the only chance of making a difficult situation work with any success. It had the advantage of providing unified control in the operational stage, consistent with a smooth transition into the tripartite stage; there would be continuity of planning, and also of execution. It provided for sanctions without disregard of international law. It preserved the operational control of the Supreme Allied Commander, while preserving channels for policy directives, even at the earliest stages, from the respective governments. Above all, it avoided the danger of competing staffs and duality of control that had been an unhappy feature of the early days of the Allied Military Government and Allied Control Commission in Italy. The plan was indeed flexible, but four months were to pass before Allied control could be established in Vienna. The establishment of military government became the focus of attention in May (and is considered in detail in Chapters 7 and 8), but this was balanced by the fact that, although the concerns of the British Element were centred on Vienna and the establishment of the Allied Commission, they were also constrained by political developments which proceeded in parallel with the occupation.

7 Occupation

Throughout the winter of 1944–5, the Red Army moved towards Vienna. By March 1945 it seemed that it was only a question of time before the German forces, exhausted by defeat at Budapest, would be driven from Austria. Many must have wondered what sort of Austria would emerge after 11 years of Nazism. More urgently, those responsible for estimating the circumstances under which occupation might take place were faced with two alternatives: either entry would be opposed or it would not. There was continuing uncertainty as to the situation in Austria, though Clowder Mission had assured AFHQ that it was unlikely that any widespread resistance movement would develop in Austria before Germany suffered total defeat. The presence of Nazi elements would, according to the Mission, be unlikely to affect the conditions of Allied entry. Clowder Mission’s estimate was based on observation, but most assessments were simply beliefs because, as Eden said repeatedly, little was known of conditions in Austria. SHAEF, for example, based many of its 1944 study papers on the presupposition of a peaceful occupation with little or no material destruction by the retreating Germans, and no immediate change in the administrative pattern. SHAEF simply presumed that the main purpose of the occupying forces would be to supervise the transition of Austria to independence. The Field Handbook of Military Government of February 1944 also assumed a straightforward occupation because ‘It is fair to forecast that Germany’s defeat will leave the majority of Austrians disillusioned and apathetic.’ 1 The British and American elements of the Control Group for Austria responsible for the Handbook went so far as to suggest that a mood of hopefulness might follow the end of Nazi domination. But whatever the case, the problems to be solved by the military government, if 107


advantage was to be taken of the situation, were thought to be those of public order, shortages of food, fuel and work, and an increase in disease and crime, rather than resistance as such. At the same time, optimism was offset by persistent fears that the Nazis planned to make a last stand in Austria. A Sunday Times report of 11 March 1945 indicates the popular anxiety that this aroused. The article noted that resistance was very difficult in an Austria overcrowded with German troops. A severe winter – and the Gestapo – had decimated resistance workers in the mountains. There were also 3 million foreigners, such as Volksdeutsche from Romania and Hungary, German refugees from bombed areas, and the families of party officials, in the country. The article then touched on the greatest fear: that Austria would become one vast battlefield if recent news, from ‘reliable sources’, was correct. In other words, ‘the Nazi leaders have decided to make their last stand in Austria which they consider the most impregnable part of the zone they still occupy.’ Austria was to become a fortress, together with Bavaria and part of Czechoslovakia, called the National Redoubt. Its borders were to be defended by the Reichswehr, with the Waffen SS and the party organisation controlling the interior. General Rendulic, an Austrian of Croatian origin and an old friend of Hitler, was designated its commander. The headquarters of the SS and the Todt organisation were to be at Salzburg, the Sunday Times said, while the political headquarters would be at Berchtesgaden. The Reishenhall and Gestapo were to be based at Munich. The Hitler Youth organisation was said to be building fortresses, and anti-aircraft defences were being strengthened. Vienna was apparently just outside its range, but still within that of the German heavy guns.

British special operations in Austria Such reports were purely speculative, because neither London nor AFHQ knew what was happening in Austria. That intelligence estimates provided by government organisations tasked with their provision failed to provide an overall picture is not, perhaps, surprising given the extent of Nazi control. That SOE and Clowder also failed is understandable because their primary task was not intelligence-gathering. (SOE was notoriously inefficient at this.) The primary role of SOE was, rather, to carry out subversive operations in enemy-occupied territories, extending the maximum possible assistance to any active resistance groups. SOE worked on three main lines in Austria during the later years of the war. They were in touch with individual Social Democrats in

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Vienna through a representative in Turkey; they had a working party in Carinthia and Styria based in territory held by Tito; and, from May 1944, they worked in the southern Tyrol from a base with the Italian partisans.2 SOE officers were officially described as contacting Austrians inside Austria throughout the summer of 1944, but their activity was, in fact, confined to certain areas of southern Carinthia and Styria where a Slovene minority existed. It was Slovenes who carried out the bulk of opposition in Austria, according to SOE; the only other elements involved were mainly deserters or escaped POWs. The Austrians contacted by SOE were generally apathetic. There was undoubtedly a strong dislike of the Nazis in general (and of the Prussians in particular), but the overwhelming majority of Austrians were unwilling, according to SOE, to take any personal risks. Harrison judged that SOE achieved little in the circumstances, its bands being mainly ‘elements of disorder’.3 AFHQ’s interest in resistance work The SOE was not the only organisation involved in covert British activities in Austria. As Chapter 5 noted, AFHQ also had an interest. SACMED, for example, controlled special duties aircraft. Indeed, SACMED (then General Wilson) had sent a telegram to London in October 1944, recommending that special operations in Austria lie in his hands. He could then, he said, co-ordinate activities in Italy and Yugoslavia, from which groups entered Austria, until the Allies occupied Austria, when responsibility for the former would revert to the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI). Wilson’s request was no doubt the result of the fact that he had recently been made responsible for the occupation of Austria if Germany surrendered unconditionally. In the event, the Joint Planning Staff agreed with him, recommending that he should also control pre-occupation activities so as to facilitate eventual occupation. This decision had been acted upon on 23 October 1944, after which it became policy to build up resistance and sabotage on a longterm basis in southern Austria, as a logical extension of the operations then being undertaken in northern Italy and northern Yugoslavia. Political guidance for the operations came from Mr P. Broad at Bari, acting under the guidance of Macmillan, Resident Minister at Caserta (whose office he ran), through Macmillan’s channel of communications to advanced SOE bases.4 Clowder Mission Clear evidence of AFHQ activity in Austria is only available in a single War Office file, a memorandum on the future of special operations in


Austria, written by a Headquarters Clowder Mission in January 1944, which was referred to by Harrison in October 1944. 5 There are no known references to its existence in 1945, but its work in 1944 illuminates AFHQ’s later assessment of the situation in Austria. The aim of the mission – which had been active for 12 months before the Moscow Declaration – was to develop communications with anti-Nazi elements in Austria, and, if possible, to establish SOE-led resistance circuits as in other enemy-occupied countries. It claimed contacts with reliable Christian Socialists and Social Democratic elements in Austria, though circumstances had not enabled the mission to foster passive resistance. It was not an intelligence mission. The mission had spent 1943 studying the political, geographical and economic problems of Austria. It had worked as a team for 12 months in occupied Italy, Slovenia, and Austria itself, had experience of frontier problems, and could be classed as trained observers. Its members’ technical qualifications included ‘an intimate knowledge of the language, of wireless, air support and the behaviour of Central Europeans’. Harrison’s report outlined the mission’s plans for 1945. It was proposed that a number of coup-de-main parties should be prepared to drop blind behind the lines to attack selected targets as soon as the weather permitted: ‘These include four Austrian paramilitary parties at present standing by in Italy, and also a number of recently recruited Austrian POWs.’ At the first opportunity a Social Democrat group would be sent to Graz. And it would endeavour to keep the resistance group TRIGGER alive in the Saualpen, even though the present group was reported to be almost wiped out. Experience had convinced those responsible for Clowder that widespread resistance was most unlikely to develop in Austria before Germany suffered total defeat. The effect this had on Clowder activities is debatable, for Clowder was always a very limited operation in terms of its ambitions, agents and resources. In 1944 it had sufficient agents for six Austrian parties, and a pool of ten British officers with ‘WTOs specially trained for operations in Austria’. More could not have been supported. The report was clear that even if potential opposition elements emerged during the winter of 1944, it would not be possible to arm or support them on any significant scale before the end of March 1945, because of seasonal and flying limitations. Consequently, no organised resistance could be developed before the summer of 1945. Clowder was, in any case, wary of some existing movements. It had been decided that to give arms to unorganised resistance movements promised no military advantages, while helping an organisation such

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as the Communist group known as OFF might be short-sighted – it might turn into an Austrian version of EAM, the Greek Communist resistance organization. OFF, or Oesterreuchische Freiheits Front, was a communist organisation in Austria with which the wartime Slovene organisation in Carinthia was reported to be in touch. It was active mainly outside Austria, in the 1st and 2nd battalions of Tito’s Army of National Liberation. Clowder decided not to help OFF, because the military dividends that it could pay would not be commensurate with the political dangers inherent in its support. Clowder’s liaison with AFHQ was close and effective. AFHQ valued the mission, considering that it would prove valuable as a mobile reconnaissance and observation unit, partly in front, and partly behind the lines. AFHQ also allocated it a role in the occupation, giving instructions that, as soon as Austria was occupied, the Mission would be reorganised into two echelons. The first would be the headquarters echelon, consisting of a secretariat, signals and a technical section; the second echelon would be at field level, and would consist of three mobile teams of observers with links to headquarters. The whole was to be transferred to a civil commission as soon as the Allied Commission for Austria was set up. Before that point, the Mission would remain under the command and in support of the Eighth Army. It is difficult to tell whether these proposals were put into effect. Clowder continued to work on the collection of information, such as the effects of a sudden weakening of German power (reported on in August 1944),6 and continued working with TRIGGER and with other partisans, according to a December 1944 report, but no other references to the mission have been found.

Liaison with the Red Army Planning for the occupation was made infinitely more complex by the fact that AFHQ did not know what was happening in Austria, and by the fact that Soviet intentions were not known. SACMED’s forces might reach Austria at approximately the same time as the Red Army, but it was more likely that the Soviet drive into Hungary would result in the Red Army occupying a considerable part of Austria, including Vienna, while SACMED’s forces were held up in Italy until the spring. Yet neither of these factors resulted in a general sense of urgency, and an earlier indictment by the Director of Plans that the whole tempo of planning was ‘somewhat leisurely’ remained accurate in the first months of 1945.7


To some extent, the situation reflected official policy. Although Churchill had told Roosevelt before Yalta that the Allies ought to occupy as much of Austria as possible (because it was ‘undesirable that more of Western Europe than was necessary should be occupied by the Russians’), there remained a strong desire to reach an understanding with Moscow. And many shared the opinion of the director of the Political Warfare Executive, Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, that neither Britain nor the US could guarantee the frontiers (nor even comparative peace) of central and south-east Europe without a clear understanding with the Russians.8 Combined with the absence of political directives and an ambiguous allocation of responsibilities, such considerations meant that planning was often based on earlier assumptions, which did not necessarily engage with the probable intentions of the Red Army. When Winterton and Nicholls visited Naples, for instance, they found that the RANKIN ‘C’ plan, originally developed from what its originator, General Morgan described as first principles in 1943, remained influential. Of course there were many meeting to consider possible Soviet actions, particularly once it seemed likely that the Soviets might occupy Vienna before the winter of 1944–5 began. And the chances of Britain or the USA having any influence over the future of Austria in such circumstances were admitted as being remote.9 But the existence of several centres of planning merely resulted in an acknowledgement of the problem. To some extent, the continuing weakness of British planning in this respect was a direct result of official policy. The lack of serious comprehensive (as opposed to specific) planning on the matter was a reflection of the continuing ambiguity surrounding the relationship between the Allies, at the same time as the trend towards the division of Europe became clear. The difficulties inherent in the situation were evident in January 1945, for instance, when Churchill wanted to reexamine the familiar proposal of an Allied advance on Vienna from Italy. The military and political advantages of such an advance remained roughly the same as before, but the former appeared more obtainable, and the latter more urgent, after the Soviet successes around Budapest. If the Red Army opened up the way to Vienna, Kesselring might be forced to withdraw from Italy earlier than had been predicted by AFHQ.10 Conditions might then be favourable for an Allied advance to the north-east, although consent for this would still have to be gained from both Washington and Moscow. A check on the western front might, however, turn American thoughts away from central Europe. After all, Roosevelt had not opposed such a move at

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OCTAGON, the second Quebec Conference of September 1944; nor had Stalin. This had been understood by Churchill as encouraging for, when talking to Churchill and his advisers in Moscow in October of the previous year, Stalin had remarked that his forces did not intend to advance west across Yugoslavia; they would prefer to join up with Wilson’s forces in Austria. Stalin’s comment had merely been made in passing and could not be taken to mean that the Soviets either needed or would welcome British or American operations on their flanks. But to Churchill it suggested the possibility of a friendly reception if such operations were seriously proposed. In fact, nothing came of it at the time and the matter was dropped for several months, against Churchill’s and Alexander’s wishes. The Western Allies had long chased, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the mirage of effective liaison with the Soviets. Both Britain and America had proposed, independently of each other and along separate lines, to approach the Soviets on the question, the British concentrating on the establishment of a tripartite military committee in Moscow. The Chiefs of Staff decision in October 1944 to await a further move by the Soviets on this matter had not, however, satisfied the Foreign Office, and in November it suggested that the subject might again be raised through the British ambassador in Moscow. The Chiefs of Staff agreed, although without much enthusiasm. So, early in January 1945 the British minister in Moscow (in the temporary absence of the ambassador) was instructed to tackle Molotov. No immediate opportunity arose, and after the Yalta conference in February there seemed little point in pursuing the matter. By the end of January, the Foreign Office was convinced that the trend of events in Europe was towards a division into Eastern and Western spheres of influence, mainly as a direct result of Soviet policy. It was then the turn of the War Office to express concern about the future of tripartite control in Austria. It was clear that Western activity would be seriously constrained. The Red Army would be first into Austria and, as long as fighting continued, it would be difficult to resist Soviet claims that all activity be subject to their commander on the grounds of military necessity. Even if tripartite control was set up on the Soviet entry – which was extremely unlikely – the outward appearance of Western authority would have no substance. There was the potential for serious embarrassment if Britain was answerable for the acts of an impotent Allied Commission. The failure of the EAC to make progress reinforced these fears. Indeed, Hood went so far as to say that, failing Soviet proposals for


military missions or an Allied Commission, Britain could wash her hands of Austria during this period. But he admitted this was a defeatist view, and he was of the opinion that, even if the Soviets did not agree to British proposals, Britain should still try to obtain some representation in addition to the proposed SACMED mission. Whatever the case, it was necessary to obtain some degree of coordination with the Soviets on military government despite the slowness of negotiations in the EAC. Failing such an agreement, the way would be open for Soviet unilateral action, especially with regard to the deportation of Austrians to the USSR. For, in practice, even minor divergence between the Allies would result in administrative difficulties and in further conflict, which could be exploited by underground propaganda or even by world opinion. There was also a fear that Moscow might decide to break all the rules and use its power and influence to support extreme left-wing movements. AFHQ admitted that co-ordination was rightly the work of the EAC, but pleaded to be allowed to continue planning because the EAC ‘works so slowly and its deliberations as regards Austria have been subject to so many setbacks, that it appears impossible that any effective action can be taken by any predictable date’. AFHQ G-5 accordingly proposed alternatives. 11 The G-5 study is a useful means of showing the practical implications of political guidance on the subject of co-ordination with the Red Army as it appeared to AFHQ in March 1945. The study outlining the alternatives was based on three concerns, relating to military government, on which co-ordination was considered vital. The first was the subject of proclamations, for without agreement on the legal expressions of military government, ‘the irrationality of tripartite government will still further be exposed’. Certainly the difficulty caused by conflicting ordinances would be, at best, considerable. Yet the main proclamations had not been agreed on in London and Washington, and the entry of France into the Council was likely to be a further cause of delay. The answer, G-5 thought, was to use emergency proclamations by SACMED; these could also form a satisfactory basis for agreement with the Soviets. The second matter was food. Any supply plan not providing for the transfer of surpluses between the different national zones would be a failure. The third point concerned Displaced Persons (DPs). Information from Romania and Bulgaria showed that the Soviets took very little interest in DPs and were not willing to consider the introduction of officials from UNRRA. It seemed that SACMED’s agreement with UNRRA about Austria might

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be meaningless, though it would be unfortunate, from a military and a humanitarian standpoint, if the Soviet zone were closed to all such activity. Co-ordination was also important on such matters as police and public relations, and (the issue was introduced as if it had not been previously addressed) in all matters affecting the civil administration of Vienna. For without it, AFHQ might find themselves confronted with a fait accompli by the Russians on matters of policy which it would be impossible to alter without prolonged and difficult negotiations. Unfortunately, the problem with restating the issues in this way was that it merely circled around the fact that no decisions had been taken by the Allies, that co-ordination with the Soviets was an ideal rather than a fact, that Austria was of secondary importance and that little progress had been made because no one really knew what was happening in Austria. AFHQ feared that planning might be completely overtaken by events. Certainly G-5 suggested three possible methods of coordination on this occasion, all of which ran the risk of reinventing the wheel, but which had the virtue of at least continuing the sifting process characteristic of so much planning. But this is a harsh judgement, made with the benefit of hindsight. Given the circumstances, a regular restatement of the problem and possible solutions was not without value, though G-5’s suggestions show how little progress had been made in the previous six months. The first of G-5’s suggestions, for example, was that co-ordination could take place at the EAC level. AFHQ believed that the urgency of the problem was recognised there, but results had so far been disappointing; there was little hope of effective action and the zonal question was, in any case, taking priority. Second, a Soviet delegation could be invited to AFHQ, or to some suitable centre such as Belgrade, to co-ordinate with British and American G-5 staff. The correct procedure for this was presumed to be to send a signal to the Combined Chiefs of Staff who would then take the matter up with the Soviet government. The practical difficulty with this course would be the Soviets’ inevitable need to refer all matters to Moscow for policy guidance. The third (and most likely) possibility was to attach a G-5 liaison increment to the liaison staff which, AFHQ understood, would be established to promote proper liaison between AFHQ and the Soviet southern group of armies. G-5 presumed that, in the first phase, policy regarding Austria would be available for discussion with the Soviet staff of such a headquarters. It was thought that there should be no difficulty in obtaining


permission from the Combined Chiefs of Staff for such discussions provided it was clear that any policy agreements would be solely on an interim or provisional basis. This plan was believed to be sufficiently flexible to meet any combination of circumstances, and at the same time to provide the only chance of making a difficult situation work with any degree of success. The seemingly endless rounds of discussions and papers which these suggestions typify appeared inconclusive. Nothing, for example, had come of the negotiations begun the previous year with Soviet representatives at Algiers. Perhaps this was inevitable. As J.G. Ward of the Reconstruction Department had pointed out several times in 1944, the Soviets in Austria would probably adopt their usual practice of waiting to see how things turn out regardless of what Britain proposed: ‘Inevitably, we shall be forced to make the running if we wish to carry through the Moscow policy.’12

Operation FREEBORN AFHQ could not afford to wait for the creation of hypothetical liaison arrangements with Moscow, so in March a decision was taken that planning should proceeded on the assumption that Kesselring would surrender in the Po Valley during June 1945. Political pressure would then demand the arrival of occupation troops in Austria 4–6 weeks later. The initial occupation of north-west Italy would be undertaken concurrently with the advance of the first division into Austria via north-east Italy, where 50 per cent demolition was expected. The initial repair of roads and bridges would have to be undertaken, with 4–6 weeks needed for repair to the Padua–Udine, Tarviso and Brenner routes. It was hoped that the move would take place at the end of June because a number of north Italian rivers would be easier to cross once the June floods had subsided. It would not be possible to have more than one line of communications, since the engineers needed to repair the roads might be detained elsewhere in north-west Italy. Occupation was to take place after ‘S’ Day. This was to be the day on which organised resistance was deemed to cease. Case A was if Kesselring surrendered on the Austrian frontier: British troops would then enter on ‘S’ + 1. Case B was if Kesselring surrendered on the Po or Adigne rivers in northern Italy. It was estimated that four weeks would then elapse before troops could enter Austria in any significant numbers. Orders of battle, which had been drawn up in the last week of January, stated that the British forces involved were to be a corps of

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three divisions and a tank brigade, one armoured car regiment, one medium regiment (Howitzer), and one air operational squadron. There was still some uncertainty as to how many divisions would occupy Austria. Planning had originally been on the basis of four being available, but by February it was clear that only two could be initially introduced.13 The divisions concerned were to be commanded by HQ Eighth Army. Once entry was effected, the primary task was to seize the Klagenfurt-Villach area, Graz and the necessary airfields, to close the Yugoslav, Hungarian and Italian frontiers, and to carry out the initial disarmament of German forces, including paramilitary and Nazi forces. The secondary tasks were general mopping up and the establishment of military government. The entry situation required that warfighting techniques and resources be available, even if only as a precaution. And the Field Handbook of Military Government, issued by AFHQ at this time, laid down that, as far as relief supplies and DPs were concerned, the same arrangements would apply whether entry was effected with or without force. Above all, the approach adopted was to be flexible, because no accurate information was available as to what conditions would be like. By March, opinion on the type of entry conditions entry likely to be encountered had crystallised to some extent. The RANKIN concept lost some of its importance at this time, and the codeword FREEBORN was allocated to cover the new situation. FREEBORN was to cover active operations in Austria in the event of a German surrender. Such a surrender was deemed to have taken place when organised operations by German field formations had ended.14 The objects of FREEBORN were able to be clearly stated since by then the EAC had made definite progress on the allocation of national zones in Austria: AFHQ was therefore able to plan on the basis of the British zone consisting of Carinthia and Styria. The initial appreciation of FREEBORN provided the most comprehensive estimate of the circumstances under which entry was likely to take place. No organised resistance by the Austrians against the Nazis was expected. Occupation was therefore likely to take place either, in Case A, as a result of 15th Army Group or Soviet operations in Austria as a continuation of the present battle or, in Case B, as a result of a German collapse or withdrawal while 15th Army Group was still engaged outside the borders of Greater Germany. Under Case B it was considered possible that all or part of Austria might be occupied by the Red Army before the entry of British or American forces, or that the


greater part of German, or German-controlled, forces, surrendering to SAC, would be in Italy. In both cases, the zones of occupation were ultimately to be adjusted to those suggested by the EAC. In Case B, FREEBORN conditions might, it was thought, arise as a result of surrender by German forces in Italy on the Apennine Line, or at some stage during a withdrawal into the Reich, through Austria. A surrender on this line, in addition to operation FREEBORN proper, would involve the surrender of considerable German forces in Italy, and the occupation of north-east and north-west Italy. At that date (that is, February), no outline plan had been issued covering operations for the occupation of northern Italy: it was proposed that these would be issued ‘from time to time, as the situation develops’. The objects of the operation were twofold: to enforce the surrender terms and to prevent the withdrawal of armed Germans into Austria. FREEBORN implied that a certain amount of German resistance might be met on entry, because it assumed that forces which had been fighting in Italy, Yugoslavia and Hungary would fall back within the Austrian frontier: surrender would occur when these forces stopped fighting in Austria against the 15th Army and the Red Army. The estimated German forces in the region in March 1945 were as follows: Austria Italy Yugoslavia Hungary Hungarians withdrawing with German forces TOTAL

200,000 600,000 400,000 550,000 400,000 2,150,000

A certain amount of German guerrilla resistance was also expected under Case B. Churchill feared that such resistance might be more intense than many of his advisers believed, and he told Stalin that he thought there would be a tremendous struggle in southern Germany and Austria between the Allies and forces loyal to Hitler, possibly reinforced by German troops in northern Italy, as Hitler tried to prolong the war after Germany had been conquered. No doubt Churchill’s fears were accentuated by his uncertainty about Soviet action in Austria – which was fast becoming seen as a territory to be entered by whoever got there first. Originally, London had thought that British and American troops should not enter Soviet zones, but by April the Directorate of Military Operations and

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Intelligence considered that ‘the ultimate zone of occupation’ did not equal a zone of operations limited to one ally. It proposed that Austria should be a ‘no man’s land’, to be entered by whoever first arrived there. It was added, almost as an afterthought, that special care would have to be taken by the Western Allies to co-ordinate with the Soviets so as to avoid trouble.15

CROSSWORD The Soviets certainly did not try to help the West in any way: their suspicions of Western motives precluded that. An incident illustrating this was the so-called CROSSWORD affair of early 1945. It concerned approaches by the staff of General Karl Wolff, the ranking SS commander in Italy, who claimed to have the support of Himmler. Wolff originally approached the Allies in October 1944, proposing that the Allies should join Germany against the Russians. According to Kesselring, Wolff was encouraged to believe his approaches would be given serious consideration because he (Wolff) understood that Roosevelt had been convinced of ‘the double-dealing of Soviet policy’. 16 In fact, the Western Allies immediately broke off the contact. Negotiations were, however, resumed in February 1945 when Wolff let it be known, through intermediaries in Switzerland, that he wished to discuss the capitulation of German armies in northern Italy. He was quoted as saying that the German war situation was hopeless, and that continuation of the struggle was causing needless bloodshed. According to Jock Colville, private secretary to Churchill, the plan was, in fact, instigated by Alan Dulles, on behalf of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), without initially letting either the President or the State Department know what he was doing.17 The Soviets became involved in the February negotiations because, although the American Chiefs of Staff wanted Alexander to send an officer to discuss the matter with Wolff at once, the British argued that no action should be taken until Moscow had been invited to participate. The CIGS, for instance, emphasised to Alexander the importance of Moscow being ‘constantly and fully informed’. The United States consented to British proposals to the extent of notifying Moscow, making it clear that the meeting was only to arrange a meeting to discuss surrender in the field. The British agreed, and the Soviets were accordingly informed. Reaction was immediate. Molotov wrote to the British ambassador in Moscow that the negotiations at Berne were ‘utterly unexpected and


incomprehensible … The Soviet Government … insists that the negotiations … be broken off.’18 The Americans pointed out that there was an important distinction between the talks in Italy, which were merely to establish bona fides, and those expected to settle political questions. The former were concerned only with military affairs, and Soviet representatives were present to assure Moscow that no terms other than those of military surrender were being discussed. The reply from Molotov to this was even more unexpected: During the last two weeks … behind the back of the Soviet Government, which has been carrying the main burden of the war against Germany, representatives of the Americans and the British commanders on the one part and representatives of the German Military Command on the other, are carrying on negotiations. Stalin claimed to have definite evidence of this, 19 and the tone of the exchanges became increasingly acrimonious. Leahy’s comment was pertinent: ‘There it was, out in the open – the long festering suspicion and fear of the Russians.’ 20 No appeasement gestures by the Western allies could (or would) remove it but, when the negotiations at last took place on 28 April at the Allied Supreme Headquarters, a Soviet representative was present on Stalin’s authority.21 The resulting negotiations were successful, accelerating the surrender of nearly 1 million men, including German forces in Austria, and Churchill was able to report to Stalin that ‘Hostilities are to cease at 1200 hours Greenwich Mean Time, May 2nd’. That the negotiations surrounding CROSSWORD were linked to the situation in Austria was made clear by Kesselring.22 He claimed to have full confidence in the supreme commander in Italy, General Vietinghoff, whom it is known disapproved of Wolff’s negotiations, but Kesselring dismissed the Italian theatre as of secondary importance after the invasion of Normandy and was convinced that political negotiations with the Americans in Switzerland were imperative. He later admitted that his only concern was to ensure that the German troops still fighting had sufficient time to get to the British and Americancontrolled areas of the West, away from the Russians. His memoirs refer to his conviction, just before the fighting in south Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia came to an end, that ‘The absolute duty not to let our German brothers-in-arms fall into the hands of the Russians was all that mattered now. For this reason, and this alone, we just had to fight it out to the bitter end.’23

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In the aftermath of the successful negotiations, few shared Orme Sergant’s doubts. Sergant asked: ‘Has not the moment come to speak plainly to the Soviet Government, to show our resentment and to formulate what we consider our rights?’24 His comments were echoed by his colleague, Roberts, who argued that Soviet behaviour was not a passing phase: ‘We have to show these hard-headed realists that we are determined and strong enough to defend our own interests and that we are just as capable as they are of conducting a policy to secure our own national interests.’25

Yugoslavia and Alexander’s lines of communication While negotiations with Wolff were continuing, SACMED became concerned about his lines of communication into Austria, the entry of land forces depending on opening the proposed lines from Trieste. Britain would have to take in a considerable quantity of relief goods, particularly food and some raw materials, the tonnage of which would probably be beyond the capacity of the north Italian railways. The only alternative to the Trieste line was to ship the goods to Marseilles and route them through Switzerland; but this would involve Britain in disbursing hard currency and was open to objections from the Treasury. It was for this reason that G-5 Policy and Control Division had recommended use of Trieste. It was the natural port for Austria, and from the naval and administrative point of view was the best base in all matters such as port facilities, alongside berths and anchorage. Venice, which was suggested as a possible alternative, was dependent upon her canals which were probably blocked and silted up, and it would take at least three times as long to obtain the same tonnage through Venice as through Trieste. But use of Trieste was problematic because of Tito’s claims to the area. The question of a base point became entangled with that of Allied control of Trieste and the Venezia Giulia area of northeast Italy bordering on Yugoslavia. SACMED was asked by the British Chiefs of Staff, early in 1945, whether, during operations in Austria or subsequently for the maintenance of troops there, Allied military government would be required in the whole of Venezia Giulia or in part of it or, alternatively, whether his needs could be met by an agreement with the Yugoslavs for Allied control of certain areas. Alexander’s view was that, from the purely military aspect, all that was necessary was the control of the area containing the Allied lines of communication from Trieste, or the port of Pola, to Austria. Hence the division of Venezia Giulia by a fixed


military boundary would meet his needs, provided that the area west of it came under complete Allied control. Eden suggested this to Tito in a note of 10 February, but he received no answer, so the British Government tried the more direct approach of sending Alexander to Belgrade on 21 February, since time was pressing. Alexander was to try to reach a direct agreement with Tito on a fixed military boundary, his requirements being that the dividing line should run south and east of Trieste at approximately 15 miles east of the city and then north to north-west of the road through Aidussina, Gorizia and Caporetto to Tarvisio and the Austrian border.26 Alexander reported Tito to be ‘very friendly, sensible and cooperative’. He told Tito that, when British forces entered Austria, he would have to control not only Trieste but also Trieste’s lines of communication to Austria. In addition, he initially expected to occupy all territory west of the 1939 frontier between Yugoslavia and Italy, and to establish Allied military government there. He made clear that this would not, however, prejudice the final peace settlement in any way. In reply, Tito accepted the idea of Allied military government in the areas of Alexander’s lines of communication, provided that his civil administration already installed in the area be retained. He was willing, he said, for the Yugoslav civil authorities to be responsible to Alexander. He added that, if Alexander’s purpose was to protect his lines of communication, he need not occupy the Istrian Peninsula. If, however, he wished to use the communications running through Ljubljana, the lowest pass in the Alpine curtain, he could do so, though they were well within Yugoslav territory. Alexander did not wish to commit himself, so he replied that his suggestions were purely exploratory and that, before he could come to any decision, he would have to refer the whole question to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. He assumed, however, that he had Tito’s verbal agreement to his control of Trieste and its lines of communication. This was not a sensible assumption since by this time it was clear that Yugoslavia was determined to extend her influence over as much of Italy as possible, and to make a case for Yugoslav annexation of the area east of the Isonzo. The Yugoslav Army of National Liberation was in complete control of all territory not under effective German occupation, and great efforts were being made to embrace the whole of the province of Udine. Alexander’s understanding – and requirements – appear to have been divorced from political considerations, and it was not until April that the situation was examined from this point of view and Yugoslav territorial claims were at last understood. It was only

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then that the Foreign Office had second thoughts on the political responsibility for the Austro-Yugoslav frontier that would be acquired if their own zoning proposals were accepted. At that point both AFHQ and London accepted that Tito did not intend to co-operate with the Allies, and that the Yugoslavs were attempting to occupy as much territory as they could without regard to Allied operations. Yugoslavia made a formal claim for a zone of occupation in Austria on 2 April, but no other new developments occurred at this stage.

Developments in the West affecting occupation Attention then swung to a new factor. This was the advance into Germany from the west, which revived the possibility of SCAEF’s forces entering and controlling the north-western parts of Austria. As Eisenhower told the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the quickest method of entry into Austria under OVERLORD, ECLIPSE or FREEBORN conditions could be from the north rather than the south. He therefore proposed that the Sixth Army Group should prepare to enter Austria, establishing such temporary control as might be required until AFHQ arrived to take over. Of course, this was tentative and depended upon the developing situation, but it suggested to Eisenhower that SCAEF forces should plan to seize the Salzburg, Innsbruck and Vorarlberg areas. Accordingly, it was to SCAEF, rather than AFHQ, that the CCS issued their policy directive for the military government of Austria before defeat or surrender. But it was SAC, according to the new arrangements of April, who remained responsible for the occupation and military government of any parts of Austria entered from Italy, and of Vienna outside the Soviet controlled area. And any responsibility assumed by SCAEF was to be transferred to SAC as soon as practicable. The directive ordering this shows that, even allowing for some resistance, the Allies did not expect to find chaos on entry into Austria. The most recent SHAEF paper on the subject, for example, had ordered that, to minimise the risk of administrative breakdown, the military authorities should promptly appoint suitable Austrian officials to governmental positions. There was no suggestion that public safety would present a major problem. Occupation was now thought to be shaped by two issues. The first was that entry would probably take place peacefully. A ‘Guide to Austria’, drafted in April and issued on 2 May, for example, described Austrians as temperamentally ‘middle of the road’, and warned against too friendly a welcome being given to the Allies by the Austrians; such


a welcome could be exploited by ‘Nazi and Jap spies’ who could then threaten military security. 27 Secondly, and more importantly, it was clear that the Red Army would be first into Austria. At best SCAEF forces would enter west Austria. And even this situation was controversial because Anglo-American relations at this period were not cordial. Then, on 2 April, in the middle of the debate as to whether the Western Allies should press forward to Dresden or Berlin, Roosevelt died. The new president, emerging from the obscurity of the office of vice-president, had not hitherto been consulted or informed of diplomatic or strategic policy. Churchill, the War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff were perturbed. The long and intimate association Churchill had had with Roosevelt could not be repeated with Truman. It is impossible to say if Roosevelt would have approved the last military decisions taken in Europe but, whatever course he might have taken, his death seemed to Churchill to have removed the one figure whose experience and knowledge resembled his own. At a time when influence within the Western Alliance increasingly reflected the balance of strength between the partners, this personal association between the two men seemed the best guarantee that the British view would receive a hearing. For even if Churchill and Eden – the principal authorities concerned – had decided, in the spring of 1945, that action should be taken on the assumption that the Soviets might be the potential enemy, there was little likelihood of such action being adopted. Distrustful and deeply alarmed as they might be, British policy continued to rest on partnership between the three Powers, expressed in and operating through the United Nations. The strategy they wished to adopt in Austria was designed not for reasons of defence or attack against the Soviet Union, but with the object, which they recognised must remain subsidiary to the immediate military task, of negotiating from strength. 28 Eden may not have believed that a clash of interests between Britain and the Soviet Union was inevitable, but he did believe that the de facto occupation by British and American forces of large parts of the eventual Soviet zones in Austria and Germany would be an important bargaining counter for use on a number of outstanding questions. Alexander clearly understood this too, telling the CIGS that he had directed the 15th Army Group to occupy as much of Austria as possible before there was a general German surrender or collapse on the Russian front so that it could be used to bargain with.29 In the atmosphere of the time, Churchill and Eden were also able to justify such an approach as a useful contribution to the tripartite

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alliance, guarding it against the threat of excessive Soviet ambition that Red Army conquests seemed to foster. In fact, the British had not abandoned the hopes of the Yalta Conference. London did not despair of a solution with Moscow: indeed, it was expected. But it was now expected as a result of firm measures that would remind the Soviets of their obligations, obligations whose strength would therefore depend on the movements of the Western armies in the next few weeks. And once again, the question of Austria was overshadowed by that of Germany. In the case of Germany, the Americans had halted on the Elbe, north of Dessau, some 100 miles from the Soviets in the longitude of Berlin. The question therefore arose of how to settle lines of demarcation between the converging forces. Churchill was determined that the gains of the Western Powers should not be surrendered to augment those of the Soviets in either Germany or Austria. If, as seemed possible, the proposed western zones of Austria fell to the Red Army it was important that Britain and the US should have other gains to show that they would not yield while the Red Army remained in territories allotted to the West. Meanwhile, Eisenhower asked for directions and the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave him authority to decide the first line of demarcation. Churchill was uneasy about this, arguing that the arrangements might be affected by Soviet misunderstanding. He did not object to an eventual retirement to the agreed zones, but he was anxious not to do so until the diplomatic situation was clearer. He allowed that the Combined Chiefs of Staff’s instructions were satisfactory as far as they went, but he wanted to secure the consent of all three governments to the principles that they laid down. On 18 April he approached Truman and, after some discussion on wording, both signed a telegram to Stalin which said that the approaching end of the war made a decision on an orderly procedure for the occupation of the proposed national zones in Germany and Austria necessary, particularly in the case of the latter. Churchill was not reassured by the fact that Stalin’s reply did not propose specific agreements to the proposals. Stalin’s prevarication was unsurprising, given that Tolbukhin and Malinovsky had meanwhile pushed into Czechoslovakia and Austria. Advance was rapid, and by 13 April Vienna was in their hands. Churchill’s fears were fulfilled because it was not until 22 April that the US Third and Seventh Armies picked up full speed, and Patton’s forces broke through the hastily improvised German defences on the Iscar and the Enns Rivers into Austria, seizing Linz on 4 May, and making contact with the Red Army on 8 May. (By that date the French had also


entered Austria.) Kesselring noted that ‘the British and American forces in southern Germany were astonishingly passive. One had the impression that they had ‘’packed up’’ in the face of the Russians closing in on Berlin towards the end of April.’30 The delay of American troops into Austria was a direct result of Eisenhower’s stated objectives. His major objective was a drive across central Germany to meet the Soviets, and second, a simultaneous advance on two flanks: to the north it was to cut off Denmark, and to the south to penetrate and overrun the feared National Redoubt in the mountainous area west of Austria. This last was subsequent to the others. Eisenhower alone took the decision to leave central Austria to the Soviets; he did not consult AFHQ. He was in no way bound by previous orders from the Combined Chiefs of Staff, nor were his decisions questioned by the Western Governments. But London was not in a position to do this anyway. The recent dispute on the central thrust had shown the limits of London’s influence, and had left no doubt of the inclination of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff not to interfere in the detailed conduct of operations. In the circumstances, the American definition of responsibility prevailed. Sargent summed up the British feeling when he wrote that he was sorry that Eisenhower should have pledged himself not to advance further into Austria than the River Enns. From the political point of view, it would have been better, Sargent thought, if Eisenhower he had said nothing and advanced as far as he could until he met the Russian forces to the west of Vienna.31 Churchill agreed.

Tito’s claims to Austria and Trieste With the German surrender, Eighth Army military-government staffs became responsible for establishing British control in Austria. Their entry into Austria was, as feared, complicated by developments in Trieste, for Yugoslav parties had entered the area surrounding the port in April. Tito consolidated his position, and was in the last stages of a victorious offensive, apparently supported by Moscow – Stalin had openly referred to ‘the legitimate claims of Yugoslavia’ in Istria and Trieste, where they alone, he said, had driven the Germans out. Alexander knew that the Belgrade agreement of February could only be enforced if he were in physical possession of the province of Istria. Unfortunately he had not been given instructions on the degree of armed force he could use to gain control of Trieste and Venezia Giulia. So, on 26 April, he told the Chiefs of Staff that he would ‘seize those

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parts of Venezia Giulia which are of importance to my military operations’, including Trieste, as soon as possible and he would tell any Yugoslav forces he encountered that they must come under his control. His message forced a decision and two days later he received the appropriate instructions from the Chiefs of Staff, with the proviso that if the Yugoslavs refused to co-operate he was to consult London before taking further action. But by this time events had gone too far, too quickly, to make this practicable, for it was of supreme importance that the Allies reach

Map 7.1

European theatre, February 1945

128

Map 7.2

The advance into Austria, March–May 1945

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Trieste as soon as possible. Alexander had to take immediate action. As he pointed out in his memoirs, it was not enough for a commander to be allowed to use a military base on sufferance; it must be completely under the control of the commander of the force using it. The result was that on 30 April a New Zealand division of the Eighth Army entered Venezia Giulia. On 1 May it met partisan regulars at Monfalcone, the partisans having entered the towns of Pola, Trieste and Gorizia and, in certain places, beyond the Isonzo River. Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Freyburg, in charge of the Eighth Army forces, met the commander of the Fourth Yugoslav Army and told him of his intention to advance to Trieste. On 2 May, some of Freyburg’s New Zealand division entered Trieste. They received the surrender of the German garrison, about 7,000 strong, which had been holding out against the Yugoslavs, before entering and cleaning up the dock area. But, despite Alexander’s words, the Yugoslavs were left in control of the rest of the city. In effect, the Yugoslavs occupied and administered Trieste, their sentries even being seen side by side with the Allies in the port areas. Alexander had informed Tito, on 30 April, of his intention to establish Allied military government. Tito replied that much had changed since the Belgrade talks of February, and that in order to liberate Yugoslavia as quickly as possible, he planned to ‘liberate’ all territory up to the Isonzo River and to advance up the river to the Austrian frontier, because he also claimed areas of Carinthia. In accordance with the earlier agreement, he would allow Alexander to use Trieste and Pola, as well as the Trieste–Tarviso railway, part of which passed through Yugoslav territory. He said his regular units and the partisans operating to the west of the Isonzo line would come under SAC’s control. But, on hearing of the Allies movements on 3 May, Tito sent a note of pained surprise, stating that the Allies had entered cities, liberated by the Yugoslav Army, without any previous notice, and he asked for an explanation. His telegram evidently crossed with one from Alexander, congratulating him on Yugoslavia’s victories and stating that the German garrison at Trieste had surrendered to General Freyburg. These events, Alexander wrote, had resulted in an overlapping of operational theatres, but this need not cause trouble as SACMED’s interests remained as stated at Belgrade. Provided the Yugoslav troops were informed of the position, Alexander concluded, the presence of both armies need not give rise to inconvenience.32 Meanwhile, Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff told Alexander to stand firm and, if possible, concentrate some forces in the area so as to support his authority. For Churchill felt that the situation must be


handled firmly before Allied strength was dispersed. Alexander should be prepared to use all the forces at his command. Churchill did not believe that Tito would attack Alexander’s forces, so Alexander should stand firm. On the other hand, if Alexander found it impossible to persuade Tito to agree to a satisfactory working arrangement, then the matter would have to be taken up at governmental level. According to The Times, Tito warned the Allies that they had entered Trieste and Gorizia without permission, and that their action might have ‘undesirable consequences’ unless a settlement was reached by mutual agreement. On receiving Tito’s protest, Alexander sent a sharp rejoinder. He expressed astonishment at Tito’s apparent failure to honour the Belgrade agreement, and informed him that he, Alexander, ordered his troops to maintain their place in Trieste, Monfalcone and Gorizia. He also suggested that, since an immediate solution to the problem was necessary, Tito’s chief of staff should meet his own, General Sir W.D. Morgan. In his reply, Tito stressed the political motivation of his actions. He reminded Alexander that, besides his military responsibilities, he was also a prime minister who must first of all take care of the interests of his country. He added that the capitulation of German troops in the Tyrol, Carinthia and Styria, which had not been foreseen at Belgrade, meant that SAC no longer had a difficult military task before him, but merely the occupation of these territories. Further, the occupation of Venezia Giulia did not have a purely military character; it was also a political question since it had been unjustly annexed by Italy in 1919. Tito agreed, however, to a meeting of the two chiefs of staff in Trieste. Alexander suggested that, if the meeting was held in Belgrade, a quicker solution might be found. Tito agreed. Morgan then went to Belgrade where he adopted the firm line that Allied military government would be set up in Trieste and the western half of Venezia Giulia because Alexander needed Trieste and its lines of communication to Austria to maintain his forces. Not surprisingly, the negotiations proved abortive, Tito claiming that the collapse of German resistance in Italy had produced a new situation in which Allied control of the disputed area was no longer necessary. He put forward an alternative scheme based on a system of joint command which Alexander refused to consider. The matter was therefore referred to the British and American governments. Despite firm talk on both sides, the problem was clearly a political, rather than a military, matter. The question was how to secure Alexander’s control of the area vital to military commu-

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nications. Alexander appreciated the political implications of this, for achieving it might require recourse to armed force, and the resources needed to meet such a situation would then depend primarily on whether Moscow would openly back Tito. The situation was further complicated by the fact that so large a quantity of German supplies had fallen into Tito’s hands that, even without Soviet aid, 11 divisions would be needed to confront Yugoslav resistance. That is, five for Venezia Giulia, three to protect the Austro-Yugoslav frontier and three to occupy the British zone of Austria. If the Soviets decided to support Tito, it would be impossible to estimate the required resources, but they would clearly be beyond those available in the Mediterranean theatre. Truman supported London in treating the matter as a political problem requiring a political solution. Diplomatic approaches were made to Tito to get him to accept Allied military government in Venezia Giulia. On 13 May, Churchill told the War Cabinet that instructions to the British ambassador in Belgrade had been sent, and a telegram was dispatched to Truman, giving the draft of a text to be sent to Stalin. It stated that a serious situation had arisen in Venezia Giulia because of Tito’s territorial claims and his insistence on extending his own military government within the Isonzo River area, while merely offering Alexander communication facilities through Trieste. Stalin was told that this situation required Alexander to impose a military government until the peace settlement proposed a satisfactory answer to the problem. In view of the ‘unhelpful attitude’ adopted by Tito, and the fact that Alexander was in command of allied troops and therefore spoke on behalf of both the British and United States Governments, the matter had been handled at governmental level. In the event, armed force by the allies proved unnecessary because Yugoslav troops began to withdraw east of the line proposed by Morgan in Belgrade after Tito signed the Morgan–Jovanic agreement on 9 June. It is unclear whether this resulted from the Allies willingness to use force or pressure from Stalin. Belgrade Radio said that it was to avoid misunderstanding with the Allies, while other Yugoslav sources emphasised that withdrawal did not mean a renunciation of their claims. It did mean, however, that attention could swing back to Austria.

The British move into Austria The day when the British occupation of Austria would formally begin, ‘S’ day, was named as 2 May. The narrow margins on which the plan


was based was shown by the fact that Kesselring himself had actually been at Zeltweg and Graz the previous day, conferring with his eastern commanders. On 2 May, as Vth Corps (under the operational control of the Eighth Army) began to move, Kesselring gave the order for an accelerated retreat by German forces into the area controlled by the western Allies; the bulk of Army Group South and much of Army Group South-East then crossed into the American zone. Alexander had previously told Tolbukhin that British troops from the Eighth Army were ready to move into Austria, though he himself would not go with them, his earlier appointment as SACMED and elevation to the rank of field marshal having made such a move inappropriate. Churchill had wanted Alexander to act as British commander in chief and control commissioner for Austria, but had been persuaded that Lieutenant-General Sir Richard McCreery, commander of the Eighth Army, should be appointed instead. McCreery, who had been concerned with planning for many months, was, in fact, thought by many (including Sir Archibald Nye, the VCIGS) to be the obvious choice. The choice of the Eighth Army to lead British forces into Austria had been made three months before the occupation. The reasoning behind Alexander’s choice at the time was that, because the circumstances of occupation were unknown, it was essential that the system of command used for the occupation forces (and direction of the special duties they would be required to perform) should be as simple and as flexible as possible. Alexander thought that such simplicity and economy of effort would be best achieved if the commander of the Eighth Army was designated British commissioner. With a suitable staff drawn from Eighth Army HQ, the commissioner could establish himself in Vienna as soon as possible, while the headquarters he would take to Vienna would form the basis of the eventual army division of the Control Commission. Direct command of the occupation forces would be exercised by a corps HQ established in the British zone. The principal means of entry from the south was Udine– Tarvisio–Villach, and the leading troops crossed the frontier on 7 May. The next day, a British military government party left Cividale (about 10 miles north-east of Udine), with Grenadier Guardsmen, and entered Austria, reaching Klagenfurt and Villach. They met no resistance. A good idea of the atmosphere of the time is contained in a report by the popular magazine Parade on 26 May, which described Austrians scowling at the convoys. Instead of the too friendly welcome feared by some planners, Parade described a sullen silence; there was no clapping or cheering of the British forces. ‘Everywhere along the route, discarded

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German equipment, dead horses, rifles and broken carts littered the roadside or stuck grotesquely out of snowdrifts.’ German soldiers waited for the Allies along the roadside, apathetic or indifferent. No Nazi resistance was encountered. It was later reported that steps had been taken to form Nazi resistance groups for the post-surrender period, but few details were known of their organisation. The small groups involved apparently collapsed rapidly after a few rallies had been held. A number of Nazis were thought to be hiding in the mountains of Carinthia, but any resistance was local and on a small scale. The leading British armoured cars were therefore able to drive into Carinthia, and continue driving east until they met an advance Soviet party south of Graz, in Styria. They made contact according to an agreed form which allowed for the establishment of a temporary, provisional, tactical demarcation line. It was not until 17 May that the Eighth Army was linked up almost along its entire course from the north to the south with the Red Army, and the various campaigns ground, undramatically, to a halt. By then, General McCreery had been installed at the headquarters of the British Troops in Austria at Klagenfurt for a week. The headquarters of Vth Corps was already established there. The major problem encountered by the British at this stage was the presence of the Yugoslav troops who had followed them into Austria, and set up a military government in Klagenfurt. Despite all the concerns about Tito’s possible actions, this had not been anticipated. The Yugoslav military government proved to be highly effective in delaying the implementation of British military government, not only because it destroyed many existing government records, but also because it created a force of bill-posters whose job was to cover over every British announcement as soon as it was displayed. The fact that Alexander’s first and second proclamations, claiming supreme authority and ordering full obedience to his military government, were immediately promulgated was more than offset by the fact that the Yugoslavs issued their own placards, ordering that ‘The population and all branches of the administration are to extend aid to our Army and obey all published decrees unconditionally.’ Every aspect of the early weeks of occupation was coloured by the Yugoslav presence. Keightley, the commander in Klagenfurt, for instance, told Macmillan on 14 May that he thought that, from the military point of view, it was possible to hold the situation for a time until he was strong enough to clear up the area. But, during the waiting period, he was in no position to deal with clashes, and his lines of communication were vulnerable, because it


was impossible to prevent high-handed action by the Yugoslavs. The Yugoslav actions rendered British military government virtually impotent. The situation became increasingly awkward as the Yugoslav build-up in Carinthia continued during the early weeks of May, reinforced by troops previously tied down by German forces. AFHQ also reported further infiltration, with 2,000 troops crossing the Austrian frontier via Lavamund on 14 May, while north of Klagenfurt the Yugoslav garrison at St Viet was slightly increased. Trouble was also anticipated on the Austro-Yugoslav frontier. Then, when the situation became worse and the two were on the verge of a clash, Tito withdrew his forces. Why he did this is unclear. On 10 May, London and Washington had presented him with a joint demand that he immediately withdraw his troops. Tito replied on the following day with a request that the troops come under British command instead. Churchill would not accept this, and renewed his demand for a Yugoslav withdrawal. Then, on 19 May, Tito ordered their withdrawal. Even without the Yugoslav presence, the early days of occupation presented a confused picture. The British occupied Carinthia with the addition of small areas of Styria and Salzburg. All sections of the civilian population in the British zone were described as co-operative, if only out of relief that occupation by the Red Army had not materialised and the Yugoslavs had withdrawn. Physical damage in Austria was not severe and the food stocks were greater than expected, though there were still large numbers of uncontrolled enemy personnel of all nationalities in the area, in addition to many wounded and convalescent enemy personnel in hospitals. There were also many thousands of DPs, mostly Italians, moving towards the Italian frontier. Many of the associated problems had been anticipated, but many – such as the Yugoslav military government – had not. Others had been accommodated. The German surrender had occurred a month earlier than had been anticipated, but this had not overtaxed plans. Occupation had taken place in an orderly fashion and, apart from in Klagenfurt, control had been imposed easily.

8 Civil Affairs and Military Government

The occupation marked the start of the first phase of military operations by British forces in 1945, which effectively ran until the Eighth Army responsibilities were handed over to British Troops in Austria (BTA) in August. The second phase centred on the restoration of a degree of civil government, while the third was signalled by the transfer of the military’s responsibilities to the Allied Commission in the autumn. The means by which immediate objectives were to be achieved was through military government and civil affairs – which are now considered in detail. The headquarters of BTA was not relieved of this responsibility until 15 October, when the military government staff was dissolved and the British Element of the Allied Commission took over. It had been intended that there should be no overlapping between these phases, but manpower problems meant that Allied Commission personnel were, in fact, in command from August onwards. It was not until October, though, that BTA was able to concentrate on its main military tasks of frontier control, guarding duties, internal security and the restoration of communications. The military government staff was small, but their role during the summer of 1945 deserves attention. 1 They not only ensured that disease and unrest were prevented but, in more general terms, their work illustrates the problems involved in setting up commissions after conflict. The concerns of the military government were urgent and demanded improvisation, but they also had to be reconciled with the Commission’s plans, which were for the long term. 135


Civil affairs The embryonic civil affairs organisation has been referred to in Chapter 6, but this is the appropriate point at which to step back from the events of early May and focus in more detail on its role in the military government. During an informal discussion in October 1943, British ministers had distinguished three possible stages in the organisation and responsibilities of civil affairs.2 The first stage was held to be when military operations were being carried out in an area. The planning and execution of administration for this stage was a military function, and the ministers considered that responsibility should lie with the commander in chief and the War Office. The third stage would supervene when the area was no longer of operational significance, and the problems arising were political rather than military. Responsibility for this stage would probably lie with the Foreign Office. A second or intermediate stage might occur between the two, when it was considered that responsibility for administration would pass from the military government to a control commission that would exercise a less direct supervision through an indigenous government. But the military authorities would, at this stage, continue to require absolute control over certain matters, especially their lines of communication. Accordingly, responsibility would have to remain with the commander in chief and the War Office. Many things changed during the course of the next two years, but these stages provide an overview of how civil affairs was used in Austria in 1945. Against this structure, the events of May to midAugust 1945, on which this chapter focuses, fall within the first stage. The term civil affairs was not self-evident but it was well established by 1943, as was its purpose. Civil affairs had first been adopted by British and American forces during the occupation of the Rhineland in 1918 as an acceptable way of describing the means by which the staff of the military governor assumed a measure of responsibility for civil administration. When the Administration of Territories (Europe) Committee came to look at the issues associated with ensuring the efficient administration of liberated territory in Europe in 1942, it, too, chose to refer to civil administration and civil affairs, rather than military government.3 The SHAEF guide to military administration produced in the summer of 1944 was accordingly described as a civil affairs handbook. In it civil affairs referred to activities related to the point at which civilian affairs impinged on the military. There was no question (initially at least) of the military supporting civilian life in a

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humanitarian sense; the civil affairs organisation of 1945 was, rather, acting in support of military-related objectives such as relieving combat troops of the requirement to provide the civil administration the laws of war required of them. Civil affairs did, however, have a duty to assist in the restoration of law and order, and of ‘normal’ conditions amongst civilians as soon as possible. To this end it was considered that it should, so far as might be necessary to ensure freedom from civil unrest, provide food supplies and relief within the resources available. But such objectives were offset by the central role of civil affairs in making available to the occupying forces the economic resources of Austria. And all civil affairs activities had the aim of demonstrating to Austria the complete defeat of Germany, and of assisting in the execution of the terms of surrender accepted by Germany. To this end, civil affairs was to assist in the immediate and complete termination of German control of Austria. The civil affairs organisation which was to perform these tasks had evolved from experience gained in Africa, Italy and north-west Europe. By 1945 there were, for instance, several well-developed theories of civil affairs available to planners, and at least four major agencies dealing with the subject as it affected British planning: the military headquarters of SHAEF and of AFHQ, the British Element of the Allied Commission and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in addition to various civilian agencies, such as UNRRA. As with so many aspects of planning for Austria, the development of civil affairs was erratic and lacked a sense of urgency. This was unsurprising given that the relevant staffs worked largely without reference to operational planning. Decisions were often avoided until military developments forced matters. Hood noted in February 1944, for example, that ‘no detailed Civil Affairs planning has ever, as far as I know, taken place because the War Office and SCAEF have always hoped this responsibility would be placed on AFHQ’. 4 In the event, it was military developments in May 1944, when it appeared that the invasion of Austria might take place from Italy before the winter, which imposed a sense of purpose onto the leisurely pace of planning. The resulting civil affairs programme needs to be seen in the context of the last year of the war, so the overview of civil affairs and military government presented here is divided into five parts. The first covers the development of the theory and practice of civil affairs and military government before the spring of 1944, including how civil affairs was to be organised, where departmental responsibility for it was allocated and the selection and training of its personnel. The second summarises


developments in the 12 months before entry into Austria. The third discusses the first stage of military government, which ran from May to August. The fourth examines the record of civil affairs and military government in greater detail through reference to the three major issues of displaced persons, disbandment and de-Nazification, and the more minor matter of fraternisation. The overview concludes with the transition from war to peace.

Background to planning The basis of planning was laid down in August 1943, when a civil affairs division of COSSAC was formed. The main task of this nucleus was to build its own organisation and procedure, and to lay down the general principles by which its work would be guided. Assisting them, but not formally part of the organisation, were a number of country sections or ‘houses’. These were required to gather factual information, and to examine the problems involved in establishing military control and the subsequent re-establishment of an indigenous administration for the particular country for which they were responsible. Serious planning by the COSSAC group began in September 1943, as a result of the circulation of a paper by the Joint Intelligence SubCommittee of the Chiefs of Staff. The theme of the paper was that, except for the not unimportant factor of the existence of Hitler and the Nazi Party, conditions in Germany in the summer of 1943 were identical to those existing before the surrender of Germany in July 1918: in other words, a quick German collapse could not be ruled out. So the civil affairs division, which had just been established with MajorGeneral Sir Roger Lumley as Chief Civil Affairs Officer (CCAO), was quickly expanded to plan for such a contingency. And in November 1943, at the time when the country houses were formally brought into COSSAC, a German section, to which an Austrian subsection was appended, was created. The British group was further advanced in organisation than the American, but it had few men experienced in military government and was inclined to be dogmatic and theoretical. Such attitudes may have been defensive in origin, for the status of civil affairs was low. Many officers were very able, but many more tended to be expert in some little known specialism and hopelessly unmilitary in approach. All were likely to be older than most serving officers or, at the very least, physically weaker members rejected from some more active unit. According to American practice, civil affairs staff were treated as one of


the accepted divisions of the general staff, with equal standing to its other parts. But the British attitude was always different, and civil affairs divisions were never fully accepted into the military hierarchy but were usually treated as quasi-civil poor relations. The civil affairs division was reorganised in February 1944, after the transformation of COSSAC into SHAEF. It was at this point that it became a general staff division, known as G-5 in accordance with American practice. The rest of the civil affairs organisation, including the country houses and the training establishments at Shrivenham and Eastbourne, was designated a special staff. The special staffs were not formally part of SHAEF, but were intended to be sent into the field on the occupation of the countries with which they were concerned, where they would be employed as SHAEF missions, or on the task of military government in Germany and Austria. An integrated Austrian country unit was organised by SHAEF on 10 April 1944. The special staffs for Germany and Austria were required to prepare for the establishment of a formal military government administration, with their work proceeding, significantly, largely without reference to operational planning. The question of how this was to be achieved was controversial from the beginning, and resulted in a cleavage between the general and special staff divisions over the theory on which civil affairs was to be based. Theories of civil affairs Appropriate models of civil affairs were shaped by the then current ideas in the War Office. Initially it was thought that in Europe, once a military administration was established, each civil affairs unit, under its own Chief Civil Affairs Officer (CCAO), would become the military government of that country. Responsibility would be handed over to the indigenous government as soon as it could be trusted. This arrangement would entail civil affairs being subordinate to the military, and would see the various CCAOs under the command of the highest available military formation. Each CCAO was to arrange for the introduction of advance parties of his field organisation with, or just behind, the forces invading his territory. If possible, advance parties would be attached to the lower formations or units undertaking the invasion, although they would not form part of the units’ staff. It also seemed that it might be necessary to attach, temporarily at any rate, advanced units of the CCAO’s headquarters to the highest formations to exercise command over parties in the field. As operations advanced, the CCAO would arrange for the introduction of additional field parties, and


would gradually allow for the introduction of the main body of his headquarters. The control of the field parties would pass from the advance formations to the CCAO and, contemporaneously, the advanced elements of the CCAO’s own staff would return from the formations to which they had been attached and be re-incorporated in the CCAO’s headquarters. The vital point was that, after the early operational period, it was thought that a completely separate civil affairs channel of communication and command should be established, descending from the supreme commander or, if he were still in Britain, from the appropriate army group commander. In other words, the emphasis was placed on the territorial organisation rather than the military formation. A small civil affairs group would be required at supreme headquarters for coordination and to act as the supreme commander’s mouthpiece in civil affairs matters, but the headquarters of subordinate formations would have little or no permanent civil affairs staff, because territorial administrations would carry the weight of responsibility. This was, in essence, the AMGOT theory of civil affairs developed to suit conditions in Italy: the notion was of a military administration as an organisation standing on its own feet and separate from military command, except at the very highest levels. It was always likely that such a conception would come under attack. It did, on both political and military grounds. The political objections to AMGOT were of little relevance to Austria since they consisted mainly of reservations on the part of the Foreign Office, who were well aware that the émigré governments in London in whose countries this theory would be carried out would regard it as offensive. The military objections stemmed from what had been seen as mistakes in Italy, where the military government had not been integrated into the normal military organisation and the civil affairs organization had had a separate chain of command and communication. There were also more practical objections. Since the civil affairs organisation was excluded from the normal chain of command, the organisation lost a fair share of military resources, engineering materials and support. Important military resources were controlled at the headquarters of formations and at the lines of communication organisations below the level of the army group commander. If, as in Italy, the military had no responsibility for military government, there was little point in expecting them to be ready to part with badly needed resources to meet the requirements of a plan outside their remit and for whose failure they would bear no responsibility.


The only answer was to allocate responsibility for civil affairs to formation commanders right down the line. In this way they would also share responsibility for failure, and thus be motivated to give a fair share of available resources to civil affairs. Civil affairs in Italy had experienced great difficulties in obtaining the provisions of rations, transport, communications, petrol, oil and lubricants. So if civil affairs officers formed part of the commander’s staff, they could obtain these resources as a right, rather than as a result (when they were lucky) of begging. Supply, in particular, would be a matter of sharing facilities and bidding for them with other military users. The sole occasion on which this reversal of ideas was seriously challenged was early in 1944, when General Eisenhower was transferred from AFHQ to become SCAEF. He took with him a number of officers, including Brigadier-General McSherry, Deputy Chief Civil Affairs Officer (DCCAO) under the G-5 special staff at SHAEF. McSherry was convinced that the proposed AMGOT civil affairs organisation would fail, because it provided only for the continuance of civil affairs by the commanding officers of military units. This meant that either key personnel in a particular area would be changed frequently, or that the military system itself must become highly flexible. His recommendation was that a single administration for civil affairs should be established as soon as possible after the conclusion of hostilities. The British opposed this on military, political and manpower grounds. Finally, SHAEF rejected the idea, too, because it was thought that the mistakes made in Italy should not be repeated. A better way to have considered the problem would have been less as a matter of having to choose between the theories, but rather as a question of deciding when to change from one to the other. The north-west Europe conception was probably workable during active operations. After all, even the strongest supporters of the AMGOT theory conceded that, in the early stages, civil affairs officers in the field should be placed under the orders of the local commander. But when the phase of static occupation supervened, the AMGOT theory appeared preferable. Even in north-west Europe a separate chain of command for civil affairs was intended to be established below the level of the corps commander in the British areas. Other factors had to be taken into account, such as the sort of campaign to be expected, and whether the territory to be occupied was allied or enemy. But it was essentially a matter of gradually moving the emphasis from integration and work with the formations in the early stages, to the establishment of a centrally controlled administration


standing on its own feet when the campaign was further advanced. It would be difficult to plan for this changeover, but it should not have been impossible. In fact, it soon became clear that this was what the War Office and the US War Department intended to take place. For the War Office Manual of Civil Affairs in the Field stated: As soon as operational considerations permit responsibility for military government should be withdrawn from military commanders and invested in Senior Civil Affairs Officers of regions under the Chief Civil Affairs Officer. This will normally be when the leading formations in contact with the enemy have passed on.5 The main consideration affecting the timing of the change was that integration ought to continue until the civil affairs organisation was no longer dependent on the military for all its requirements. Only when a civil administration had been re-established, and the economy of the country concerned sufficiently revived to enable the civil affairs organisation to obtain these necessities without having to call on military resources, could the organisation remove itself from the military framework. This was the theory that was finally adopted, with the emphasis being transferred from civil administration to military requirements, and from the territorial to the formation staffs. Such a system went into operation in Austria, although the dual aims of occupation and liberation meant that the civil affairs teams were to hand over to the Allied Commission as soon as possible. Basic detachments Later in 1944 further refinements were added. It was intended that civil affairs teams should be placed at the disposal of the formation civil affairs staff; that they should be of variable size and, as far as possible, self-sufficient. In this way, it was hoped to deal with widely different problems with the minimal waste of manpower. That this was achieved was due to the concept of the basic detachment, developed by the British 21st Army, which proved to be a key development for efficient civil affairs.6 The idea of the basic detachment was that the nucleus of each civil affairs team should consist of four officers and six other ranks. In theory, two of the officers were general-administration officers, normally of the rank of major and captain; the other two were police or public safety officers of the rank of major, captain or lieutenant. One of the majors, normally the general administration officer, would


command. The other ranks were to include one clerk, one batman, one interpreter, one cook and two drivers. In military government jargon, the detachments were called bricks, because they could be added to each other when necessary. Each basic detachment was to be equipped with two 15 cwt trucks and two motor cycles (though this allocation of transport was later found to be inadequate and was increased wherever possible). For the supply of fuel, rations, medical attention and other day-to-day necessities, the unit was attached to a neighbouring formation or unit. Occasionally this alone was not sufficient to discharge civil affairs responsibilities; but whatever the case, the detachment had to meet problems as best it could. Whenever possible it was planned to add specialist increments to the basic detachment, to help it deal with handling particular problems such as legal matters, industry, food production, and so forth. Provision was also made for the amalgamation of these detachments when larger teams were required, together if necessary, with their specialist additions. (This rarely worked in practice because the presence of two commanders presented problems of seniority, and officers invariably dealt with a range of tasks regardless of their specialisms.) Until they were called forward into action by the formations to which they were attached, they were to be held in groups. These groups were to consist of up to 30 basic detachments, together with 120 specialist officers and 180 other ranks – a total of 240 officers and 360 other ranks. Each group was commanded and administered by a headquarters of four officers and six other ranks. It was not intended that all would be employed operationally; they were a reserve that could be called on. In addition, on paper at least, the groups in their turn were aggregated into civil affairs pools for administrative purposes. The size of the pool was to remain flexible, and it was to be without headquarters for command or administrative purposes. This organisation was set out by SHAEF in a manual entitled Standard Policy and Procedure for Combined Civil Affairs Operations in North-West Europe.

Civil affairs, April 1944–April 1945 The build-up of personnel took place slowly. Little idea of the required numbers was available at first. In April 1944, for instance, SHAEF G-5 had admitted that it had no idea of the numbers necessary, though it estimated that between 400 and 600 would eventually be required. It was not until a clearer picture of the proposed zonal allocations was


gained that it became possible to estimate the numbers of personnel required for military government. It was then reckoned that the British would need 200 (or possibly 272) men for Carinthia and Styria, whose training would be the responsibility of AFHQ. In the meantime, recruitment and training remained at an embryonic stage. There was still a severe shortage of personnel, and by June only six British and 12 American officers were studying Austria at SHAEF. These 18 were to remain in Britain and work with the planning nucleus once it was established. At the same time eight British and eight American officers were studying (in London) the problems of tripartite government machinery. All officers in the German and Austrian section had German lessons for three hours a week, and a few also took Russian. As noted earlier, the War Office and SCAEF hoped that responsibility for civil affairs planning would be placed on AFHQ. This finally happened when, on 8 May 1944, SACMED received an interim directive for civil affairs from SCAEF. Wilson still assumed that there would be joint (and equal) Anglo-American participation, even though Washington had repeatedly stated that no Americans would participate in civil affairs in Austria, so he proposed that the original 18 officers be transferred to AFHQ in Algiers. The Deputy Chief Civil Affairs Officer (DCCAO) disagreed, arguing that it would be better if they were transferred to the nucleus of the German Control Commission, then in London. All agreed, though, that there was a need for better liaison between the London civil affairs planners and the general staff planners at AFHQ. In the event, liaison problems proved to be a major hindrance to efficient planning for the rest of the year. The fact that the civil affairs staff moved to Italy by July, and were attached to the Allied military government there to gain practical experience, helped to some extent, as did AFHQ’s determination to make the organisation work. As a plan for Allied military government dated August 1944 made clear, ambitious planning was in progress at AFHQ at this time, even though the small civil affairs team in the village of Portici near Naples (it was not thought that its size would exceed 12 officers and 15 other ranks) did not officially begin detailed planning on policy directives until October. 7 But the small numbers of staff available continued to be a problem, exacerbating the liaison issue, even though more staff were likely to become available, as some civil affairs officers in the Middle East were due to be re-posted to meet future requirements for control in Italy, Austria, the Dodecanese and the Balkans. In reality, the manpower situation was not made easier by this because Austria was a future, rather than immediate, problem. The


result was that it remained difficult to get the necessary officers because many of the marked officers had already been posted and so were not available for Austria. The chronic shortage of personnel was, in fact, a prominent motif running throughout civil affairs planning. In December 1944, for instance, G-5 AFHQ expressed concern over the provision of officers. Their present position was that only 100 additional officers were being sent to AFHQ, who were to carry out their necessary training. AFHQ’s main hope of additional officers was contained in the vague promise that more would be released in Italy in proportion to the speed with which their replacements could be brought in. In the meantime, G-5 AFHQ continued to work on an integrated basis – in the face of continuing uncertainty as to their formal responsibilities. The uncertainty was then increased by the receipt of an enigmatic note from SHAEF: ‘Make all necessary arrangements to terminate AFHQ responsibility for Civil Affairs in Austria turning over direction to such officers as may be designated by SHAEF, G-5.’ 8 Acknowledging (and, at the same time, ignoring) this, G-5 AFHQ proceeded on the assumption that the executive committee of the control and disarmament, economic, political and finance sections of the Allied commission would be integrated in Vienna and would lay down policy for Austria as a whole. They also worked out the personnel requirements for the subsections, corresponding to the Gaue, that would probably be staffed by the nationality in whose zone they were. At the most general level, though, planning took place on the understanding that the military government would be a joint undertaking, showing every character of an Allied undertaking. This was not to be the case but it seemed reasonable at the time, as Britain and the USA had joint responsibility for the development of policy, legal and financial requirements for both planning and the conduct of military government, as well as for the participation by personnel on as nearly equal a basis as possible. Detailed planning continued, in isolation from operational matters, throughout the autumn. October, for example, saw G-5 asking G-2 (the psychological warfare branch) for the names, addresses and details of as many local officials in Austria as possible, for information on public works and utilities, and for policy on resistance movements. A card index system was by then in use, giving all available information on Austrian towns of over 1,000 inhabitants, while a Gau handbook for training purposes was drafted. A draft plan for the military-government entry into Austria, ready for the approval of the senior military government officer, was also written. It included an emergency plan for any


sudden and unforeseen German collapse. Mr P. Broad, who ran the office of the Resident Minister at AFHQ, had by then moved to take charge of policy for Austria. The training programme for MGOs was also improved at AFHQ’s suggestion. The personnel collected fell into three categories: those with no experience, those who had spent a short instructional period in an Allied Commission or elsewhere, and those with wide militarygovernment experience. It was expected that the first category would need 5–6 weeks’ training, the second 3–4 weeks’ training and the last category two weeks of being given mainly ‘local colour’. At the conclusion of the course at Portici, they would return to their duties in Italy, to avoid complaints about their absence from their units. They would be called up for one more week for final instructions when the situation demanded it. The senior military government officer’s branch (SMGO) was to consist of four divisions. The military-government branch would be responsible for all military-government policy and coordination when policy was involved: they would also directly administer the Bezirke, a county or region. The supply and economic branch would then control and co-ordinate affairs in their area of responsibility. There would be a public safety and a legal section, and an internal administration section. Work at AFHQ thus progressed steadily, if unspectacularly, in the face of uncertainty about the formal allocation of responsibility. By 1 January 1945 an outline plan and operational and administrative instructions for military government were ready, as had been planned. And one month later the revised handbook was available, and all forms and printing (including that of the proclamations and ordinances) were completed. The EAC had still not approved any of the policy directives required, but events again forced the pace of detailed planning. AFHQ therefore planned on the assumption that government departmental reports were most likely to form the basis of subsequent directives. The bulk of the existing G-5 was with the Eighth Army by February, though the officers earmarked for the Gaue teams were scattered all over Italy. Teams of other ranks were practically non-existent. AFHQ proposed that on the signal ‘go’, G-5 would concentrate with the Eighth Army, and the Allied Commission regional teams would take over in Italy until called for. Other ranks and vehicles would concentrate at Portici, when they and the rear party already there would join up with the Eighth Army. All would then be ready to be fed in as necessary. If SHAEF entered the British zone, Kreis teams would be called


forward by air from Portici. Details of the G-5 organisation were also settled; G-5 was to be an integral part of the headquarters of the formations to which they belonged. Correspondence on matters with which they dealt was to be conducted accordingly except that, on matters of policy relating to the period of multipartite government, G-5 would refer to London through the Resident Minister, AFHQ. On technical matters not involving operational policy or security, they would deal through their own staff channels with G-5 AFHQ. None of these developments could address the matter of the recruitment and training of military-government officers, which remained a significant problem. And, in early 1945, AFHQ again proposed that army personnel of the various branches be assigned a dual role; they would attend to and perform their usual military functions and, as an added responsibility, would perform military-government duties. But G-5 AFHQ did not favour this, since military government could not be treated merely as an additional duty: it was a full-time job. The army was not, in any case, predisposed to release its personnel or to add to their responsibilities when it had enough problems of its own. The military might be required to move about in the furtherance of its primary task of enforcing and maintaining order. If so, it would either lose its officers to G-5 or, more likely, G-5 would lose its officers, and these would most likely be key officers (such as those dealing with supply). Officers forming part of a military formation doing military work would then have to integrate the very different job of military government into their work – and this would be detrimental to military government. Initially, they would be untrained for this latter function; and to be trained, they would either have to be pulled out of their formations or trained on the spot at a time when G-5 badly needed their services. AFHQ’s second proposal did not gain G-5’s favour either. This was that the required untrained personnel be trained during any possible interim period. But, obviously, there might not be any such period after the end of hostilities and the beginning of occupation. Training would, therefore, have to be confined to cramming sessions, and theory alone would not suffice, as practical training in the field was clearly necessary. The only real answer was that the civil affairs school at Portici be used immediately. This was what AFHQ proposed and what went into operation. What to do with the officers needing training was thus partially solved, but the question of where the officers were to come from in the first place was still unanswered. The problem was urgent, for it was clear that civil affairs units would have to assemble and move at short notice


if they were to enter Austria with the first troops. It was essential to earmark experienced officers then held in Italy. At the same time, untrained replacements for these officers had to be given the opportunity to learn the work they would eventually have to take over. The officers so relieved were intended for posting to Vienna, but they were to remain with their replacements until the latter were thoroughly conversant with their duties. Fortunately suitably trained officers were becoming available from Greece and elsewhere. A small number of personnel were still required, though, to undertake preliminary work in connection with planning and the preparation of documents, including proclamations. But, until planning had progressed further, it was not for AFHQ to submit a detailed study of the proposed establishments of the civil affairs side of the British Element of the Allied Commission. It was still proposed that such participation would be on an equal AngloAmerican basis, with the numbers involved being estimated as a minimum of 400 officers and 600 other ranks or enrolled men. In the meantime, before the movement of the Red Army into Austria forced a decision, several familiar factors continued to limit planning during the early months of 1945. The necessity of waiting for a decision by the EAC on the Soviet proposals and British counter-proposals for national zones in Austria meant that planning could not go beyond a certain level in the collection of personnel, because it was not certain to what degree the staff would be integrated. This put back the date at which the training school at Portici could begin its work. Second, after considerable delay, the Chief Military Government Officer had been appointed, but personnel could still not be assembled until his approval was gained. But at least rapid progress in the selection of senior officers for the Gau level, that is, the heads of functional divisions, was being made. The planners in London were responsible for some of these limitations, because of their slowness in collecting and disseminating information, though it was no fault of theirs that they did not have the organisation necessary to do this. Consequently, information reaching Italy was scanty. For example, in February 1945 the British Element produced a Field Handbook of Military Government, because from the first days of military government in Sicily it had been found necessary to issue some information. It was based on Italian and Sicilian drafts, and was a practical dossier. But it was never used in the field because it was not generally issued; and, if a military-government officer had field experience, he was more likely to consult the Military Government Directive File.


Some moves were made to rectify this by sending the information officer of G-5 to London to uncover all possible information. Winterton’s approval of this had be gained first, since AFHQ did not wish to offend the British Element. Approval was given for what proved to be a satisfactory arrangement, and liaison between the two improved, but civil affairs continued to be bedevilled by the fact that top-level directives frequently arrived so late that they had necessarily been anticipated by field commanders. Indeed, this proved to be one of the most significant themes running throughout planning. It was partly due to the complexity of the bureaucratic machine, to the number of committees involved and to the distortion to normal channels of command and communication caused by a combined AngloAmerican command. There was also the fact that civil affairs matters necessarily required consultation with more departments and organisations than did purely military matters, because it involved political and economic considerations. Even AFHQ’s civil affairs planning was effectively being undertaken by three agencies: the British Element of the Allied Commission, AFHQ G-5 and by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Some degree of confusion was, perhaps, inevitable. Nevertheless, there was no ambiguity about the fact that manpower continued to be a vital and obstinate limitation.

Military government, May to August 1945 At the time of the surrender of the German South-Western armies on 3 May, the military government staff of Eighth Army was engaged exclusively in dealing with the problems of Italy. But within days, G-5 and Supplies, with 247 officers and 550 other ranks, were ready for the move into the Austrian province of Carinthia. All was ready for major operations; transport had been demanded, rations decided and prepared, with AFHQ remaining responsible for normal movements, including road and railheads. To set up military government as soon as possible, a detachment of 20 officers and 27 other ranks was sent forward on 8 May to Villach and Klagenfurt. They were to be followed by reinforcements from Italy. At British Army and Corps HQ, the civil affairs organisations were small-scale replicas of the army group staff, but with many doubling-up functions. There were no civil affairs representatives at or below British divisional level. The experience of 22nd Civil Affairs Unit was fairly typical of how this arrangement worked during the early summer. By 11 May, the unit had 48 officers, 63 other ranks and a total of six vehicles – two motor


cycles, one 500 cwt truck, two 3 ton lorries and one car. The unit’s remaining stocks and equipment had been collected in readiness for the move into Austria, and it was planned to move all remaining personnel, except for a small rear party, who would leave a few days after the main party; twelve additional 13 ton lorries would be needed for this. The unit was aware that the Soviets were in firm control of Vienna, but it was thought that a civil affairs nucleus needed to arrive there as soon as possible to complete detailed plans and to form a pool for ‘J’ mission, which was to go to Vienna to see conditions for itself if necessary. A small nucleus staff for Vienna was still required, many officers earmarked for Vienna having been sent to Greece in the meantime. Many others designated for Carinthia and Styria would not move into Austria until later, being held in other fields until the military government for Vienna was partially implemented. A few officers from the 22nd were to remain in north-east Italy, where a civil affairs presence was still required. In retrospect, the achievements of small staffs such as this were impressive. They fulfilled their directive ‘to prevent disease and unrest’, despite the inadequacies of planning, which were soon shown up. Estimates for the military government staffs had, for instance, been worked out on the equivalent responsibilities of the Allied Military Government (AMG) in Italy. But the differences between the two situations proved greater than the similarities. In Italy the AMG was working behind moving lines, consequently its activities were restricted to basic measures. The situation in Austria, however, was stationary and the civil administration more complex. Definite plans had also been drawn up for the Allied Commission to follow the AMG in Italy into areas and to take over responsibility as military-government staffs moved on. But in Austria, military-government staffs worked alone for four months before the Allied Commission was established. At the same time they suffered from more acute personnel shortages than their colleagues in Italy. The achievements of the such units are even more remarkable in view of the fact that first month of occupation was, to use the description of one participant, a ‘nightmare’. 9 As the instrument of military government, they were to ensure that adequate food was provided, order maintained and the process of de-Nazification begun. But unexpected difficulties soon arose. First, there was the presence of the Yugoslavs in Carinthia. Second, the Red Army had advanced to Judenburg, almost reaching Carinthia, which was much further than expected. And third, the situation in Trieste upset every plan made, for


it meant that the Eighth Army operational area continued to be Austria and north-east Italy. Indeed, on 3 May at the time of the surrender of the German South-Western armies, the military-government staff of Eighth Army was engaged in dealing exclusively with Italian problems, and it was not until August that the staff dealing with Austria stopped having to bid for (and handle) rail and shipping space for the northern Italian AMG regions. Plans to use Trieste for supplies were held up, and McCreery was forced to request that the undamaged port of Venice had to be used instead, though this was refused for political reasons. There was no communication line from Austria to Eighth Army headquarters at Udine in north-east Italy.

Problems facing military government The actual task of imposing military government and controlling the civilian administration in Austria proved less difficult than had been expected. Shortages of fuel, food, shelter and work did not lead to the civil unrest SHAEF, for one, had anticipated. Various branches of the civilian administration soon came under the direct control of the military-government sections, which acted as controlling bodies, but avoided direct government as much as possible: ‘Military-government officers must supervise and not administer.’10 To some extent the task was eased by the continued existence of Austria’s administrative structure. One of the first civil affairs tasks was, for instance, to summon the local police chief and order him to maintain law, particularly guarding against any threat to Allied forces. But this advantage was offset by the Allies’ war aim of removing all traces of German control, and some difficulty was experienced in finding suitable substitutes for officials who had been arrested or removed from office because of their association with Nazi organisations. Military government was responsible for ensuring competent administration in its territory, and it was planned eventually to establish a local administration on pre-Anschluss lines, but on several occasions in early May a degree of authority had to be delegated to Austrians. This happened in the case of a committee in Klagenfurt, for example, which was acting as a provisional Land government, having taken control of the administration, appointed a Burgermeister and formed local committees in most towns in the area. The military government initially said that the committee could not be officially recognised, but it was as soon as the British were satisfied that it was neither a Nazi body nor a tool of the Soviets.11


Such administrative matters proved comparatively easy to settle in comparison with the three major categories of problems facing military government: the treatment of DPs, the disbandment of enemy forces and de-Nazification. There were, inevitably, other minor matters which caused considerable discontent or difficulty, of which fraternisation is representative. Displaced persons As had been expected, dealing with DPs proved the most difficult practical problem because of the numbers involved. In later years it also proved to be the most contentious, but at the time it was considered one of the most successful operations undertaken. There were no epidemics and no starvation, even though in October it was estimated that there were 25 DPs for every British soldier. At first, it was difficult to get a clear picture of the situation which was characterised by seemingly uncontrolled movement on foot. An early report referred to some 4,000 persons near Villach; many thousands of Italians were seen crossing the mountains towards Italy; while the convergence of Allied armies resulted in about 80,000 DPs, of some 30 different nationalities, moving into the area of the Klagenfurt valley. The situation was exacerbated by the activities of the Jewish Brigade, intent on organising routes into Italy and down to Palestine, until the Brigade was sent to central Italy by the Eighth Army. Italian partisans were also a problem in the immediate aftermath of fighting. Fortunately, movements slackened off after a few days, though McCreery later noted that in May Vth Corps alone had to deal with between 26,000 and 144,000 Germans (excluding SS), 5,700 SS, 52,000 Russians (with over 20,000 horses requiring grazing – at the end of winter), 500 Croats, 16,000 Slavs and 22,000 Hungarians. The size of the problem had been expected but, because of the late formation of the DP organisation, initially neither staff nor equipment was available. Staff gradually became available during May, though equipment was still lacking at the end of the month. After a fortnight of occupation, a clearer picture of the situation emerged, and DPs were divided into three categories. The first contained those for repatriation southward and westward. Some 65,000 persons, Italians and others, were then evacuated to Italy, though congestion in the camps there and along the line of communication made it necessary to halt movement temporarily in early June. The next two categories of DPs were more controversial, both at the time and 50 years later. 12 The first of these, which had not been fore-


seen by planners, comprised the 70,000 or more Yugoslavs, hostile or politically unacceptable to Tito, and in terror of his partisans, who had fled across the border into Austria. Some had been living in Western Europe since the Russian revolution, some were Ukrainian, but their plight became entangled with that of Yugoslav nationals who had either fought for the Germans (Croat Ustashi were one group) or those (such as royalist Serbian Chetniks) who initially fought the Germans but had then turned against the Communists. The handover of such Yugoslav nationals – to certain death in most cases – by Vth Corps, under the pretence of evacuation to Italy, began on 19 May. All the Chetniks were further south, in 13th Corps area. Many of the British present were distressed by what happened, but it was not until 1986 that Nikolai Tolstoy publicly accused Harold Macmillan (the minister responsible for British policy in central Europe at the time) of a criminal conspiracy to send anti-Communist troops to their deaths in Yugoslavia and Russia. One result of the ensuing legal case was that the 1988 inquiry – which cleared Macmillan – issued an authoritative interim report (by a committee headed by Anthony Cowgill) which showed that Macmillan had acted, correctly, on instructions from London. There was no conspiracy. The correct chain of command was followed, down from politicians through SAC (Alexander) in Naples, via Eighth Army HQ near Venice, to Vth Corps under General Charles Keightley, where Brigadier Low (now Lord Aldington and the central figure in another, later, court case dealing with the return of Russian forces) was on the General Staff. Significantly, the Cowgill Report stressed the pernicious influence of slow decision-making by London, combined with a liberal interpretation of orders by Vth Corps, on decisions taken on the ground at that time. The report also emphasised how difficult the situation was, with the exposed supply lines of the 50,000 British troops in the area vulnerable to attack by Yugoslav forces intent on annexing as much territory as they could. Supply problems had already resulted in a significant shortage of ammunition in the Eighth Army. But it was the third category of DPs, of those due for repatriation eastwards, which remains most controversial. In 1988, a case came to the High Court in London which resulted in £1.5 million damages being awarded against Tolstoy for repeatedly calling Lord Aldington (who, as Brigadier Low, had been the officer responsible for handling the problem) a war criminal. Tolstoy alleged that, in forcibly repatriating up to 70,000 Cossack and Ukrainian prisoners, the British Army deliberately disobeyed orders at the insistence of Low and Macmillan.


The evacuation of Russians and Hungarians eastwards towards the Soviet zone in Styria was the responsibility of Vth Corps, and 5,000 Russians were moved to Wolfgang, the departure point, by the end of May. The concentration and repatriation of POWs was not normally a military-government task, but there was one aspect of the wider transfer of the Russians that concerned the military government. For some 25,000 Cossacks and Caucasians had been recruited by the Germans from Russian prisoners, and had fought for the Germans with great ferocity. The British were concerned about their return to the Soviets because they were accompanied by many civilians. Their probable fate if handed back was only too clear, and force, resulting in casualties, was needed to overcome their resistance. Unfortunately, the position of the Russians formed only one part of a complex series of negotiations involving many factors and theatres. The provisions of the Yalta agreement regarding the repatriation of Soviet nationals left Britain with no choice in the matter, even though SHAEF policy was that no DP should be repatriated against his will. There were also additional considerations which London had to take into consideration, such as the fact that Britain feared for the welfare of British prisoners of war liberated by the Red Army if there were any difficulties about handing over the Russians. As Lawson, the Labour Secretary of State for War, said to Eden in August 1945: ‘If the choice is between hardship to our men and death to the Russians, the choice is plain.’13 Repatriation could not be considered in isolation. The ugly scenes occurring when British troops used violence to complete the handover took place during the last half of May. Approximately 20,000 horses belonging to the Cossacks were also disposed of at the time; several thousands were sent to Italy for farmwork, but most were destroyed and used for food. The work of DP units began in earnest too. The total number of DP units operating in Austria at that time was six forward groups, six control camps and three assembly centres. These, plus two more forward camps, comprised the camps originally authorised; they held, in all, about 25,000. Often these camps were merely bivouacking grounds, containing no shelter. Accommodation had always been a problem, as the calls on available buildings were heavy, as were the demands on the engineers for hutting from all sources. Improvement seemed possible, however, for at the end of May the chief engineer of Vth Corps accepted a bid for huts for 15,000 persons and work began straightaway. But by the end of May it was necessary to seek authority (which was given) for a further ten assembly centres, six control camps and four forward


camps. For, notwithstanding evacuations, the camp population remained fairly steady at about 20,000, as fresh arrivals took the place of those who moved out. The numbers of DPs outside the camps also remained constant at a figure of above 100,000. During the summer, these did not present too great a problem, and larger numbers were returning to Yugoslavia than had been expected; but in winter the remaining numbers, estimated at about 60,000, would need shelter. So work began early on the expansion of the camps, and some progress was made despite the crippling shortages of manpower and materials. As autumn came, the numbers in the camps rose ultimately to about 35,000. There was some delay in setting up a complete registration process in the camps. It was originally caused by the rapidity of the evacuation of DPs from Austria, and the urgency of first housing and feeding them, but the non-arrival of SHAEF forms and the lack of camp staff made it impossible to ensure a continuous registration process even after a start had been made. Records of the numbers in camps were, none the less, consistently kept from the beginning; they enabled necessary payments to be made. External help with the camps was needed for administration and welfare, some of which was obtained from UNRRA. SACMED had decided early in 1945 that assistance from UNRRA was desirable, particularly in relation to public health, welfare, administration and the movement of nationals. So, although UNRRA did not begin operations until September, SACMED and UNRRA had co-operated in planning relief as far as military conditions permitted. The agreement between SAC and UNRRA had been made in April, but it was not until June that the CCAO had drafted a letter of invitation to them, and it was only in July that UNRRA council meetings began in London. By September, however, UNRRA had set up an HQ at Salzburg, and was hoping to move to Vienna. Eight teams were in Austria by then, and it was intended eventually to increase this to 35. The Soviets had stated in the EAC in April that they would not use UNRRA, but they had no objection to its presence in other national zones. Disbandment Although the problems associated with DPs now dominate discussions of British military government, DPs were only one of a number of pressing problems in 1945. One of the first tasks of the military government, for example, was the disbandment of some 250,000 surrendered German forces, over whom their commanders had little or no control.


This was primarily the task of the disbandment branch of the army division of the Allied Commission which was, during the initial phase of occupation, integrated under the Chief of Staff of the task force entering Austria. Its work impinged on the functions of military government, and responsibility for providing the necessary legal sanction for its work also fell on them. Representatives of the disbandment branch were to be situated at British Army HQ, Corps division HQ (in Vienna, a brigade HQ), each concentration area, and liaison officers were to be at division HQs. Contact between the military government and the disbandment branch was normally at Gau HQ-Corps district HQ level. For the purposes of the disbandment branches plan, ‘German Armed Forces’ included the paramilitary organisations, the Volkssturm, partisans having that status or others captured during military operations against Allied forces. The plan covered all these, regardless of nationality. But it was understood that members of the Volkssturm not engaged in active operations would merely be disarmed and allowed to return home. The overall plan for disbandment was to be carried out in four phases. Phase 1 was a stand fast to all units and individuals. The object was to prevent large-scale and uncoordinated movements of enemy troops, to allow time for primary disarmament, and to permit the selection of units or individuals required to continue their duties, or to perform essential military or public service for the military government. In phase 2 the disarmed forces were to be confined in concentration areas. In phase 3 personnel with occupational skills urgently needed in civilian life, whose last competent recruiting office was in the British zone in which they were located, might (subject to military needs) be granted priority discharge. Personnel recruited in the British zone, other than those not available for discharge were to be discharged in the area of their last competent recruiting office as soon as the military government notified that they could be accepted. De-Nazification A related task during the first months of occupation was deNazification and the separation of Austria from Germany. It was one of the Allies declared war aims to destroy and eliminate the influence of Nazism, in accordance with the Moscow Declaration. According to the Draft White Paper of January 1946, which summarised the results of implementing Allied war aims on the basis of seven months’ experience, the policy was to break up, beyond repair, Nazi organisations; to


purge the civil administration, public services and industry of Nazi influence; and to put out of harm’s way any person likely to perpetuate Nazism in any form, or to endanger British security. The military-government staff were responsible for providing the legal sanction necessary for this work. This came from the Military Government Law Number 5, ‘Dissolution of the Nazi Party’, which had been promulgated immediately on occupation. It declared illegal and prohibited the activities of the Nazi Party and more than 50 of its subsidiary organisations. It prohibited recruitment to eight paramilitary organisations of the party, and provided that they should ‘in due course’ be disbanded and dissolved. It further provided for the seizure of all funds, property and records of all Nazi organisations. Offences against provisions of this law were severely punishable, including the death penalty. From the first days of their arrival, each of the four powers set to work on de-Nazification in their zones. Inevitably policies varied considerably. Perhaps surprisingly the Soviets did not take much action; they left the initiative to the Austrians – who quickly adopted a punitive attitude. The authority of the Soviet-sponsored central government under Karl Renner was limited, and the Soviets acted through the Austrian departments concerned, in this case the Ministry of the Interior, headed by the Communist Honner. In the other three zones, the Western Allies followed their own policies, all aimed at concentrating on higher Nazi officials and war criminals, and treating lower members of the party less severely. In the British zone the policy was to initiate what was described as a ‘destructive and preventive’ process. Activity was initially confined to Carinthia, but the general policy could be implemented from the outset since the officers destined for these duties had come from Italy with the Eighth Army. There was confusion regarding the extent to which the Austrian authorities should be allowed to assist in the deNazification process in all three Western zones. And the confusion was important since the Austrians were only too keen to prove themselves by rooting out Nazism. The Allied recognition of the Provisional Government in October and the consequent extension of its authority over all Austria should have meant that the validity of the early deNazification laws were similarly extended. But this did not happen, since all laws of the Provisional Government had to receive formal approval by the Allied Council before they could be implemented throughout Austria, and the de-Nazification laws did not receive this approval until December. So a number of policies continued to be


employed throughout 1945, for it was not until 31 October 1945 that a quadripartite de-Nazification board was set up by the Allied Commission in Vienna in an attempt to introduce some measure of uniformity.14 Fraternisation Fraternisation proved to be a sensitive subject during the early months of occupation. Initially it was strictly forbidden. The Vth Corps commander, Lieutenant General Keightley, SMGO in Klagenfurt, thought that the Austrians must recognise that they had fought against the Allies, and that fraternisation should not be allowed for two or three months. He considered that it was not possible to permit it by degrees. Keightley also knew it was important to get some degree of uniformity between Allied policy on the question. The French had initially been hard on the Austrians but, by late June, relations had become friendly. The policy of the United States was not even internally consistent: forces from SCAEF in Upper Austria and Salzburg treated the Austrians as Germans, yet in Linz they fraternised freely. The Red Army fraternised as much as the Austrians would let them. The British Deputy Commissioner (Civil) Mack thought it difficult to see what could be done until the Allied Commission was set up, as did London. But Churchill was dismayed at the consequences of the nonfraternisation order. His attitude was consistent with his earlier declarations in favour of liberating Austria. He told Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, at the end of June, that the matter required urgent attention. He could not believe it possible that Britain insult the Austrians by treating them as Germans, when the Russians treated them as ‘boon companions’. He considered this a great mistake. The Secretary for War, Lawson, agreed with Churchill, but thought that the most important fact was that the Allies should stand together. It was, however, felt to be proper for the British Government to issue instructions to the commander in chief, since the Allied Commission was not yet established. London therefore decided on a broad relaxation of policy, but it was left to the discretion of individual commanders to decide precisely how measures were to be less severe. Accordingly, the British Chiefs of Staff stated on 12 July that the policy of non-fraternisation was to be dropped gradually, and Alexander authorised General McCreery (who had been appointed commander in chief of the BTA on 2 July) to allow fraternisation.


Transition from war to peace The military government fulfilled its objectives; the British zone was efficiently administered and security was good. There were no incidents of attacks on British soldiers. An example of the state of security was provided at the beginning of June when Major General Sir Henry H. Floyd drove Mack, then on a visit to Carinthia, for more than an hour over wild countryside without an escort. Austrian civilians were ‘extremely co-operative and no instances of obstruction have occurred’. Between 10 and 20 Germans were still being rounded up daily during June – they were usually given away by local inhabitants – but almost all the cases dealt with by the military courts were concerned with the breaking of curfew orders and travel restrictions. There was no starvation or mass malnutrition, despite the fact that food and transport were in very short supply, especially in the mountainous areas of western Austria. Coal, wood and glass were scarce, but winter was months away. The Eighth Army’s own supply problems, caused by the speed of the advance into Austria, were more important in May. McCreery’s request that AFHQ open up the undamaged port of Venice (which could handle up to 4,000 tons a day) was refused for political reasons – it was more important to keep Trieste open – but the weather stayed dry so the grass runways of airfields in northern Italy could be used to fly in a big daily tonnage. The transition between war and peacetime proceeded smoothly in the Eighth Army, even though the Army itself remained split, the two wings of which were 150 miles apart in Klagenfurt and Trieste. Field Marshal Alexander received a new appointment, that of Governor General of Canada, at this time, while some members of McCreery’s own staff were demobilised. There were many ceremonial parades and visits from dignitaries such as General Smuts, while the first organised leave party left Austria for Britain in mid-June, covering the 800 miles to Calais in a convoy of basic 3-ton lorries. Morale was good, for there were few absentees at the end of the leave in England even though soldiers knew that thousands of American troops were, in the meantime, being flown around Europe in US aircraft on short sightseeing trips. By the end of July, Headquarters Eighth Army became HQ BTA. It did not include 13th Corps, which was placed directly under AFHQ. The changes resulting from the Labour Party victory in the British general election at the end of July had little immediate effect on the BTA. Jo Lawson, an ex-miner, was appointed Secretary of State for War, but McCreery remembered his first sight of the Russians on 19 August


as more significant. McCreery flew to Salzburg with his deputies, Mack and Winterton, for a meeting of the Western Allies with Marshal Koniev’s deputy, General Zheltov, that day. Significantly, the atmosphere of the meeting was not relaxed. McCreery, who had been under Clark’s command in the Italian campaign, referred to how well this arrangement had worked in his speech, and how well the British got on with the French. Zheltov promptly made it clear that he thought this a deliberate attempt to isolate him. But despite the evident sensitivity of the Russians, the first meeting of the commanders-in-chief took place in Vienna a few days later, on 23 August, with a parade and march past of Allied troops. All four generals took the salute together.

9 Establishing the ACA

Four months were to pass before military government tasks could be handed over to the British Element of the Allied Commission, and quadripartite control could be established in Vienna. The practical tasks of military government in the British zone are covered in Chapter 8, but they must be seen against political developments at the national or Allied level, which fell into two distinct phases during May to September. The character of the first phase was determined by the fact that, when the Red Army entered Austria on 13 April, the EAC had not reached agreement on the zones of occupation or the national sectors in Vienna. The main reason for the EAC failure was its inability to agree on the extent of the area in Vienna to be excluded from the Soviet zone in order to be placed under quadripartite administration, and how this area was to be divided between the Allies. So in the first phase, which lasted for two months, the Western Allies tried to obtain permission to enter Vienna to establish the central control machinery, and then, for almost as long, the position was reversed. The Soviets pressed the Western Allies to set up the Allied Commission. Initially all three, but later the British alone, opposed it. The background to the matter was as follows. When Vienna was occupied by the Red Army, Stalin had proposed to the US Ambassador, Averill Harriman, that Western representatives should meet the Soviets in Vienna as soon as possible to settle the zones of occupation, the EAC having failed to do so. But Stalin’s policy was ambiguous. On 18 May, for example, he telegrammed Churchill concerning the latter’s request that missions be allowed into Vienna. He said that the Soviet Government considered this was a matter solely for the EAC, so the Soviet Government could not agree to Allied military representatives going to Vienna to establish occupation zones and sectors or, indeed, 161


to settle other issues bearing on the situation in Austria. At the same time he suggested that British military representatives should visit Vienna to see the situation for themselves towards the end of May or early June, when Marshal Tolbukhin, then on his way to Moscow, returned to Vienna. Alexander was accordingly instructed to make the necessary arrangements with Tolbukhin. Alexander had, in fact, already decided that it was best to concentrate on the introduction of military missions, so preparations for a British delegation, or ‘J’ Mission, were completed before the second phase began.

‘J’ Mission, June 1945 Alexander intended that the British delegation should leave Klagenfurt for Vienna on 2 June, where ‘in the absence of instructions’, the representatives were to concentrate on fact-finding. This, it was thought, would enable London to press for a final settlement of all outstanding questions in the EAC. The mission was to be led by Winterton because McCreery did not propose to go to Vienna until British forces had moved into their sector. His prestige as a successful general was, in any case, too great to allow him to meet the very rank-conscious Soviets at this stage. It soon became evident, Winterton told the Chiefs of Staff on his return, that the Soviets were anxious for a quick settlement on a military basis. He thought Tolbukhin was right in trying to obtain a local arrangement because it would facilitate a decision in the EAC: ‘I am convinced that the psychological results of a refusal to meet Marshal Tolbukhin’s advances would be very bad indeed.’1 The basis of the programme for the Western representatives was reconnaissance only, but the Soviets appear to have thought that they wanted direct negotiations so as to conclude the mission as soon as possible. Tolbukhin stressed that everything should be completed as soon as possible, preferably by 10 June, but he then refused to allow the missions to go outside the city, and said that they could use only Tulln airfield, the others being under Malinovsky’s command. He was being deliberately obstructive since he was well aware that the basic contention was over the size of Vienna. And he was clearly acting on instructions from Moscow, since the EAC dispute turned on precisely this point. Consequently, London recommended that if the missions could not see all they wished, then they should withdraw by 10 June after suitable protests. The mission faced further frustrations. Britain wanted training facilities for a brigade group and a regimental combat team outside the city.

Establishing the ACA 163

But Zheltov, the deputy Soviet commander, said that a training area was not required, since only a small group would be based in Vienna: the main body would be located in the national zones. Zheltov insisted that Vienna would require only a few troops for guard duties; the question was so insignificant that it could be arranged by local commanders. Winterton then asked if the Soviets would accept the principle of quadripartite control of public utilities, including the railways, but Zheltov expressed ignorance of this. Winterton replied that he had raised the question since there was no railhead in the British sector, but that one was needed for supplies, and that Britain would want to mount guard over it and the equipment in transit sheds. Zheltov enquired what plans existed for a British sector. ‘I said I thought the last Soviet proposal could be used as a basis for discussion and produced a sketch showing this proposal,’ Winterton later reported to the Chiefs of Staff. To which Zheltov replied: ‘I see you are also a diplomat.’2 But all this took second place to the airfields question. The Soviets said that airfields other than Tulln could only be visited if Tulln did not meet requirements. The American General Flory said that it did not do so, for administrative and technical reasons, and that he was instructed to reconnoitre all airfields in the Vienna area. The British and French supported him and the matter was referred to Tolbukhin who later agreed. Full reports could therefore be made by the mission representatives. On 14 June the representatives flew to Rome, where their discussions were based on the Soviet proposal of 24 April. They recommended that the claim to Gau Vienna should be abandoned and that, instead, efforts should be concentrated on securing the agreement of the Soviets to Allied use of areas outside the city boundaries, but adjacent to their national sectors, for accommodation, training and recreation. They made proposals for sectors within the city, and recommended the use of airfields outside: Tulln to the US, Schwechat to the British, Götzendorf to the French, and all those east of the Danube to the Soviets. Unlike the case of Berlin, there was to be clear and firm agreement conceding unrestricted transit rights through Vienna, and for the purpose of reaching airfields and training areas. As soon as the missions had reported, arrangements were made for the military government of Vienna, with the military-government staff forming the British Element of the Kommandatura. In this capacity they were to represent the views of the British sector and liaise with local Austrian authorities and supervise their activities. British troops were to occupy a sector comprising about six Kreis.


A second mission was sent to Vienna in July to negotiate an acceptable agreement over other unsettled points. Koniev, the Soviet Commander in Chief and future High Commissioner, had suggested a meeting of the commanders in chief, but the Foreign Office considered that as McCreery had not yet been given instructions, it was best if he stalled. Little came of the meeting because the Soviets maintained that they had not yet been authorised by Moscow to reach any practical implementation of the agreement concerning sectors and zones that had, eventually, been reached in the EAC. The matter was pressing for the British because London urgently needed to discuss British entry into the Soviet-held area of Styria (which formed part of the British zone) and into Vienna. It was clear that unless steps were taken at the highest level, Koniev would continue to stall. The proposed conference at Potsdam in July and August was obviously the place for this.

The move into Styria, July 1945 After the visit of ‘J’ Mission to Vienna, interest swung back to the zones. Three days after the mission left Vienna, Churchill sent Truman a draft message he wished to send to Stalin, stressing the importance of settling the Austrian question as a matter of urgency so that ‘the whole arrangement of German and Austrian affairs may be put into operation simultaneously’. In the same message he urged that the Red Army should evacuate that part of the British zone that they were occupying, while British and American troops moved out of the Soviet zone in Germany. Truman accepted the draft as it stood, and sent it to Stalin the following day. Churchill followed with another of his own. Stalin replied that, owing to the absence of the Soviet commander from Vienna for victory celebrations in Moscow, withdrawals in Germany and Austria could not take place until 1 July. He added: ‘It is necessary, furthermore, that in the next few days the European Advisory Commission should complete its work in establishing the occupation zones in Austria and in Vienna which has yet to be done.’ In view of this, ‘I suggest that we put off the beginning of the withdrawal of the respective troops and the placing of them in their zones in Germany and Austria.’3 The British had, in fact, contacted the Soviet Lieutenant General Kosak who would have to move out of Styria on 30 June, but he had replied that he knew nothing of the proposed British move into Sovietoccupied areas. So, on 1 July, a representative of Vth Corps met Kosak,


who made it clear that he intended to stay until he received orders from Moscow to withdraw but promised, in the meantime, to send a letter to the commander in chief of the Central Army Group, Koniev. Nothing came of these moves because the Soviet attitude was that agreement reached in the EAC had not been ratified by governments, so the practical implementation of the agreements could not be authorised by Moscow. The occupation of Styria by British forces and the move of advance parties of the three Allies into Vienna could not therefore be discussed. The result was that when Alexander’s instructions from the Combined Chiefs of Staff arrived, authorising the move into the full British zone, McCreery had to report that the Soviets politely, but firmly, refused to budge. Lord Hood, by now the British delegate to the EAC, commented that the Russian behaviour was typical, but that a protest would only meet with the answer that Stalin’s undertaking to withdraw from Austria was dependent on the EAC coming to an agreement. He added, optimistically, that he did not think agreement was far off. But it was clear that the Soviets would stall for as long as possible. Sir James Grigg cynically believed that the delay was to enable them to remove all that might be of value, quoting in support of his comments Berthoud (head of the Economic Division of the British Element) who had circumstantial evidence of large scale removals of machinery and industrial equipment of all kinds from Vienna and Styria. Berthoud also had evidence of large scale requisitioning by the Red Army of food stuffs, cattle, farm implements, and so on in Styria. A new note was then introduced by Sargent (who had a much better deserved reputation for cynicism). He advised Grigg that although the political importance of not abandoning the British position in Austria was realised, it would be sensible to reconsider whether, in view of the additional commitment involved, the British sector in Vienna or, indeed, the zone in Styria should be occupied, unless the Russians agreed that deficiencies in Austrian food stocks should be met from normal sources. The food question now become the major factor in London’s refusal to establish the ACA. The matter was crucial for the treatment of Austria as an economic whole, so the move into Styria was linked to entry into Vienna and the establishment of the ACA. It was obvious to all that matters must be discussed at Potsdam. Churchill was deeply concerned about what he saw as Soviet unilateral tactics in Austria, but it was also clear that Britain did not have the support of the USA in tackling the issue. This was offset by progress on


other fronts though. On learning of progress made towards provisional arrangements at a meeting of the deputies of the four commanders in chief in Vienna on 16 July,4 Truman approved the EAC agreement. But, Churchill, either because the news was not conveyed to him quickly enough, or because he wished to make it clear that the Soviets had behaved in an unfriendly manner, or because he had (according to Cadogan) refused to do any work or read anything since leaving London, complained about the Austrian situation during the fourth plenary session of the Potsdam conference on 20 July. Two months before, he said, the British Government had ‘humbly’ asked that British officers be allowed to go to Vienna; but British troops were kept out of Vienna and prevented from occupying their zone in Styria. Soviet forces had liberated Austria over three months before; how much longer, he enquired, did the Allies have to wait before they were treated as equals. Their right to ask was the greater, since they had retreated to their own national zones in Germany. Stalin quickly answered that newcomers could not expect to take up positions until the agreements determining them had been worked out. This echoed the Russian comments to Winterton at the time of ‘J’ Mission a month before: ‘People who are late are always punished.’ Stalin then announced that agreement had been reached, so arrangements could take place; Soviet troops were withdrawing to the agreed zones, and British forces could enter Styria. So, on 23 July, the British entered Graz, reporting signs of heavy road traffic as the Red Army moved east. British preparations had been complete by 17 July, but heavy congestion in eastern Carinthia prevented movement over the Styrian border for some days. The move was soon completed. All military-government officers were deployed with units and moved into Bezirke capitals where the military government faced a considerable task in dealing with the local administrations; the Soviets had given officials considerable freedom and little purging had taken place. The population was reported to be relieved by the British occupation, not because the Russians had been tyrannical so much as because they had been capricious and unpredictable. The British were now in complete control of their zone.

Vienna, July 1945 By mid-July, British preparations for the final move into Vienna were well advanced, and a party, including military-government officers, was ready to leave Klagenfurt by 22 July. In the event, it was not until


23 August that the Western Allies moved their national headquarters to Vienna, the British HQ being the Schönbrun Palace. In the meantime, the changeover from the Eighth Army to ACA personnel proceeded rapidly, and by 15 August ACA personnel occupied all senior positions. General McCreery’s wartime personal staff had by then been replaced with a new team. Before long, there were 5,000 British personnel in Vienna, with a small administrative staff at the Schönbrun. All had freedom of movement within the city limits, facilitated by the establishment of inter-Allied police patrols. McCreery then moved to Vienna to join his fellow commanders, all of whom had great prestige; Koniev, for example, was the most highly respected Soviet marshal after Zhukov. Practical difficulties remained though, for the Soviets did not understand that the British intended to bring all their HQ to Vienna, especially the signals and accommodation elements, in addition to the Commission element. This mattered because the Soviets claimed that, since they had captured Vienna, they should ‘justly’ rather than ‘equitably’, as the EAC had laid down, retain all major accommodation occupied by them, which included three of the four hotels still habitable. This was totally unacceptable to the British. But such difficulties did not appear insurmountable and it seemed that at last, four months after the end of hostilities, the Allied Commission could begin work.

Second phase of occupation, July to September 1945 In fact, a second phase in the occupation had begun in mid-July, when the British held back from setting up the Allied Commission. The British reluctance resulted from the tension existing between the Allies by then, especially between the Soviet Union and the Western allies. This was both a cause and effect of the British stance at the Potsdam conference, which affected negotiations on five important issues affecting Austria. They were the constitution and function of the Allied Control Commission; recognition of the Renner Government; determination of the respective zones of occupation; demarcation of the zone for France; and the question of the feeding of Austria. The Potsdam conference At earlier meetings of the Allies, a united military purpose had glossed over differences of view, but now every item contained a sore point for someone. Initially, it looked as if some plain speaking would be done.


When Molotov protested at Truman’s attack on Soviet behaviour, for example, Truman answered: ‘Carry out your agreements and you won’t get talked to like that.’5 Truman, who took the chair at the plenary meetings, went to the conference with the hope that he would be able to mediate between the special interests of Britain and Russia. He knew these interests would result in tension, and might well result in conflict. Significantly, he was impressed by Stalin’s direct manner, and thought it should be possible to reach a satisfactory agreement with him. Churchill was also impressed by Stalin, leading Eden to report that he was once again under Stalin’s spell. Eden later added that Churchill would neither refer questions to Eden nor be quiet: ‘He butts in on every occasion and talks the most irrelevant rubbish.’ 6 The British style of exchange altered when Attlee and Bevin arrived after their electoral success, Bevin, in particular, proposing to ‘’ave it out’ with Molotov. But British policy did not change, even though Britain had come out of the war a great debtor, with no possible chance of regaining military equality with her Allies. Significantly, Stalin had said earlier: ‘In politics one should be guided by the calculation of forces.’7 Despite this, some Foreign Office officials remained optimistic about the chances of co-operation with the Russians. Sargent, for instance, was sanguine, whereas Roberts thought that obstructive behaviour was characteristic of the Soviets, rather than a passing phase. Eden was aware of the contradictions in Soviet behaviour, but attributed it to the presence of two schools of thought in the Soviet Union; one said that no one could be trusted, while the other, led by Stalin, was prepared to trust the West. Britain should therefore encourage the latter by frank consultation. Eden ignored arguments that the Soviets would take all and give nothing – as Ismay said, ‘They don’t tell us a single word in advance.’8 So, in general, the Foreign Office line was that, although Soviet goodwill was lacking, a split was not inevitable. The documents therefore show a continual attempt to interpret Soviet policy favourably and make allowance for Soviet behaviour. London never, however, questioned whether Moscow had come to the conclusion that British strength, determination and capability were insufficient to defend British interests, especially in view of the known American wish to leave Europe as soon as possible. The result was that while the Chiefs of Staff were instructing McCreery not to co-operate with the Soviets, the British delegation went to Potsdam determined that it was their responsibility to convince Moscow of their desire for close co-operation.9


In the event, the Potsdam conference treated Austria as of minor importance except for the matter of reparations. But by the time the conference met, the EAC had agreed on a zonal formulation so that issue was not raised. Neither was the question of control machinery. Two important questions requiring co-operation between the allies were discussed though: recognition of the Renner Government (which is considered in more detail in Chapter 11) and the question of reparations. But despite the bitter disagreement between the Allies on both matters, the actual discussions were an anti-climax. They began in an atmosphere of goodwill caused by the news of Soviet withdrawals from Styria, and, what is more, continued amicably. In the case of recognition of the Renner Government, this was because Stalin presented the case for Renner so well. He suggested that the West consider not the recognition of the Renner Government, but rather the extension of its authority to the Western zones as a way of answering the pressing problem of collecting food for Austria. Churchill wished to postpone this until the move into Vienna, but he and Truman accepted the idea in principle, for deferring any decision until the Allies were in Vienna would avoid the danger of a rash commitment, and would also provide time for a better assessment of the situation. The compromise was, in fact, consistent with the political directives issued to McCreery. These stated that, although the Renner Government may have fulfilled a useful purpose when Austria was first liberated, there could be no question of such a narrowly based government continuing under Allied control. The directives thought it essential that the provincial governments (or committees which had been formed in most of the zones) should have a substantial say in the formation of any government now that the Allies had moved into their zones. McCreery was therefore instructed to propose that delegates of the various provincial administrations should meet in Vienna as soon as possible and submit recommendations for the composition of a provisional government to the Allied Council. The question of reparations was more complex, for to the Soviet Union it was not only a question of compensation for war damage, but also an economic lever in the Sovietisation of eastern Europe. As McCreery said later, the Russians were tough and determined to get the maximum possible reparations in kind from their late enemies. However, to demand reparations of the Austrians would clearly make a mockery of the Moscow Declaration, which had specified Austria as a liberated country. The British attitude was that ‘Reparations will not be exacted from Austria. Removal of plant and equipment and other


goods from Austria as war booty or otherwise will, in future, be a matter to be settled by the Control Council.’ 10 This did not deter the Soviets, who simply removed what they could in the meantime whilst making a sustained effort to impose reparations formally, both the amount and the duration being unspecified. Their determination was successful for, on the day that the statement was drawn up, the USA made an important concession. Winant (whom Cadogan described as a ‘spineless creature’) wired that he had been forced to agree to the inclusion of a ‘Reparation, Deliveries and Restitution Division’ in the control agreement just signed. This concession, plus the ‘responsibility’ clause of the Moscow Declaration, gave real weight to subsequent Soviet demands and to the Soviets’ use of the matter as a bargaining counter. Stalin, for instance, allowed it was conceivable that Austria should not pay reparations, since she had not put an army in the field. But the day after he said this Molotov submitted another proposal: Austria was to pay an amount to be established by the Commission to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. When Byrnes mentioned Stalin’s previous concession, Molotov replied that they might drop all reparations claims against Austria if Yugoslavia received compensation from another, unspecified, source. A more serious threat to Austria arose over the question of the German reparations issue; more specifically over German external assets. The topic was brought up at the very end of the conference, when the Westerners were physically and mentally exhausted by the prolonged and petty bickering that had gone on. 11 In the end the easiest possible solution was adopted: the demarcation line between Soviet and Western zones was to serve as a dividing line for the German assets, the Soviets retaining all assets in the east, and in their Austrian zone. The hastily drawn up Potsdam clauses made no arrangement for fourpower definition of what constituted German assets, so the Soviets were free to insist that this should be left to direct negotiations between themselves and the Austrian Government. On Soviet insistence, these facts were not published in the communiqué issued after the conference. The effect of this was that the conference provided the Soviets with an opportunity to assume two distinct roles in Austria: the champion of the provisional government, and heir to unspecified German external assets. Publicly, the Soviets were the upholders of the Austrian Government. What was known in Austria of Potsdam would have confirmed this impression, for the reluctance to recognise Renner obviously came from the West.


Use of Austrian resources Despite the considerable level of agreement displayed at Potsdam by the Allies, difficulty continued to be caused by the Soviet view that, under the instrument of surrender, the armies of occupation must have first claim on Austrian resources. This was true enough from a legal position, but events in Berlin had shown what it could mean in practice, especially in relation to food. Like Berlin, Vienna was dependent on the Soviet zone for food. If the Red Army took all the food surpluses from the zone, there would be nothing left for Vienna and the Western zones. It soon became clear that the Soviets would only allow the Western Allies to enter Vienna if they could saddle them with responsibility for bringing in food for their zones from abroad. Alternatively, having allowed them in, the Soviets would have little difficulty in forcing the responsibility for this on the West. Stalin was pressed about this by Churchill and Alexander at Potsdam, with the result that, on 24 July, Stalin said that Koniev would continue to provide rations for Vienna until some alternative and more permanent arrangement could be made. This cleared the way for further discussions on the formal establishment of the ACA. In the meantime, meetings of the four chiefs of staff for control matters were held in late July, and agreement was reached regarding the allocation of accommodation at the highest level, and a number of other matters. It appeared that Moscow had pressed Koniev to produce concrete results at the meeting because, at the end of the meeting on 25 July, he produced a protocol that purported to be a record of the chiefs of staff meetings to date. It dealt with road and rail communications from the zones into Vienna, with the use of airfields and air routes, signals communications, the establishment of the Kommandatura, and the setting up of mixed committees to delineate boundaries. The fact that no agreement could be reached on a number of other matters, including the feeding of Vienna, did not detract from the significance of the protocol, which was signed the same day. No parallel document was drawn up concerning Berlin, but the existence of this local agreement, separate from the agreements reached at governmental level through the EAC, was later to prove of great value. For it provided a basis for subsequent quadripartite negotiations which was never repudiated by the Soviets; the Soviet authorities were great legalists, hence the necessity of getting formal agreements. It was clear by then, however, that no further progress could be made at the level of the chiefs of staff, since the Soviets insisted that, in accordance with


Article 5 of the Control Machinery Agreement, only the Allied Council could initiate plans and reach decisions. Britain holds back Economic representatives of the four powers met in Vienna on 8 August, for the first time. It was only then that the full gravity of the food situation became clear, and also the great reluctance of the Soviet authorities to allow the movement of any food supplies from the areas under their control to the Western zones. This was an unexpected problem, and no guidance had been provided by the British government. Consequently, when the Soviets at last suggested 14 August for a meeting of the Allied Commission, the British, uncertain what stance to adopt, held back. By then McCreery had (conveniently) gone to London for instructions. He was told not to assume responsibility for the administration of the British sector in Vienna, nor was he to agree to the setting up of quadripartite control, except on the basis of full equality with the Soviets. He was to enter into no long-term commitment for the supply of food and fuel from the West unless the Soviets would agree to certain conditions regarding the payment of such imports, and the level of rations to be adopted. McCreery was not, in any case, inclined to take anything for granted. As General Mark Clark said, ‘He had his own opinions and he had a way of stating them.’12 London hoped that these matters would be discussed early at the next meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, set up at Potsdam to fill the vacuum left by the dissolution of the EAC in July. In the meantime, McCreery was instructed to try to reach agreement with the Americans and French for them jointly to undertake to supply food for Vienna for a period of two months because of the gravity of the situation. For this purpose, he was authorised to provide 6,000 tons of food from British stocks. He was also authorised to attend the forthcoming meeting of the commanders in chief, but not a meeting of the Allied Council. And since it was clear that one of the first matters to be discussed at the meeting of Foreign Ministers would be the question of quadripartite recognition of the Renner Government, McCreery was also instructed to do nothing that might be construed as a recognition of it. The importance the Soviets attached to recognising Renner had, in fact, been betrayed by Stalin at Potsdam; he had shown his nervousness regarding it by breaking into a broad grin when Churchill agreed on the importance of the issue. McCreery’s absence from Vienna turned out to be useful tactical move in the debate over food, because it forced Zheltov, the deputy


Soviet commander, to change his previously intransigent position that supplies from the Danube Basin should be organised through the agency of the Austrian (that is, Renner) administration. But Zheltov did not say that Soviets would assist in making supplies available from the Danube Basin, even though an Austrian government unaided would be unable to obtain anything. On 11 August, Zheltov had demanded of Winterton, then in Vienna, that the British attend a meeting of the four commanders-in-chief before 19 August. Winterton replied that McCreery was anxious for such a meeting, which he hoped would take place directly he returned home from London. Zheltov implied that an acceptance of the Renner Government was a necessary preliminary to any discussion about food. He said that Vienna presented the primary problem inhibiting settlement; an examination of the overall situation could take place later. Zheltov’s view was that the only deficiency to be met was that which remained after the pooling of all Austrian internal resources, plus such supplies as she could obtain by her own efforts. He stressed that it was essential that Austria stand on her own feet and not merely be held up by the Allies. ‘It appears to me’, reported Winterton, ‘that the political and economic questions are closely connected in the Soviet mind and that they are only to some extent prepared to do a deal.’13 It was for this reason that Winterton thought McCreery’s inability to attend the meeting on 14 August was useful since it forced Zheltov to move a long way from his earlier position. Zheltov no longer ruled out the possibility of supplies being delivered from the Danube Basin, as long as they were organised through the agency of the Renner Government, possibly (Winterton thought) suitably reconstituted. But the difficulties in making progress remained significant, as a debate on 12 August had made clear. In a reply to a question about food from the French, Morozov, a deputy of Zheltov, stated bluntly, ‘It is the duty of the occupying powers to feed Austria.’14 Winterton said that the British were already doing so in their zone. Zheltov inferred the same should therefore be done in the British sector, claiming that the presence of British troops in Vienna effectively constituted occupation. Winterton argued that this was not Britain’s understanding of the situation, since Vienna was still in the Soviet military government zone. Discussion needed to move to the level of the commanders in chief if it was to reach any conclusion before the autumn, but Clark was in Brazil. The level of discussion was accordingly reduced to the level of staff talks until his return. But the Soviets continued to press for an early meeting of the Allied Council. No doubt they thought that by the


early establishment of the Council they would rid themselves of part of the responsibility for the rapidly deteriorating food situation. Clark and Béthourt (the French commander in chief) also said they were anxious for a meeting of the Allied Council. But McCreery had successfully put pressure on Koniev by insisting that he would only attend a meeting of the commanders in chief. In this he was acting under instructions, since London was concerned not to be saddled with responsibilities but no real influence. In the event, there was a preliminary meeting of the four commanders in chief at Schloss Klesheim near Salzburg on 23 August, which illustrates the tone of the negotiations and accusations receding the establishment of the ACA.15 Three matters were on the agenda. The first two concerned food, for Austria could not be treated as a political entity – this being London’s aim – without a clear settlement of this issue. First, then, was the feeding of Vienna. Clark agreed with McCreery’s suggestion that Vienna be fed from Western stocks for only a limited period. Béthourt finally agreed that, although it would cause difficulties for the French, they too would supply emergency feeding for a limited period. Koniev eventually accepted the principle of increased ration scales, but he declined to make a public statement because for administrative reasons it could not be made operative for at least a month. On the second matter, the date of the first meeting of the Allied Council, McCreery restated his position that nothing should be done until the feeding of Austria as a whole was determined. He proposed that, in the meantime, a board should be set up to examine food and fuel resources. Clark argued that even if McCreery refused to attend a meeting of the Council then he, Clark, thought that at least meetings of the commanders-in-chief should continue. Koniev used stronger terms. He said that only Britain was against the establishment of the Commission: he would therefore report to his government that the British were not prepared to implement the EAC agreement that all four Allies had ratified. He said he was opposed to further meetings of the commanders in chief and to unofficial committees. In the event, McCreery insisted on the creation of a resources board and included it as an item for the agenda – which Koniev agreed to when the item was presented. Item three on the agenda concerned the extension of the authority of the Provisional Government. Koniev and Clark were in favour of setting up a committee to report on the matter. McCreery again stood out against it, because he insisted that it be confined to purely administrative questions; he also argued that it did not fully represent the


provinces. The only agreement reached was that the deputies examine the issue. The weak British position In a message to Alexander, McCreery wrote that it was his impression that the Soviets were not particularly attached to Renner and might possibly drop him. In the meantime, it was impossible, McCreery said, for him to adopt a purely negative attitude in the face of the other Allies who wanted to establish the ACA, hence his suggestions of subcommittees and the passing of issues to the deputies. The meeting as a whole was as satisfactory as it could be, but his position was difficult, since he was in a minority of one. The Americans, for example, were anxious to set up quadripartite control and take over the administration of their sector; consequently, they felt little sympathy for the stand the British were taking. Comments became acrimonious. The Foreign Office described Clark as ‘flabby’, taking orders only from the War Department and consequently unaware of the political implications of most of his acts. 16 In turn, Winant openly said that the only alternative left to the British was to withdraw from Vienna – which the Foreign Office admitted was unthinkable. 17 Béthourt had taken a similar line to Clark in this, as in the matter of feeding, because the French were dependent upon American food supplies. The British position was also weak because, as Zheltov had pointed out, they were extensively committed in Vienna. There were some 5,000 British troops in the city, and their commander designate took part in informal meetings of the Kommandatura. Also, with effect from 1 September, under the interim arrangements, they would be importing food for the civil population and supplying trucks for its distribution. It was increasingly difficult for McCreery to refrain from a formal assumption of authority when in practice he was already exercising responsibility. Then, on 28 August, the Soviets forced the issue. They stated that they would withdraw their Kommandaturas from the various administrative districts in the Western sectors on 1 September. This would leave the British in de facto occupation of their sector and make it impossible for them to refuse de jure responsibility. So, on 31 August, the War Office finally agreed to the Allied Commission being set up and accepted full responsibility for their sector on certain conditions. These were chiefly that they reserved the right to discuss further arrangements for the supply of Austria at the coming conference of foreign ministers, and that their participation should not in any way


involve recognition of the Renner Government. Although driven to assume responsibility without any compensating concessions from the Soviets as to the provision of food, London thought that the stand taken by McCreery had nevertheless done something towards gaining them equality with the Soviets and had been helpful in throwing light on Moscow’s intentions.

Organisation of the ACA The first meeting of the Allied Council was on 11 September, and was mainly devoted to approving the organisation of what was officially known as the Allied Commission for Austria. The organisation was similar to that set up in Berlin and was that specified by the EAC agreement. The only matter of organisation on which work was still to be completed concerned the Kommandatura, the inter-Allied governing authority, but it was agreed that the Council was to bring into effect, not later than 18 September, a directive ‘on the Work of the Allied Commission and the Inter-Allied Kommandatura’ in accordance with the EAC agreement.18 In its subsequent statement to the Austrians, the Allied Council based its existence on the Moscow Declaration. In other words, it saw its task as the creation of firm foundations for the ‘re-establishment of a truly democratic’ Austria. To this end, democratic parties would be allowed to express their views through the press, radio and public meetings, as an essential step towards the holding of free elections. Several other important, and more pressing, matters were also decided. The food controversy was settled with the promise of an increase in daily rations from 800 to 1,500 calories from 23 September. The three official democratic parties – the Peoples Party, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party – were to be allowed to resume political activity. A directive on the work of the Allied Commission and the Kommandatura was soon prepared. The highest deliberating body of the Commission, the Allied Council, was to meet once every ten days. The commanders in chief were to preside for one month in the order of the USA, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. In an emergency session, the Council could meet upon the request of any one member. During the period of the chairmanship of a military commissioner, the chairmanship of the Executive Committee as well as the meetings of the directors of divisions was to devolve on the members of those organizations belonging to the country of the presiding commissioner. The preparation of questions and documents for ordinary meetings of


the Council, and documents for carrying into effect their decisions, were to be executed by the staff of the presiding commissioner, in consultation with the staff of the other commissioners. The Executive Council was one step below the Allied Council and was headed by the deputy commanders who were responsible for the various staffs and divisions. The Kommandatura, which was to consist of the four commanders of sectors within the city (General Palmer was the British commander) was to control and supervise the municipal administration of Vienna, and to secure the establishment of a freely elected municipal government for Vienna. Each commander was responsible for civil conditions within his sector. At the same time, each was also the military commander of all the troops of his nationality stationed in Vienna. In this capacity, he was responsible to his commander in chief. He had two separate staffs for the two functions. As in the Allied Council, each commander was chief commandant in turn. The Kommandatura was to be located in one building in the Innere Stadt. The channel of communication on political matters was direct from the Allied Council to the various Elements of the Kommandatura. Further down the organisational chain, it was the responsibility of the divisions to keep the commander informed of British policy and decisions. Technical matters went to the appropriate staff. If a decision impinged on policy, the adviser would take it up with his division so that it could be raised with the commander of the sector. It was also the commander’s job to keep the British Element of the Council informed of any subjects coming up for discussion with which they would be particularly interested. The channel of communication for the British Element was formally defined at the end of September. Two channels existed, one for the military government involving the issuing of orders to British troops and one for all other military-government business. In practice, this meant that there was one channel for the issue of executive orders to troops going from the original division of the ACA(B), through the military division to HQ BTA or HQ Vienna area. For military-government business, the channel ran direct from the relevant division of the ACA to the SMGOs of Vienna, Carinthia and Styria. Relations between the Kommandatura and the divisions were excellent at all levels, although Berthoud, head of the Economics Division, was concerned about the practicalities of relaying British and quadripartite policy between the two. For there was not the same day-to-day liaison as between SMGOs in the provinces. The Deputy Commissioner


suggested, therefore, that the Allied Commission’s divisions should deal directly with the British Element of the Kommandatura, that is the commander of the Vienna area and the SMGO, and also be responsible for conveying British policy. This was important because the quadripartite divisions were essentially concerned with policy. Their job was to settle questions of fact and study the impact of agreed policy on the various problems, so as first to make recommendations to the Executive Committee and, second, to recommend new policy decisions if necessary. They had to strip policies of technical details and present them simply in terms of policy. The justification for this role was that smooth working methods necessitated examination at divisional level first. The British Element had sole responsibility for ensuring, by previous consultation with other divisions, the co-ordination of British policy put forward at quadripartite discussions. They were also responsible for briefing their own representatives at such meetings. So far as recruitment was concerned, the British Element suffered from most of the difficulties that had affected recruitment earlier in the year. Initial recruitment was easier, since the numbers of staff were small and there was no lack of applicants for what promised to be congenial work. But there was the same problem of continuity caused by the ramifications of demobilisation and the various long-leave schemes which came into operation at the end of the war. There was the same problem of finding suitable people at a time when there was a general tendency to look for a secure peacetime job at home. ACA business procedures The business procedure of the Commission was as follows. The Allied Council was mainly concerned with ratifying agreed policy submitted to it by the Executive Committee, and in determining policy if there was any disagreement at lower levels. The Executive Committee was mostly concerned with approving policy for submission to the Council, and for deciding and giving the quadripartite divisions points of policy needed to guide the latter in work on specific problems. Since the internal organization of the divisions varied amongst the four divisions, the Executive Committee had, from time to time, to decide which division should be directed to study particular problems. It was essential that their time was not taken up with details of technical issues. So technical proposals on which British policy was established were to be introduced into the control machinery at divisional level, unless for urgent reasons it was necessary to present them directly to the Council or Executive Committee.


Later, in November, it was also laid down that in principle as much as possible should be left to the Austrians. So control was gradually to slacken. This was dictated, on the British side, partly by the wish to establish an independent Austria and partly by manpower difficulties. The British therefore aimed eventually to withdraw from direct control in provincial and municipal affairs, and to regard their responsibility in administrative matters as being advisory. Direct control would be needed only in the exercise of reserve powers (though admittedly these needed clearer definition). G-5 (Austria) announced their intention to work on the same basis as that used by the Allied Commission to control the Federal Government in Germany; that is, by means of a right to veto, as opposed to an insistence of approving on all legislation. They also thought the time had come to relax the existing system of military government control, perhaps by decreasing the number of officers in the field through the civilianisation of some posts. The moves towards control at arm’s length were welcomed by the Austrian political parties. They were apprehensive about quadripartite administration because of the different political outlooks of the Allies and the consequent divergence in policy. 19 Another reason was that quadripartite discussion was usually a very slow process. There were no facilities for simultaneous translation at Allied meetings and, except in the Political Division, which translated out of and into Russian, each speech had to be translated twice. This gave everyone time to think out their replies, but made quick discussion impossible. To be constructive, it was important to stick to the main lines of argument and ignore refinements that might turn out to be red herrings. But all parties were capable of wasting time on trivialities, though it was the Soviets who excelled in this. In general, discussion flowed more smoothly in Vienna throughout 1945 than in the Commission in Berlin. The Soviet line did not harden until late in the year, and relations between the Western Allies, and between the British and the French in particular, were excellent at the working level. Perhaps the most striking symbol of this was to be found in the Innere Stadt where, from the outset, an international police patrol operated. This was the famous four military policemen in a jeep, each in his national uniform. UK Control Office for Germany and Austria, October 1945 Responsibility for military government in Austria was originally a military matter, resting on the Secretary of State for War, through the civil affairs department of the War Office. But, apart from the fact that


McCreery continued to be directly answerable to the COS, such a close military relationship appeared increasingly inappropriate, given British policy for the future of Austria. The Foreign Office was the obvious candidate to take over, but it proved most reluctant to add to its responsibilities. McCreery was already corresponding with the Foreign Secretary on governmental matters at the beginning of September, but it was considered necessary to adopt a quite different expedient for handling the administration of Austria. On 4 October, the Treasury announced the creation of a separate office to handle the affairs of the British Element of the Austrian and German Commissions. The office was to operate from 22 October, and to include staff of the civil affairs division dealing with Germany and Austria and the German Economic Office at the War Office. J.J. Lawson, the War Secretary, was to retain ultimate responsibility, and J.B. Hynd, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was to supervise the ‘Control Office for Germany and Austria’ – which soon became known as ‘Hyndquarters’. Hynd himself paid his first visit to Vienna in early October, arriving on the day of McCreery’s first dinner party for the Russians.

Unique nature of the ACA Once again, Austrian matters were overshadowed by the greater problems of Germany. The very existence of one office for both countries reinforced the tendency to think about the Austrian Commission (the word ‘control’ was absent in the Austrian case) in terms of the German, just as there had been a tendency during the planning stages to think of Austria in terms of Germany. But the similarities were superficial. The atmosphere in which the Austrian Commission worked was totally different from that in Germany. The main reasons for this were the difference in the relationship between the occupier and the occupied stipulated by the Moscow Declaration and adhered to by all four Allies, and the difference in scale. The most decisive contrast between Germany and Austria was seen in the different aims of occupation. Germany had been defeated; Austria liberated. By late summer, fraternisation was progressing in all zones. The total population to be supervised in Austria was 7 million, compared with over 70 million in Germany. The population size, coupled with the concentration of population in Vienna, greatly simplified organisational problems, and to some extent counteracted the tendency for zonal organisations to be developed at the expense of


centralised control. The Commission was situated almost completely in Vienna (which had not been badly damaged by bombs), and distances between the divisions were correspondingly small. The majority of the 12 divisions of the British Element were all located in the Schönbrunn Palace itself or its grounds, and the remainder were in requisitioned accommodation in the XIII district of Hietzing. All were within five minutes’ drive of each other. This scale also meant that the commanders in chief spent more time in Vienna. These advantages were offset by some disadvantages. The allocation of different sectors to different powers prevented, especially in the early stages, a return to normal economic conditions. Zonal boundaries were even more strongly delimited. This was partly prompted by the need for security checks in the first few months of occupation, since no power wished its zone to become a Nazi refuge. In addition, the scarcity of food and other necessities made the occupying powers, and also the Austrian provincial authorities, reluctant to allow goods to pass out of their control. Consequently it was, for example, impossible to issue meat rations in the south and east because cattle were in the American and French zones. The result was that for nearly a year the zones constituted virtually separate economic entities – something of an absurdity in a country whose total area was smaller than that of a single German zone. The Allied Commission for Austria was unique. The Commission was only one of a group of inter-Allied organisations set up to perform such tasks as supervising the execution of armistice terms, as in Bulgaria and Romania, or co-ordinating the occupation policies as in Germany. But it differed in one important aspect: Austria (and, to a lesser extent, Germany) was jointly occupied. Despite differences in function, organisation and staff, all the commissions shared one practical point: the influence and authority of each member was directly proportional to the military forces that each had in the area. Western representatives in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary were not permitted to play any part in the work of the commission in those countries; all decisions in Bulgaria were taken by the Soviet chairman without prior consultation with the Western representatives. This technique did, however, work both ways, as the Soviets found to their cost in Italy, where they were deprived of representation within the Allied Military Government and on the Allied Council for Italy. Thus, it was evident, to both East and West, that the legal right to participate fully in the postwar affairs of occupied territories could only be effected if the territory to be ‘jointly’ administered was ‘jointly’ occupied by military contingents of approx-


imately similar strength and strategic position. This was where the Allied Commission for Austria differed. Elsewhere, the Allied commissions soon disappeared, and with them any semblance of meaningful inter-Allied control. Austria was also unique in that in Vienna alone the international sector was more than a symbol. The fact that the coalition government, its administrative offices, and the legislative bodies were physically situated in the area where it was difficult for any one power to apply direct force, proved to be vitally important. It was because of this that the Allies came to be administering a country of some 32,000 square miles and a population roughly equal to that of New York city. Renner later referred to the occupation as ‘four elephants in a rowing boat’.

Table 9.1

Allied Commission for Austria

GREAT BRITAIN High Commissioner: Deputy High Commissioner (Vienna): Political Adviser: Commander of Vienna sector: USA High Commissioner: Deputy High Commissioners:

Lieutenant General Sir Richard Loudon McCreery Major General T.J.W. Winterton W.H.B. Mack Brigadier Palmer

Political Adviser: Commander of Vienna sector:

General Mark Clark Major General A.M. Gruenther, Major General D.W. Brann J.G. Erhart Brigadier General Lewis

FRANCE High Commissioner: Deputy High Commissioner: Political Adviser: Commander of Vienna sector:

General d’Armée M.E. Béthourt General de Brigade P.R. Cherrière L. de Monicault General de Brigade Noel de Pagrat

USSR High Commissioner: Deputy High Commissioner: Political Adviser: Commander of Vienna sector:

Marshal Ivan Koniev Colonel General A.S. Zheltov E.D. Kisilev Brigadier Blagodotov

Allied Commission for Austria, British Element

183

Figure 9.1

10 Towards an Independent Austria

Responsibility for military government was formally taken over from HQ BTA by the Allied Commission on 15 October, first by civil affairs officers and later by civil liaison officers, while the British Element of the ACA was staffed by members of all three services and civilians. Military government stayed in this form until 30 June 1946, when the process of handing over its functions to the Austrian authorities began. The withdrawal of the army from these responsibilities was smooth. Eighth Army had been formally disbanded on the 12 August, and HQ BTA opened at Treibach in Carinthia (or at least until suitable winter quarters could be found). Unlike their counterparts in Germany, corps commanders exercised no military responsibility, and the BTA constituted the first level of command above field organisations. So, as the military responsibility for field organisation gradually disappeared over the following weeks, the military retained responsibility only for military matters. The transfer of BTA responsibilities early in October to the British Element of the Commission, itself under the authority of the War Office, effectively short-circuited the previously existing chain of command through 15th Army Group, AFHQ, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. And when the War Office handed over its responsibilities to the Commission on 22 October, military responsibility for operational control of the field organisation faded out completely. In some matters, such as relief supplies, this took place in several stages. Combined Anglo-American relief operations, for instance, ceased on 12 November, and by the end of the year the remaining military responsibilities had disappeared, except that Headquarters Central Mediterranean Forces (the British component of AFHQ) continued to be responsible for the physical movement of relief supplies from the Italian ports of arrival into the British zone. 184

Towards an Independent Austria 185

In liberated countries, it had always been intended that the military’s responsibilities should be handed over to an indigenous government at the earliest appropriate moment, the recognition of these governments being the main landmark in the progress from military to civil control. In the case of Austria, such a process was seen as a primary means of establishing the independent state promised by the Moscow Declaration. But it depended on the acceptability of the proposed government to all four Allies, and on the degree of co-operation and trust between them. The achievement of acceptability and Allied co-operation (if not mutual trust) took approximately six months in the case of Austria, an acceptable government being recognised not many weeks after the date on which the War Office handed over its responsibilities to the ACA. This process settled a question that had beset the Western Allies since April when arguments about the recognition of the Soviet-sponsored Renner provisional government first began. It had bedevilled negotiations for the establishment of the ACA throughout the summer, and its final recognition in the autumn set the tone for the workings of the ACA in the last months of 1945. It thus assumed a centrality in British planning which justifies considering it in detail here.

Recognition of the Renner Government, October 1945 One of the most important political moves Moscow made in Austria in 1945 was the guidance it exerted on the Renner government. The formation of this government in April caught the Western Allies unprepared. Although there had been rumours from Hungary that a Free Austria Committee had been formed in the wake of the Red Army at Debrecen, and a report in the New York Times of 2 February 1945 said that Moscow had chosen a committee to become the provisional government (or an Austrian equivalent of the Polish Lublin Committee, composed of Communists), no firm plans had been made to deal with this likelihood. London’s attitude had been one of ‘We must wait on developments’. There was some justification for this. As O’Neil had minuted in 1944: The restoration of political life in a country ceasing to be a political vacuum is not a thing that can be planned in advance … For one thing we shan’t be the only ones with a tune. To a great extent … we shall just have to wait and see what turns up, confining our action to an attempt to guide and regulate things.1


In fact, it was the ability of the Western Allies to guide or regulate developments that was most at question. Eden evidently thought this could be achieved, because his response to O’Neil was that he thought an independent Austria under Allied control would, in fact, be in Moscow’s interests. Even if the collaborative spirit of Moscow was less than perfect, he wrote: their aim of working with us to keep Germany down and their desire not to combine Europe with Germany against Russia would almost certainly restrain them from both using methods of power politics in their dealings with other countries and trying to exercise an undue influence on their internal affairs. The circumstances in which Moscow initially guided the Renner Government were unclear during the first months of occupation, but in September, Renner sent a pamphlet, describing the events of April, to the British in Vienna.2 Karl Renner was the 74-year-old Socialist leader, who had been the first Chancellor of the Austrian Republic after 1918, and had been living in retirement since 1934. On 1 and 2 April his town was searched by Soviet troops. Renner, disgusted by their treatment of the Austrian population, set out to find a local command post. He was eventually presented to a group of Soviet officers familiar with his name and background – for he was known as a pioneer Socialist thinker on the problem of nationalities, whose views Stalin had publicly refuted in the 1910s. Several days later he was taken to meet Zheltov, who assured him that the Red Army had no designs on Austria and stood firmly by their government’s promise of liberation in accordance with the Moscow Declaration. Zheltov asked Renner if he was prepared to help the Red Army shorten the war. Renner replied that he was, but made it clear that he would not act as a Soviet agent. He would appeal to the Austrians in his capacity as a former Chancellor but: ‘On no account could or would I act as a mandatory of Russia.’ The Soviet authorities accepted this and, after a short period of preparation, Renner and his family were taken to Vienna. There was no political vacuum in Austria, and the old political parties soon began to emerge. In many districts, provisional administrations had been set up during April, in touch with and supported by the Red Army. It was clear that Renner’s task was to direct and organise these political forces. Negotiations with leading political figures took place over the next few days, and by 27 April the composition of a provi-


sional government was agreed. On the day of its formation, the provisional government issued a proclamation of the Second Austrian Republic, and on 29 April it was formally recognised by Moscow. It was only then that the Austrians were told that the West had not recognised the government. Indeed, this was the first the West knew of Renner’s Government. According to Sargent, Britain received a telegram from Moscow stating Renner’s intentions on 29 April, whereupon a ‘most immediate’ telegram was sent to Moscow to ask the Soviet Government to hold their hand as the matter concerned all four Allies. Sargent judged the Soviet action premature; after all, not all of Austria was occupied at that date. ‘The Soviet Government have now acted entirely unilaterally,’ he argued, convinced that Moscow was aiming at establishing a puppet government on the lines of those in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. On the same day the BBC monitoring service gained the news from Soviet telegraph sources in Vienna, reporting that the Soviets had declared the new government was the result of a unanimous decision by all Austrian anti-Fascist parties, acting in accord with the Moscow Declaration. As the diplomatic correspondent of The Times wrote on 30 April, ‘there would have been greater satisfaction if Moscow had consulted London before the step was decided on.’ The Foreign Office had, however, been warned of the possibility of such action just before the official telegram from Moscow arrived; Roberts (by then in Moscow) had received a letter from Vyshinsky, which told of an approach from Renner. Regardless of this, it was clear that the West had been confronted with a fait accompli. The Foreign Office did not believe that Moscow was unaware of London’s view on the matter; it was pointed out that Strang had clearly stated them in the EAC in December 1944.3 Strang, so the argument went, had said that the British Government contemplated the formation, at an early date, of some kind of provisional government, perhaps taking the form of a liberation committee; but the important thing was to get the administration functioning, and the implication was that this would be done by all the Allies. In the event, this argument was based on a false premise because the paper suggesting it was not, in fact, discussed in the EAC. But London clearly had some grounds for discontent with the Soviet announcement. Renner, for instance, could not, represent all Austrians: the Soviet authorities might state that his government represented all non-Fascists, but at that date only Vienna had been occupied.


The West had had an unwelcome surprise, though by then it was clear that the Allies had no common policy: not only was there deadlock in the EAC, but the Western missions were also refused entry into Vienna. Churchill, needless to say, was outraged both by the way in which the Renner Government was formed and by the fact that Communists had one-third of the Cabinet seats. It was this that annoyed London, rather than the personality of Renner, of whom Harrison said: ‘From what we know of Renner so far we have no particular objection to him.’4 On 30 April, Churchill told Truman of his fears that the Russians were deliberately exploiting their position in Austria to reorganise the country before the Western forces arrived there. His fears were, to some extent, dismissed by Foreign Office officials such as Sargent, who noted that Soviet behaviour was troublesome, but said that fortunately Britain’s position would improve as soon as British and American troops entered Austria: ‘To a certain extent this ought to strengthen our hands in insisting on our rights.’5 Truman was unconvinced, and agreed to Churchill’s request for them both to protest to Stalin about his unilateral action, though Truman did not wish to comment on the composition of the Renner Government itself. In the meantime, Vyshinsky insisted that the announcement related to steps taken by the Austrians themselves, and that it was in any case necessary to establish some local provisional authority. The British press did not reflect Churchill’s fears. On 30 April, the Manchester Guardian noted that the formation of the new government by democratic means would not have been easy in the best of circumstances: the last time Austria had done it was before 1934. On the whole, the newspaper concluded, the new ministers reflected the old composition fairly well; several, including Renner, having held office during the pre-Dollfuss era. The Times, representing the establishment, agreed. But neither newspaper addressed London’s main objections, which Mack listed on 4 May.6 There were four. First, London objected to the unilateral nature of the setting up of the government. Second, such a central government meant that the provincial system could not function. Third, there was no justification for the number of communist seats; between 1918 and 1934 the Communists had not gained a single seat in either Parliament or the Vienna municipality. Fourth, and related to the last point, was that the all-important post of Minister of the Interior went to a Communist, Ernst Fischer, who had been Radio Moscow’s principal wartime broadcaster to Austria. Also Honner, another Communist, had been appointed Minister of Education. Renner, too, was the type of political figurehead that the


Soviets had pushed to the front of provisional governments throughout eastern Europe. Mack agreed that Renner was an outspoken rightwing Socialist, but he was also a non-communist held in high esteem by the Austrians, he was an old man and he was vulnerable to mild forms of political blackmail because of indiscretions he had committed during the Nazi period. In practice, such criticisms of Renner meant that it was easy to underestimate him, for he proved to be a capable if rather academic man. Despite the greatest misgivings, he was realistic enough to appreciate that there would be no provisional government without Communist participation, and the price of this was the Ministries of the Interior and of Education. The Communist position in the Cabinet was thus very strong, especially since every decision of the government had to be approved by Moscow. But to counter this, Renner appointed two Under Secretaries for each Cabinet position, except for the nonpolitical finance and justice positions; the Under-Secretaries were to be drawn from the two parties not holding the ministerial position. The only drawback was the inefficiency this encouraged. It was to Renner’s credit that, by early September, London had gained enough confidence in him to be content with the broadening of his government by the inclusion of western Austrians, rather than continue to press for an entirely new government. Differences between the Western Allies over the Renner Government were apparent from early in the occupation. Britain could not reverse Moscow’s announcement, but wanted to see a major Cabinet revision and the provinces represented in the government.7 McCreery pursued this policy conscientiously throughout the next few months. He was unyielding in refusing to consider any declaration by the Council that referred to an Austrian provisional government until after the late September conference of provincial representatives. He refused to discuss an extension of the administrative authority of the Renner Government until that time. But London’s insistence on the unsuitability of Renner’s Government was not universally shared by British representatives in Austria itself. Eighth Army HQ, for example, considered that the Renner Government had been founded on Austrian initiative, pointing out that the Soviets always followed the practice of delegating administrative responsibility since they had no equivalent of Allied military government. Winterton agreed, believing that the Renner Government ‘was set up as a purely Austrian initiative in an attempt to crystallise the remnants of an administration upon which something else can be built’.


The Americans had always been inclined to accept Renner’s government without a major Cabinet revision. Indeed, by 25 July Harrison thought that Washington would soon recognise a more or less reconstructed Renner Government, since they thought that ‘generally Austrians at home and abroad except for fascists and monarchist elements have approved the Renner Government’, and that his government was as good as could be arranged at that time. Britain’s objections, Harrison thought, could therefore only be over Moscow’s unilateral action. If this were the case, he continued, then the only practical course open to Britain was to recognise Renner’s Government as soon as London’s concerns with respect to the zones of occupation and control machinery were met. 8 Evidently his argument was not considered convincing, partly because of fears of Russian motives, and partly because of London’s persistently low opinion of Renner, which was shared by some of those dealing with him. After an interview with Renner on 22 September, McCreery and Mack, described him as ‘garrulous and complacent’ and not a ‘real leader’.9 It was Renner who forced the pace. In mid-September Mack reported that Renner was pressing for elections, suggesting that they be held in November, if only because the Communists wanted the date postponed. Renner said, reasonably enough, that it was no good waiting for all able-bodied Austrians to return since it might be years before the Austrians held in the Soviet zone did so. He was satisfied that electoral registers, excluding foreigners, Nazis and Reich Germans, could be compiled by then. Renner argued that it was impossible to continue with a coalition government month after month; every decision had to be unanimous and, until elections were held, it was impossible to modify this without an open breach with the Communists. From the first meeting of the four commanders in chief in August, the Soviets had argued for the extension of the authority of the Provisional Government. At the meeting of the Allied Council on 20 September, the Soviet element proposed that the Renner Government be granted immediate permission to extend its authority. The basis for their proposals was ostensibly a memorandum from Renner in which he suggested calling a conference in Vienna of representatives of the provinces to discuss the inclusion of representatives from western Austria in the government. But it was soon clear that they wished to retain the Renner government in its original form for as long as possible; they were not interested in any conference which might broaden its base since any changes would, because of the conservative nature of western Austria, weaken Communist strength in the


government. Nevertheless, following the Allied decision to restore inter-provincial communications between zones, a conference of the Austrian provinces was held in Vienna from 24 to 26 September. Each province was represented by its chairman and delegates from the three main political parties. This resulted in some transfer of authority from the centre to the provinces, and in a reduction of Communist representation at the centre. Following this, the main point then (from the British point of view) was that decisions must be made concerning the conditions regulating relations between the Allied Council and the Austrian government. Renner had by then been accepted by the British, despite reservations over his character, and McCreery was instructed to avoid the type of wrangle over personalities which had caused endless complications in Poland. As a result of the conference, the Allied Council on 1 October recommended that the Provisional Government be recognised, with the proviso that elections be held not later than December 1945. The extension of its authority remained subject to certain conditions. The chief of these was that the Provisional Government would function ‘under the guidance and control’ of the Allied Council, and that ‘certain functions of government which will be the subject of a separate recommendation will be reserved to the Allied Council’. At the meeting of the Council on 20 October, Allied recognition of the Provisional Government was formally notified to Renner. He thanked the Allies for this step towards the reconstruction of Austria and said that the next step was the withdrawal of the armies of occupation.

Further political wrangles, October and November 1945 Although British officials (including McCreery) thought of Austrian politics as easy to handle because the Austrians were seen as politically apathetic, electoral preparations began immediately. While they were taking place, another controversial issue arose. This concerned the diplomatic contact that should be allowed to the Austrians. Under the control agreement, it was only allowed through military missions accredited to the Allied Commission, a procedure which the Provisional Government openly criticised. The Soviets had previously been reluctant to discuss subjects such as this, which were reserved to the Allies, but by October foreign relations evidently no longer fell into this field, for on 21 October Radio Vienna announced that Moscow had decided to establish diplomatic relations with Austria.10 This was controversial because, quite apart from any


other considerations, it implied recognition of Renner – and ‘recognition’ was not in accordance with the Potsdam agreement that Austria’s foreign relations be carried out through representatives of the occupying Powers.11 The Soviets had, once again, acted (by several hours) in advance of their Allies. There were three possible reasons for such unilateral action: they acted either to demonstrate that they were primarily responsible for giving Austria independence, to avoid being forestalled by the other Allies, or to establish themselves as the senior diplomatic representatives. Moscow’s actions again left London trailing behind her Allies. British policy had been that diplomatic representatives could only properly be accredited after the elections and the appointment of a head of government. It was not, in any case, possible for Britain to establish full diplomatic relations with Austria, since the two were technically still at war – a final peace treaty had not yet been signed. Britain did not object to military missions, however, nor did she mind Austria having representatives abroad. France had, in any case, also presented a fait accompli by already discussing diplomatic interchange. But the British position looked obstructive, as officials stated lamely that Moscow’s move was unwise because of accommodation difficulties. Britain could not have a fully accredited diplomatic adviser in the circumstances, but she did agree to send a representative with the rank of minister. In the meantime, on 30 October, the Allied Council approved the electoral laws for Austria, so that the first general election since 1930 could be held. There was to be no direct Allied supervision of the elections; Britain had no desire to be blamed for any irregularities that might take place. Allied impartiality was of great importance, so the policy was adopted of each ally supervising as it thought appropriate, and of relying on the Austrians themselves to co-ordinate arrangements as best they could. The elections were held on 25 November, with no unpleasant incidents occurring. The Western Allies were pleased by the results – the Communists gained only four seats, or 5.9 per cent of the vote. 12 The new government, under Leopold Figl, deputy leader of the People’s Party and Landeshauptman of Lower Austria, was still heavily weighted in favour of Vienna and Lower Austria. But London must have decided that it was the best that could be achieved and so, on 20 December, the Allied Council agreed to recommend to their respective governments that the Figl government be recognised. The immediate consequences of Figl’s electoral victory for the British military government were minor; readjustment occurred mainly in


connection with the supervision of provincial administrations. As a note by the British Secretariat made clear: All military government legislation hitherto enacted remains in force and the power of issuing further legislation is retained. Administration will however be governed more and more by the approved legislation of the Central Government, and the issue of further Military Government legislation should become necessary only when the position is not adequately covered by such legislation.13 The controversy surrounding the Renner provisional government was finally resolved.

The costs of occupation Apart from disagreement over the recognition of the Renner Government, other controversial topics in the autumn were food rations and currency conversion. There was also acrimonious disagreement between the Allies over occupation costs, for occupation was expensive both for the Allies, especially those from the West, and the Austrians themselves. At the beginning of October the British Element proposed a drop in military expenditure. They suggested that the maximum expenditure in each national zone should be 30,000,000 Schillings per month; this differed from the American and French proposal for 50,000,000 Schillings. The British suggestion was prompted not only by Britain’s own economic difficulties, but also because of the vast differences in cash outlay between the Allies. In August, for example, the Americans spent 30,000,000 Schillings, while the Soviets reportedly claimed 450,000,000 Schillings. Both figures were significantly greater than those proposed by Britain, as the breakdown of the estimated costs of maintaining BTA in Table 10.1 make clear. These figures included all charges of military occupation on Austrian exchanges, although the costs of imported stuffs was omitted. In addition, 5,000,000 Schillings per month were spent on Displaced Persons and Prisoners of War, and 10,000,000 Schillings on the huts and buildings required for their accommodation. (Accounts were not completely in order until August, so the costs set out in Table 10.1 were not proportional to the future costs of providing for full operations.)14 Disagreement over occupation costs were almost inevitable, because the Western Allies considered that, before any communication was

194 Britain and the Occupation of Austria, 1943–45 Table 10.1

Occupation costs Costs up to September (Schillings)

Future per month (Schillings)

A. For the use of property owned by local authorities and private Austrians, goods and labour

22,000,000

8,500,000

B. Pay drawn in Allied Military (AM) Schillings

38,000,000

7,500,000

C. Use of Austrian state property, e.g. railways, telephones and buildings

10,000,000

4,000,000

TOTAL

70,000,000

20,000,000

made to the Austrian government on the sum it was required to place at the disposal of the commanders in chief, there must be a preliminary co-ordination of demands by the Allied Council. In contrast, Koniev insisted that ‘military expenditure was within the exclusive competence of each Government and, by its nature, secret; it therefore could not, for any reason, be submitted to the Allied Council’. 15 In the end, the prospect of deadlock in the ACA over this issue was averted in late October by an understanding between the Allies that the distribution of Austrian currency among the occupation forces would be the subject of informal conferences among the commanders in chief, rather than a formal meeting of the Allied Council. The matter of costs was linked to Britain’s continuing manpower problem. Manpower was, in fact, one of the last controversial issues in the ACA in 1945. On 13 November General Clark was given wide publicity for saying that, once a responsible Austrian Government was freely elected, the size of the occupation forces could be reduced. This gave the Austrian press the signal to discuss the topic. The Arbeiter Zeitung, for example, quoted a remark of Renner’s: ‘We must see to it that the foreign occupation troops can go home as quickly as possible.’ According to The Times of 4 December, Renner thought 30,000 troops should be sufficient, but London estimated that the Soviets had 180,000 troops, the Americans 70,000, the British 75,000 and the French 40,000.16


Renner wrote to Bevin: ‘The country is perfectly quiet, absolutely free from National Socialist agitation, absolutely inclined to peace and for its protection as well as for the safety of the Allies really no longer requires military occupation.’17 The Austrians were eager to reduce the size of the occupation forces, since they found it difficult to meet the costs entailed or find the accommodation necessary. The large numbers of troops were also an uncontrollable factor in inflation, the Red Army being the greatest offender. It was obvious, however, that only a reduction could be asked for, since the Soviets would never agree to complete withdrawal, as Renner recognised. The Secretary of State for War, Lawson, proposed that a short-term solution could be found if Britain could persuade Moscow to drop the number of its forces down to parity with the rest. He considered that the best way to do this was to make a diplomatic approach to the Allied governments, suggesting that they should agree to a general reduction, with the view to reaching similar numbers after a few months; the suggested figure for this being 40,000–45,000 troops each. If they agreed to this, the Allied Council could work out a scheme. Moscow’s reaction to this was predictable. Such matters could not be settled by the Allied Council, but only by the individual governments. The British position was based on the fact that McCreery calculated that Britain needed a minimum of two divisions, about 60,000 men, in Austria. This figure would allow for a drop of 10,000 in existing forces. McCreery sympathised with the Austrians and was only too aware of his own manpower difficulties. He was also anxious that as many of his men as possible should spend Christmas at home. But it was necessary, as always, to secure Allied unanimity; and differences between the Allies’ internal policies were already clear. Moreover, McCreery thought that an early withdrawal was unwise for a number of reasons. In mid-winter it would cause great administrative difficulties. Food and fuel, for example, would have to be imported into Austria until at least mid-1946. Large numbers of DPs still existed. In addition, Austria was still under the economic death sentence imposed at Potsdam, whereby up to 70 per cent of her industry could be reckoned as German external assets. McCreery thought a reduction in force numbers was not operationally possible before April. For example, the frontier-control commitments of the British at that time included guard duties of all kinds, and seven battalions were engaged in duty on the Yugoslav border at the end of 1945. This meant that resources were fully stretched, with many troops on guard duty every other night. But he agreed with Mack’s proposals that immediate scaling-down plans


should be drawn up, that the Allies should agree to withdraw by 1 April 1946, that Austrians be enlisted as frontier guards, that UNRRA work be speeded up, and that the Potsdam clause be redefined so as to allow the Austrian Government to take over and administer the so-called German assets, subject to the obligation to pay a certain amount in respect of reparations costs. The debate over occupation costs and manpower levels was symbolic of the way in which Britain’s resources were overstreatched, while Moscow progressively abandoned co-operation with its wartime Allies. However, relations with the Soviets, if they rarely became better than formal, never became worse than cool during 1945. The high expectations of the early months of occupation were disappointed, according to McCreery, because the ‘Soviet attitude was uniformly obstructive on all the main questions … virtually nothing was being achieved owing to the lack of give and take.’ 18 But, so far as day-to-day co-operation with the Soviets was concerned, the disappointment was only partial, and the Allied Council continued to work relatively efficiently. Whenever the required action derived from wartime anti-Nazi objectives, four power agreement was comparatively quick. And sufficient unity of purpose remained for most of 1945 to secure written agreement on the essential first steps towards an independent Austria, to which all four had pledged themselves two years earlier in Moscow.

11 Planning for Postwar Austria

In a reference to inter-Allied preparations for the postwar world during 1943, Lord Gladwyn wrote in his memoirs: ‘There was excellent planning for war … but nothing similar existed for deciding what we were going to do when victory was achieved.’1 In many respects, the opposite was true for Austria. There was some excellent wartime planning, though there was much that was inefficient, but it was prompted and shaped by the objectives to be achieved once the war ended: Austria was to be liberated and restored to independence by means of a military government and an Allied commission. Building on a sentimental acknowledgment of Austria’s symbolic (not to say strategic) importance, British planners developed a policy on Austria’s future which was then reconciled with those of her Allies and translated into practical requirements. In addition to sentiment and the need for co-ordination, the main factors influencing the development of British policy were the lack of firm knowledge as to what was happening inside Austria, and, later on, the need to ensure that ACA did not operate at the expense of British interests and resources. The relationship between policy and the strategic developments on which it was ultimately dependent was tight though shifting during the war, and significant levels of political guidance were needed to translate military activity into the type of administration required. Strategy was, in turn, determined by military developments and Allied politics, as well as more localised concerns. Military planning for Austria in postwar Europe existed in something of an operational vacuum before 1945, but it was always influenced by political directives. For by 1944 a change had taken place in the overall shape of the war. After the success of OVERLORD, the Grand Design for Europe disappeared, to be replaced by a series of local designs. 197


Operational strategy became increasingly the concern of theatre commanders, while the consequences of this change became more the concern of the Foreign Office, who were brought into closer contact with the details of local planning. Furthermore, political considerations inevitably dominated developments in Austria, especially during the last six months of 1945. Career soldiers, such as McCreery and Winterton, performed increasingly politicised tasks. The question arises of how good was the planning for Austria. As events in the last half of 1945 show, planning worked in terms of short-term results: the ACA was successfully established and elections were held. The foundations of an independent Austria were laid. Planning also worked reasonably as a process, at both British and Allied levels, within the constraints of war and tension between the Allies. In the case of Britain, it was frequently based on uncritical thinking which, combined with the secondary nature of the Austrian problem, and the lack of knowledge about the internal situation, meant that it was too often indecisive, inefficient, untimely, and not totally effective. But it still produced the desired result. British planning was more impressive when seen in the light of Allied planning processes generally. At this level it was comparatively efficient, given the need for focus and reconciliation. Each ally was mistrusted and seen as obstructive, selfish, petty or short-sighted by the others at various times, so co-operation was vital This was so at all levels, from negotiations within the EAC to matters affecting the civil administration of Vienna. The negotiations underpinning policy were, however, undeniably prolonged and difficult. Too often the translation of policy into planning was hampered by the fact that self-interest required instead a restating of positions or issues. This stemmed from the fact that firm decisions had not been taken by the Allies before the war ended, and that co-ordination with the Soviets was an ideal rather than a fact. The documents reveal the processes, partly empirical and partly based on what can only be described as intuition and opportunism, the British government made up its mind on critical issues. Policy appears to have been gradually sifted out of the reworking of ideas already common in 1939. British aims for postwar Austria emerged from a welter of political and emotional considerations: political considerations derived from the importance of Austria in Europe, and emotions reinforcing this came from the reaction to Britain’s role during the Anschluss. Furthermore, information about the state of affairs in Austria remained poor, so decisions tended to be based on

Planning for Postwar Austria 199

specific papers which then appear to have been considered almost in isolation. The danger was that decisions would be slow and strategy would outrun policy. SACMED was particularly aware of this, for which delays in the EAC, the need for London to have the support of Washington, hesitation in the Foreign Office, unsatisfactory liaison between London and SACMED, and the plethora of planning bodies were responsible. None of the planners concerned appeared to have a comprehensive picture of the activities taking place in London and Italy, and liaison was frequently unsatisfactory. The Moscow Declaration, the EAC and the agreed Allied aims provided a focus for the major points of policy, but the necessary processes and details were often unclear. The major mistakes of Italy, Africa and Sicily were, however, avoided; details, rather than overall plans, were at fault at the practical level, with SACMED, for instance, relying too heavily on experience in Italy. Nevertheless, British military government in Austria functioned with reasonable efficiency in practice. The Allied administration showed an overall record of progress in 1945, the more remarkable because it was often achieved in the face of problems for which only pragmatism and the general heritage of the Moscow Declaration and the EAC agreement of June 1945 were the major guidelines.

Notes Chapter 1 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14.

Joint Chiefs of Staff were inter-service, but of one nationality. Harrison, 10 March 1943, FO 371/38839. SHAEF to G5, AFHQ, 3 September 1944, WO 204/3031. COS, 17 August 1944, CAB 66, WP (44) 449. AFHQ, February 1945, WO 193/368. ‘Military Government exists to keep the civil population from under the feet of the Army.’ Eisenhower, quoted in B.N. Reckitt, Diary of Military Government in Germany 1945 (Ilfracombe, 1989), frontispiece. The War Office Manual of Military Law defined this as ‘the principle that a belligerent is justified in applying compulsion and force … [for] the complete submission of the enemy at the earliest possible moment with the least possible expenditure of men, resources and money.’ Quoted in C.V. Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Government: Central Organization and Planning (London, 1966), p. 119. SACMED’s designation covered all three services and a wide range of responsibilities. AFHQ to SHAEF, 26 August 1944, WO 204/3031. Ibid. FO 371/40734. Gladwyn Jebb, The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn (London, 1972), p. 132. It had two branches. The object of the Operations Committee was to enable the Prime Minister, with his essential advisers, to consider the current military situation and future operations. The Defence Committee (Supply) laid down the main features of the supply programme for the armed forces, and reviewed their progress. J. Erhman, Grand Strategy 6 (London, 1956), p. 326. According to Ismay, Churchill ‘never overrode the Chiefs of Staff. He may sometimes have overborne them, by the weight of his personality or the pertinacity of his arguments – indeed I think he certainly did – but he always tried (by every means) to carry them along with him.’ Ismay to Norman Brooke, 27 January 1959, Ismay papers, 1/14/8. Jebb, Memoirs, p. 57.

Chapter 2 1. Campbell, 15 September 1943, FO 371/34466. The communiqué containing the declaration was released on 11 November 1943. 2. The Nazis had their forerunners in the German Workers Party founded in the Sudetenland in 1904. In 1918, the movement had split, the Vienna group choosing the name later adopted by the Nazis – the German National

200

Notes 201

3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

Socialist Workers Party. In 1920, the leader of this group, Walter Riehl, introduced the swastika as the party emblem. Hitler himself was born in Upper Austria, and Vienna was the scene of his early humiliation and failure. ‘Vienna’, he admitted, ‘taught me the most profound lessons of my life.’ A. Hitler, Mein Kampf (London, 1939), p. 33. M. Balfour and J. Mair, Survey of International Affairs 1939–1946: Four Power Control in Germany and Austria 1945–46 (London, 1956), p. 274. HC Deb. 5th ser, 423, 1861. K. Schuschnigg, The Brutal Takeover (London, 1969), p. 29. However, in the German Peace Treaty of 28 June 1919, Anschluss was forbidden, and Germany undertook to recognise Austrian independence as inviolable unless the League of Nations unanimously agreed otherwise. This ban was not included in the original draft of the Austrian peace treaty, the Treaty of Saint-Germain, of June and July 1919. But, in the final draft it appeared, on French insistence, as Article 88. K. Waldheim, The Austrian Example (London, 1973), p. 24. HC Deb. 5th ser, 313, 1228. This produced a disastrous effect in all Western capitals. Eden was requested by Baron von Franckenstein (Austrian envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary in London) to reply to a parliamentary question on the matter along the lines that the meeting had enabled Austria to settle her problems with Germany ‘without the slightest disturbance’. In 1938 Franckenstein became a naturalised British subject and was knighted. M. Gilbert and R. Gott, The Appeasers (London, 1963), p. 75; Sir N. Henderson, Failure of a Mission (London, 1940), p. 102. J. Harvey, The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey, 1937–40 (London, 1970), p. 91. Harvey, Diplomatic Diaries, pp. 90, 91. He was not given office until 1940. He made his name as British Minister Resident in North Africa, despite being removed from mainstream policymaking in London. HC Deb. 5th ser, 333, 45. HL Deb. 5th ser, 108, 77. Allen, 19 February 1943, FO 371/34464. Lord Cranbourne replied for the Government along the above lines. He said that whereas Austrians had been in the USA for many years, in Britain they were recent arrivals. Harrison, 4 July 1944, FO 371/38839. E. Barker, Austria, 1918–1972 (London, 1973), p. 135. Harrison to Eden, 28 November 1943, FO 371/34467. They are listed in Eden to HMG representatives abroad, FO 371/34467. Roberts, 1 May 1943, FO 371/34464. H. Guderian, Panzer Leader (London, 1952), p. 51. In 1934, when police raids on Social Democrat offices led to bloodshed and the barricades. K. Stadler, ‘Austrian Resistance to German Rule and the Development of Austrian National Aspiration 1938–45’ unpublished thesis (Nottingham, 1969), p. 133. Stadler, Austrian Resistance, p. 133.

202 Notes 24. He was hanged in 1946 for his record as the wartime Reichskommissar of the Netherlands. 25. Resistance groups ranged from youthful idealists (such as the so-called student group, the Grey Free Troops) in the early years of the war, to regular partisan bands operating in areas such as the Leitha Hills of the Burgenland, and to the group of Austrian officers serving on Wehrmacht staffs in Vienna who plotted to liberate the capital for the advancing Allies to occupy in 1945. The O5 organisation, which was constructed in the last six months of the war, was the best known resistance group. O5 was a code abbreviation for Oesterreich, O being the first letter of the symbol, and E the fifth letter of the alphabet. To begin with, O5 was little more than symbol, but by the end this fact probably outweighed any physical results it might achieve. Like the V-sign it was a dramatic success. Many commentators put the total number of Austrians killed or imprisoned for opposition to Hitler at between 80,000 and 100,000. But it is impossible to estimate precise figures because, apart from suffering from lack of publicity in the West, Austrian resistance activities lacked a central authority. There was no dramatic martyrdom to act as a rallying point, and Austria’s most likely candidates for leadership had either fled abroad, been arrested or sent to concentration camps. Hitler always hated and distrusted Vienna, the scene of his earlier humiliation and failure. And Vienna was the only city in the Reich where the Generals’ coup of 20 July 1944 succeeded (even though its failure in Berlin prevented any advantage being taken of its success). But the first cases of sabotage were not known in the West until 1942, and the first important strikes were not heard of until 1943. C. T. Grayson, Austria’s International Position, 1938–1953 (Geneva, 1953), p. 39. 26. A. Brissaud, The Biography of Admiral Canaris, Chief of German Military Intelligence in the Second World War (London, 1973), p. 86. 27. On 20 June 1944, O’Neil asked, ‘Is any serious sabotage being undertaken?’ FO 371/38839. 28. HC Deb. 5th ser, 408, 1665–6. 29. Harrison, 10 February 1945, FO 371/46609. Archduke Robert repeatedly contacted the Foreign Office with reports of resistance activity but was never regarded as a reliable witness. 30. Harrison, 16 June 1945, FO 371/38839. 31. Joint Weekly Intelligence Summary, 7, 17 August 1945, FO 371/46612. 32. Red-White-Red Book: Justice for Austria. Descriptions, Documents and Proofs to the Antecedents and History of the Occupation of Austria (from Official Sources) (Vienna, 1947), p. 147; G. Shepherd, The Austrian Odyssey (London, 1957). 33. The city on the Oder which was still fighting the Red Army when Berlin surrendered. 34. Eden, 11 March 1944, FO 371/38839. 35. Wilson to Harrison, 13 June 1944, FO 371/38839. 36. 16 February 1944, FO 371/38839. 37. A. Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: The War of Words (London, 1970), pp. 111, 431. The British press contained few references to resistance activity in Austria. It was different in the USA where, in late 1944,

Notes 203

38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48.

the New York Times carried a number of articles dealing with anti-Nazi action. 20 October 1944, FO 371/38839. That Anschluss was tacitly recognised was made clear when Britain entered into agreements with Germany in 1938 and 1939; the inclusion of Austria in Germany was implicit because agreements covered Austria as well as Germany. The USA accepted the Anschluss de facto, but did not recognise it de jure. HC Deb. 5th ser, 383, 123–4. Red-White-Red Book, pp. 1, 207. Grey, 11 January 1941, FO 371/26537. Avon, the Earl of, The Eden Memoirs: Facing the Dictators (London, 1963), p. 289. HL Deb. 5th ser, 125, 800–1. Makins, 3 February 1942, FO 371/30910. Makins (later Lord Sherfield) went with Macmillan when the latter’s office moved to Greece in late 1944, but was soon recalled to London, where he stayed for the rest of the war. In London he was the Foreign Office contact with Military Intelligence (Research), which worked under the auspices of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Macmillan wrote of his ‘rapier-like brain’. Eden, 10 June 1942, PREM 4, 33/7. Eden, 9 September 1942, FO 371/30943.

Chapter 3 1. Scarlett, 5 January 1943, FO 371/34464. ‘We had even by then got into the habit of referring to the post war authority as the United Nations, presumably because Roosevelt had used this term when he tried to rally the Allied Governments in Washington’ in 1943. Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, p. 127. 2. Allen, 13 January 1943, FO 371/34464. It is not clear whether this belief was approved by the Cabinet. Allen’s views should be contrasted with those of Harrison and Grey. Grey thought that the majority of Austrians accepted Anschluss. 11 January 1941, FO 371/26537. 3. Roberts, 26 February 1943. 4. All planning exhibited an underestimation of Austrian political awareness. It was later thought that a political vacuum existed in the country, so the Renner Government caught the Western Allies by surprise in April 1945. 5. Roberts, 7 March 1943, FO 371/34464. 6. Eden, 25 May 1943, PREM 4, 33/7, WP(43) 218. 7. Central Department, 3 April 1943, FO 371/34464. 8. Barker, Austria, pp. 144–5. 9. M. Matloff and E.M. Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943, 1944 (Washington DC, 1953), pp. 11, 491. 10. W. Leahy, I Was There (London, 1950), p. 334. 11. 16 August 1943 (dated 12 July 1943), FO 371/34465. 12. P.E. Mosely, ‘The Treaty with Austria’, International Organization (May 1950), pp. 227f. 13. Intelligence paper, 12 June 1943, FO 371/38839.

204 Notes 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

APW meeting, 18 May 1944, WO 106/4019. Barker, Austria, p. 139. Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, p. 118. ‘War and the Working Class’, reported in the Manchester Guardian, 18 November 1943. This was considered as ‘Quite an interesting statement of the Soviet Government’s attitude on the basis of the Moscow Declaration’. Allen, 4 December 1943, FO 371/34467. Grayson, Austria’s International Position, pp. 61–2. R.E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins (London, 1949), pp. 11, 789. Sherwood, White House Papers, p. 358. HC Deb. 5th ser, 410, 1881. The Protocol stated that the three Governments ‘Jointly declare their mutual agreement to concert during the temporary period of instability in liberated Europe the policy of their three governments in assisting the peoples liberated from the domination of Nazi Germany and the peoples of the former Axis states to solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter – the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live – the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations.’ Compiled from Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book (London, 1943–5).

Chapter 4 1. Terms of Reference, 11 January 1944, FO 371/40580. The origins of the EAC were to be found in the United Nations Commission for Armistice and PostArmistice Problems, which Gladwyn Jebb had worked on earlier in the year. 2. The EAC, according to the original British proposal of 2 July 1943, would assume ‘authority in Europe to direct and coordinate the activity of the several Armistice Committees, the Allied Commanders in Chief and any United Nations civilian authorities that may be established; and to deal with current problems, military, political and economic, connected with the maintenance of order’. PHP(43)20, Final Annex, 1 July 1943, CAB 81/41. 3. F. King, The New Internationalism: Allied Policy and the European Peace 1939–1945 (London, 1973), p. 127. 4. King, New Internationalism, p. 127. 5. Hood, 19 May 1944, FO 371/40734. 6. Private conversation with M.F. Cullis, 5 March 1974. The remark was based on intelligence from a Soviet defector to the West in 1945. 7. Planning paper 2, Austrian Planning Section, US Army, 27 May 1944, FO 371/40734. 8. Sub-committee minutes, 15 May 1944, FO 371/40736. 9. Strang, 18 August 1944, FO 371/40734. In 1945, it was the Soviet Union which wished to include other contingents, and Britain which would not agree to it on the grounds that too many minor Allies would wish to take part, and that the Moscow Declaration had specified only the three major Allies. Sargent to Churchill, 30 March 1945, FO 371/50665.

Notes 205 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

2 November 1944, FO 371/40735. ACA Report, 9 January 1945, FO 371/50662. Strang, 23 January 1945, FO 371/50662. PHP Committee, 20 January 1945, FO 371/50662. Private conversation, 3 January 1973. Winterton was appointed Deputy Commissioner (Military) and, as such, became responsible for co-ordinating the move of the British Element to Italy in the spring of 1945, where it would join the American Element. Mack, 27 March 1945, FO 371/46626. ACA, 17 January 1945, FO 371/50831. Hood, 27 January 1945, FO 371/50663. Hood, 6 February 1945, FO 371/50663. Roberts, 22 April 1945, FO 371/50665. MO5, 13 February 1945, WO 106/4019. MO5 was a branch of the Directorate of Military Operations in the War Office. Strang became Political Adviser to the British Commander in Chief in Germany on 5 June. Agreement between the … United Kingdom, United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the … French Republic concerning Control Machinery and Zones of Occupation in Austria and the Administration of the City of Vienna, London 4 July, 9 July, Vienna 28 June 1946 (London, 1946), Cmd. 6958.

Chapter 5 1. Under the standard usage developed in 1941, ‘combined’ referred to AngloAmerican arrangements, whereas ‘joint’ meant inter-service arrangements in only one of the two countries. 2. Unsigned, 21 January 1944, CAB 88/24. 3. SHAEF to AFHQ, 29 April 1944, WO 204/572. 4. Makins to Jebb, 5 August 1944, FO 371/40734. 5. Peake to Troutbeck, 29 March 1944, FO 371/38840. The paper dated March 1944, provides a good illustration of the type of repetitive work carried out. 6. CCS to War Cabinet Office, 22 April 1944, FO 371/40633. 7. Unsigned, 28 April 1944, FO 371/40734. 8. SHAEF to AFHQ, 27 April 1944, FO 371/40734. 9. Kesselring was one of Germany’s most outstanding army group commanders. Alexander said he could be out-thought but rarely out-fought. 10. Strang, 29 March 1944, FO 371/38840. 11. Churchill to Eden, 22 May 1944, FO 371/40734. 12. Unsigned, 25 June 1944, CAB 88/24. 13. Eden to Mack, 6 June 1944, FO 371/40734. 14. Maxwell, 2 May 1944, FO 371/40734. 15. PHP Committee, 3 May 1944, FO 371/40734. 16. PHP Committee to War Cabinet, 1 June 1944, FO 371/40734. 17. Ward, 30 May 1944, FO 371/40734; Ward to J.S.M., July 1944, WO 106/4019. An implication was that SACMED’s civil affairs organisation should be integrated from the start. 18. Combined Civil Affairs Committee, undated July 1944, CAB 88/24.

206 Notes 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Seagrave to AFHQ, 8 July 1944, WO 204/2807(381/1). COS, 25 August 1944, FO 371/40735. O’Neil, 18 August 1944, FO 371/38849. Alexander to Leese, 24 September 1944, WO 214/45. AFHQ, 3 September 1944, WO 204/3031(381/1). Wilson to SHAEF, 24 October 1944, CAB 88/24. Troutbeck, 7 October 1944, FO 371/38851. Deputy Commissioner to Troutbeck, 9 October 1944, FO 371/38851. Winterton to Cadogan, 19 January 1945, FO 371/50663.

Chapter 6 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

ACA to AFHQ, 11 November 1944, WO 204/2815(381/1). British Element, Hammersmith, 17 November 1944, WO 204/2808. Vyvyan, 20 January 1945, FO 371/50663. Hood, 27 January 1945, FO 371/50663. P. Calvorcoressi and G. Wint, Total War: Causes and Courses of the Second World War (London, 1972), p. 554. The source of the quote is not given. It is not Djilas’s Conversations with Stalin (London, 1962). 6. Progress Report, ACA, 22 February 1945, FO 371/46597. Details were not provided. 7. COS to AFHQ, 23 February 1945, FO 371/46598. 8. Unsigned draft, March 1945, WO 204/3044

Chapter 7 1. Field Handbook of Military Government, 13 February 1945, FO 371/46644. 2. Thornley to Harrison, 16 June 1944, FO 371/38839. 3. Harrison, 21 June 1944, FO 371/38839. A pamphlet produced by the Free Austrian Movement in London in January 1945 spoke of many deserters hiding in forests, unwilling to die for either Austria or Germany. 31 January 1945, FO 371/46609. Cullis described the pamphlet as a ‘remarkable and informative production’. 4. SAC to CCS, 5 November 1944, WO 106/4018. 5. Harrison to War Cabinet Office, 18 October 1944, FO 371/38839; HQ Clowder Mission, 16 January 1944, WO 204/1954 (74/27). A central department in Whitehall allocated operational code names; ‘Clowder’ was chosen at random. 6. WO 204/1954 (74/27). 7. Director of Plans, 10 August 1944, WO 106/4019. 8. Lockhart to Warner, 9 August 1943, FO 371/36992. Lockhart thought this was the case ‘even if Anglo-American cooperation in the postwar world is unobtainable (and the ‘’if’’ expresses a large measure of doubt)’. 9. 13 October 1944, FO 371/38841. 10. In January 1944, for example, AFHQ summer plans were governed by the following factors: that the Soviets would take Vienna by March, and would occupy Austria completely; by the same date Kesselring would have withdrawn from Italy and the 15th Army Group would be on the line of the Adigne. HQ Clowder Mission, 16 January 1944, WO 204/1954 (74/27).

Notes 207 11. Jackling to G-5, March 1945, WO 204/3044. 12. Ward, 25 July 1944, FO 371/38840. 13. In the event, three British divisions finally entered Austria, namely the 6th Armoured Division, 46th Infantry Division, and the 78th Infantry Division. 14. Mediterranean Joint Planning Staff, 20 February 1945, WO 204/6872. 15. CCS to AFHQ and SHAEF, 17 April 1945, WO 106/4024. 16. A. Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field Marshal Kesselring (London: Greenhill, 1988), p. 279. For details of the end of the war in south Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, see pp. 280–4. 17. J. Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955 (London, 1985), p. 592, n. 2. 18. Leahy, I Was There, p. 383. 19. Stalin’s Correspondence, 11, Doc., 286, 206. 20. Leahy, I Was There, p. 391. 21. Stalin’s Correspondence, 11, Doc., 453, 345. 22. By this time he was Commander in Chief of the Western Theatre. 23. Kesselring, Memoirs, p. 281. 24. Sargent, 2 April 1945, FO 371/47881. 25. Roberts to Warner, 25 April 1945, FO 371/47882. 26. Alexander to COS, 28 February 1945, WO 106/4019. 27. FREEBORN, 2 May 1945, WO 204/1539. 28. Eden had earlier thought that ‘on the basis of such information as is available and of the declared intentions of other interested governments, there is no reason to suppose that Soviet and British interests need clash in Austria’. 9 August 1944, WP(44) 436. This should be contrasted with his later comment on the situation in Germany: ‘HMG believe that the de facto occupation by the British and American armies of large parts of the eventual Soviet zone is an important bargaining counter for obtaining satisfaction from the Soviet Government on a number of outstanding questions.’ 4 June 1945, WO 106/4020. 29. Alexander to CIGS, 3 May 1945, WO 214/45. 30. Kesselring, Memoirs, p. 280. 31. Sargent, 1 May 1945, FO 371/50666. 32. Alexander to COS, 9 May 1945, FO 371/48813.

Chapter 8 1. The number is difficult to establish. Dalgleish refers to under 50 officers for Carinthia and Styria’s population of 2 million, but this appears to refer to the situation at the end of the summer. J. Dalgleish, ‘Military Government, Austria’, Army Quarterly, LII, 2 (1946), p. 236. 2. F.S.V. Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Government: Central Organization and Planning (London, 1966), p. 95. 3. The committee was required to consider ‘the steps necessary on military grounds to ensure efficient civil administration of the territory liberated in Europe as the result of operations by forces of the United Nations’. 4. Hood, 23 February 1944, FO 371/38841. 5. Donnison, Central Organzation, p. 323.

208 Notes 6. F.S.V. Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Government: North-West Europe (London, 1961), p. 312. Its practical value often depended on personalities. Reckitt notes that in Germany it was supposed to consist of a commander (who might be a major or a lieutenant colonel), a public safety officer, usually a policeman in khaki, and two others, one of whom should have been trained in handling DPs. ‘Actually detachments were made up from any material available and each officer had had specialist training of some kind which he had to subordinate to the needs of the moment.’ B.N. Reckitt, Diary of Military Government in Germany 1945 (Ilfracombe, 1989), p. 17. Civil affairs training often presupposed the existence of communications and transport which did not exist. 7. AAI, August 1944, WO 106/3031; G-5 to G-3, 13 October 1944, WO 204/2807. 8. Seagrave to AFHQ, 8 July 1944, WO 204/2807. 9. Dalgleish, ‘Military Government: Austria’, p. 238. 10. ACA(BE) and US Control Council for Austria, Field Handbook of Austrian Government, 13 February 1945, FO 371/46644. 11. Some changes in its composition occurred later, and it became a political advisory committee. Similar events took place elsewhere in the following weeks. When British military-government officers entered Graz in Styria on 23 July, they also found a provisional Land government which had been set up by the Russians, four of its 12 members being Communists. This government was dissolved, but its head, Reinhold Machold, was called upon to form a new provisional government in which the Communists were not represented in excess of their local support. It was required not to enter into any relations with the Renner Government. Machold admitted that Renner had visited the area in May, but said that Renner had not made any approaches. At the same time as Styria’s new provincial government was established, the Carinthian Advisory Committee was raised to the status of a provisional Land government. 12. See Donnison, Central Organization, pp. 197–206; JSM to COS, 31 May 1945, WO 106/4022. McCreery later wrote that he had received ‘careful definitions of citizenship’ from the Foreign Office and had to ‘stick to the rules’. R.L.M., ‘Austria 1945’, The Delhi Spearman: The Regimental Journal of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales’s), 3: 1 (1969), pp. 98–109. See also Sunday Times, 6 January 1974; Christopher Booker, A Looking-Glass Tragedy: The Controversy over the Reparations from Austria in 1945 (London, 1998); Ian Mitchell The Cost of a Reputation: Aldington versus Tolstoy (London, 1998). 13. Quoted in Donnison, Central Organization, p. 201. 14. Draft White Paper, 12 January 1946, WO 204/3073. By January 1946 it was reported that 6,000 people had been interned in the British zone, and approximately 100 were still being arrested each week. The arrests were based largely, although not entirely, on ranks and appointments held in the Nazi Party and affiliated organisations, and it was these criteria which accounted for the more prominent, influential and ardent Nazis in the British zone. In addition, over 4,000 were dismissed after systematic and thorough examination of the political records of all officials in the civil administration and public services; anyone who was more than a nominal party member was dismissed.

Notes 209

Chapter 9 1. Winterton to COS, 10 June 1945, WO 204/915. Winterton reported that ‘The Russians appear genuinely anxious to see the Commission start work in Vienna and repeated several times that we are all late in Austria saying “People who are late are always punished”.’ 2. Winterton to COS, 13 June 1945, WO 204/915. 3. Stalin’s Correspondence, 1, Doc. 489, 366. 4. McCreery, 20 July 1945, FO 371/46618. 5. H.S. Truman, Year of Decision (New York, 1955), p. 53. 6. D. Dilks, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan OM, 1938–1945 (London, 1971), p. 765. 7. J.F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York, 1947), p. 76. 8. Ismay Papers, IV (Bur 1). 9. Attlee Papers, Box 16, University College, Oxford. 10. FRUS, Potsdam, II, Doc. 770. 11. This probably accounted for the casual fashion in which the matter was negotiated: the decision to spare Austria formal payment consisted of a twosentence exchange between Attlee and Stalin. It is, however, difficult to see how the West could have persuaded the Soviets to accept a position more in line with their own, since the Soviets were determined from the start to get as much as they could. 12. Quoted in M. Colvin, ‘Principal Issues in the U.S. Occupation of Austria, 1945–1948’, in H.A. Schmitt, ed., U.S. Occupation in Europe after World War II (Lawrence, KA, 1978), pp. 144–5. Clark also reported that the French representative, General Béthouart (with whom he established a good working relationship) sometimes took positions primarily to demonstrate French independence: ‘I was never really sure that I could go into a meeting on a vital question like feeding (with their support).’ 13. Winterton to McCreery, 11 August 1945, WO 106/4026. 14. The Soviet ration scale was from 825 calories a day to 1,640 for heavy workers. The Western Allies considered this to be inadequate. AFHQ’s scale was 1,550 calories for normal consumers to 2,760 calories for special categories of workers. McCreery to COS, 10 August 1945, WO 106/4026). 15. McCreery to Alexander, undated, WO 204/419. 16. Cullis, 22 September 1945, FO 371/46620. 17. Winterton, 29 August 1945, WO 106/4028. 18. 11 September 1945, WO 204/3045(381/1). It was decided that the Kommandatura should not meet until the Allied Council had settled the food issue. Consequently, the first meeting did not take place until 28 July. 19. There were also delays and difficulties with regard to Western policy control, owing to the division of responsibilities between various government departments.

Chapter 10 1. O’Neil, 25 July 1944, FO 371/38840. 2. Eden, 9 August 1944, CAB 66, WP(44)436.

210 Notes 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

O’Neil, 26 April 1945, FO 371/46614. Harrison, 10 July 1945, FO 371/46618). Churchill to Truman, 30 April 1945, PREM 4, 33/6. Mack, 4 May 1945, FO 371/46614. Recommendations for a provisional Austrian Government could then be made to the Allied Council. Mack to Nicholls, 21 June 1945, FO 371/46617. Harrison, 25 July 1945, FO 371/46629. Mack, 22 September 1945, FO 371/46620. McCreery thought Renner was ‘flabby’. BBC, 23 October 1945, FO 371/46633. Mack, 22 October 1945, FO 371/46622. Harvey minuted on it: ‘The Russians have put over a fast one, designed I suppose to gratify the Austrians whom they are otherwise antagonizing by the behaviour of their troops. It is also no doubt designed to give their representative, backed as he is by a marshal, pre-eminence over the three Allied political advisers and Commanders in Chief.’ Mack, 27 November 1945, FO 371/46623. ACA(BE), 19 November 1945, WO 204/3066. ACA(BE), 16 October 1945, FO 371/46634. Mack, 8 December 1945, FO 371/46636. At the same time, American estimates gave figures of 200,000, 47,000, 65,000, and 40,000 respectively. W. Bader, Austria Between East and West 1944–55 (Stanford, 1966), p. 55. Renner to Bevin, 16 October 1945, FO 371/46622. ACA, 30 October 1945, FO 371/46634.

Chapter 11 1. Gladwyn, Memoirs, p. 128.

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Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Stalin’s Correspondence with Churchill, Attlee, Roosevelt and Truman, 1941–1945 (Moscow, 1957)

2. Diaries and memoirs Avon, the Earl of, The Eden Memoirs: Facing the Dictators (London, 1963) Bradley, O., A Soldier’s Story (London, 1952)

214 Bibliography Brissaud, A., Canaris: The Biography of Admiral Canaris, Chief of German Military Intelligence in the Second World War (London, 1973) Bryant, A., Triumph in the West 1943–1946: Based on the Diaries and Autobiographical Notes of Field Marshal the Viscount Alanbrooke (London, 1959) Butler, Lord, The Art of the Possible (London, 1971) Byrnes, J.F., Speaking Frankly (New York, 1947) Ciano, Count, Ciano’s Diary, 1939–1943 (London, 1947) Clark, M., Calculated Risk (1940–1947) (London, 1951) Clark, M., From the Danube to the Yalu (London, 1954) Dalton, H., The Fateful Years: Memoirs 1931–1945 (London, 1957) Dilks, D., ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan OM, 1938–1945 (London, 1971) Feiling, K., The Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1970) Frankenstein, Sir G., Facts and Features of My Life (London, 1939) Jebb, G., The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn (London, 1972) Grew, J., Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, 1904–1945 (New York, 1952) Guderian, H., Panzer Leader (London, 1952) Harvey, J., ed., The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey, 1937–1940 (London, 1970) Henderson, Sir N., Failure of a Mission (London, 1940) Hull, C., Memoirs, II (New York, 1948) Irving, W. (trans.), The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keital (London, 1965) Kesselring, A., The Memoirs of Field Marshal Kesselring (London, 1988) Kirkpatrick, I. The Inner Circle (London, 1959) Leahy, W., I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman (London, 1950) Macmillan, H., Winds of Change, 1914–1939 (London, 1966) Montgomery, The Memoirs of Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery (London, 1958) North, J. ed., The Alexander Memoirs, 1940–1945 (London, 1962) Patton, G.S., War As I Knew It (New York, 1995) Reckitt, B.N., Diary of Military Government in Germany 1945 (Ilfracombe, 1989) Sherwood, R.E., The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins: January 1942–July 1945, II (London, 1949) Stimson, H.L. and Bundy, M., On Active Service in Peace and War (London, 1949) Truman, H.S., Memoirs: Year of Decision, I (New York, 1955) Vansittart, Lord, The Mist Procession (London, 1958) Williams, F., A Prime Minister Remember: The War and Post-War Memoirs of the Right Hon. Earl Attlee (London, 1961)

3.

Newspapers and magazines

Austria: A Monthly Report and Review, ACA(BE) (Vienna). The Economist Eighth Army News Daily Express Daily Telegraph Gazette of the Allied Commission for Austria Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 5 (London, 1946)

Bibliography 215 Manchester Guardian New York Times Observer Parade (Eighth Army magazine) Soldier (British Army magazine, produced monthly by the War Office and HQ BAOR, Welfare Section) Sunday Observer Sunday Times Stars and Stripes (magazine for US Armed Forces, Mediterranean) The Times Union Jack (Eighth Army newspaper)

Later works 1.

Books

Bader, W.B., Austria Between East and West 1945–55 (Stanford, 1966) Balfour, M. and Mair, J., Survey of International Affairs 1939–1946: Four Power Control in Germany and Austria (London, 1956) Barker, E., Austria, 1918–1972 (London, 1973) Bathurst, M.E. and Simpson, J.L., Germany and the North Atlantic Community: A Legal Survey (London, 1956) Benevenisti, E., The International Law of Occupation (Princeton, NJ, 1993) Blumenson, M., Mark Clark (London, 1985) Booker, C., A Looking-Glass Tragedy: The Controversy over the Reparations from Austria in 1945 (London, 1998) Braunthal, J., The Tragedy of Austria (London, 1948) Briggs, A., The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: The War of Words, III (London, 1970) Churchill, W., The History of the Second World War: Closing the Ring, V (London, 1952) Churchill, W., The History of the Second World War: Triumph and Tragedy, VI (London, 1954) Clemens, D.S., Yalta (New York, 1970) Dallek, R., ed., The Roosevelt Diplomacy and World War, II (New York, 1970) Deane, J.R., The Strange Alliance: The Story of American Efforts at Wartime Cooperation with Russia (New York, 1947) Dennet, R. and Johnson, J. E., Negotiating with the Russians (Boston, 1951) Divine, R., Roosevelt and World War II (Baltimore, 1969) Djilas, M., Conversations with Stalin (London, 1962) Friedrich, C.J. et al., American Experiences in Military Government in World War II (New York, 1948) Gehl, J., Austria, Germany and the Anschluss, 1931–38 (London, 1963) Gilbert, M. and Gott, R., The Appeasers (London, 1963) Glatov, G. von, The Occupation of Military Territory: A Commentary on the Law and Practice of Belligerent Occupation (Minneapolis, 1957) Grayson, C.T., Austria’s International Position, 1938–1953 (Geneva, 1953) Greenfield, K.R., American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration (Baltimore, 1963)

216 Bibliography Gruber, F., Between Liberation and Liberty: Austria in the Postwar World (New York, 1955) Hiscocks, R., The Rebirth of Austria (London, 1955) Holbourne, L.W., ed., War and Peace Aims of the United Nations, II (New York, 1948) Johnson, W., ed., Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference (New York, 1949) King, F.P., The New Internationalism: Allied Policy and the European Peace, 1939–1945 (London, 1973) Kolko, G., The Politics of War: Allied Diplomacy and the World Crisis of 1943–5 (London, 1969) Krabbe, H., Voices From Britain: Broadcasting History 1939–45 (New York, 1948) McDermot, G., The Eden Legacy and the Decline of British Diplomacy (London, 1969) Middlemas, K., Diplomacy of Illusion: The British Government and Germany, 1937–39 (London, 1972) Mitchell, I., The Cost of a Reputation: Aldington versus Tolstoy (London, 1998) Nicholson, N., The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–45, II (Aldershot, 1949) Opie, R. et al., The Search for Peace Settlements (Washington DC, 1951) Playfair, E., ed., International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories (Oxford, 1992) Price, G. Ward, Year of Reckoning (London, 1939) Quilter, D.C., ed., ‘No Dishonourable Name’: The 2nd & 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guard 1939–1946 (London, 1947) Ray, C., Algiers to Austria: A History of 78th Division in the Second World War (London, 1952) Robbins, K., Munich 1938 (London, 1968) Scharf, A., April 1945 in Vien (Vienna, 1948) Schmitt, H.A., ed., U.S. Occupation in Europe after World War II (Lawrence, KA, 1978) Schuschnigg, K. von, The Brutal Takeover (London, 1969) Shepherd, G. Brooke, The Austrian Odyssey (London, 1957) Shepherd, G. Brooke, Anschluss: The Rape of Austria (London, 1963) Stadler, K.R., Austria (London, 1971) Stettinus, E.R., Roosevelt and the Russians (London, 1950) Tait, E., Military Occupation and the Care and Repatriation of Displaced Persons (Cambridge, 1982) Tolstoy, N., Victims of Yalta (London, 1977) Ulam, A., Expansion and Co-existence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy from 1917–1967 (London, 1968) Vernant, J., The Refugee in the Post-War World (London, 1953) Voigts, A., Defence and Diplomacy: The Soldier and the Conduct of Foreign Relations (New York, 1956) Wagner, W., The Partitioning of Europe: A History of Soviet Expansion up to the Cleavage of Germany, 1918–1945 (Stuttgart, 1959) Waldheim, K., The Austrian Example (London, 1973) Woodbridge, G., UNRRA: The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association (New York, 1950)

Bibliography 217

2.

Articles and reports

Afanasyeva, O., ‘The Allied Commission for Austria’, World Today, V (December 1945) Bell, W.G., ‘Mission On The Morgan Line’, Army, 44, 7 (1994) Boas, G., ‘Human Relations in Military Government’, Public Opinion Quarterly, VII (1943) Bottome, P, ‘The Real Austria’, Spectator, 5028 (January 1944) British Troops in Austria, HQ, ‘The British Achievement in Austria, 1945–1948’ Army Quarterly, LVIII, 1 (1949) Bryant, A., ‘Some Factors Underlying British Foreign Policy’, International Affairs, XXII (April 1946) Budwell, P.W., ‘Ideals in American Diplomacy’, International Affairs, XXII (October 1946) Crankshaw, E., ‘Russia in Europe: The Conflict of Values’, International Affairs, XXII (October 1946) Dalgleish, J., ‘Military Government: Austria’, Army Quarterly, LII, 2 (1946) Erickson, E., ‘The Zoning of Austria’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 267 (January 1950) Geyde, G.E.R., ‘The Position of Austria’, Contemporary Review, (November 1946) Gould, S.W., ‘Austrian Attitudes towards the Anschluss, October 1918–September 1919’, Journal of Modern History, XXII (September 1950) Gruber, K., ‘Austria Holds On’, Foreign Affairs, XXIV, (April 1945) Gruber, K., ‘Austria Infelix’, Foreign Affairs, XXV (January 1947) Hadsel, W.N., ‘Austria Under Allied Occupation’, Foreign Policy Report, XXIV (November 1948) Mansoor, P.B.,’The Defense of the Vienna Bridgehead’, Armor, XCV, 1 (January–February 1986) McCreery, General Sir Richard, ‘Austria 1945’, The Delhi Spearman: The Regimental Journal of the 9th/12th Royal Lancer’s (Prince of Wales’s), 3, 1 (1969); 3, 2 (1970) Mosely, P.E., ‘The Occupation of Germany’, Foreign Affairs, XXVIII (January 1950) Mosely, P.E., ‘The Treaty with Austria’, International Organization, IV (May 1950) Pollak, O., ‘The Rebirth of Austria’, Contemporary Review, 167 (March 1945) Renner, K., ‘Austria: Key for War and Peace’, Foreign Affairs, XXVI (July 1948) Salmon, I., ‘Field Security in Austria’, Army Quarterly & Defence Journal, 128, 4 (1998) Schuster, Lord, ‘Military Government in Austria with Special Reference to the Administration of Justice in Occupied Territories’, Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law, 1 (1947) Selby, Sir W., ‘Austria Before the Anschluss and a View of Her Future Prospects’, International Relations, XXI (October 1945) Starnbrooke, F.G., ‘The German–Austrian Customs Union Project of 1931: A Study of German Methods and Motives’, Journal of Central European Affairs, XXI (April 1961) Zheltov, A., ‘For the Liberation of the Hungarian and Austrian Peoples’, Soviet Military Review, (February 1985)

Index AAI, see Allied Armies in Italy ACA, see Allied Commission for Austria ACAB, see Allied Commission for Austria, British Element administration, quadripartite, 179 AFHQ, see Allied Force Headquarters (Mediterranean) air fields, 67–8, 70, 71, 162–3; see also J Mission Aldington, Lord, see Low, Brigadier T. Alexander, Field Marshal Harold, 9, 70, 79, 81, 82, 124, 132, 159; see also ANVIL, SACMED, Tito Allen, W.D., 44, 203n2, 204n17 Allied Armies in Italy (AAI), 92 Allied Commission for Austria (ACA), 10, 62, 63, 73, 98, 100, 113, 165, 171, 172–9, 181, 184; see also Allied Council, Executive Council, Kommandatura, McCreery, Renner, Winterton Allied Commission for Austria, British Element, 62–3, 71–3, 94–6, 98–104, 178, 184 Allied Control Commission Italy, 106 Allied Council, 176 Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ), 8, 9, 29, 48, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84–5, 92–4, 109, 114–16, 123, 144; see also Clowder Mission Allied Military Government (AMG), 150–1 Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT), 5, 79, 140, 141 AMG, see Allied Military Government AMGOT, see Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories Anschluss, 16–19, 22–4, 200n2, 201n5, 203n39, 203n2 ANVIL, 82

Armistice Terms and Civil Administration Committee, 45–6 Army Council, 14 Atlantic Charter, 38, 204n22 Attlee, Clement, 19, 46 Austria, 1, 16–17, 111, 131–3 Austrian self-justification, 25–6 Austrians in Britain, 21 Baldwin, Sir Stanley, 17 basic detachment, 142–3, 208n6 BBC, 26–7 Bevin, Ernest, 41, 168 boundaries, tripartite, 54–6; see also tripartite divisions Bovenschen, Sir Frederick, 86 Bridges, Sir Edward, 12 Britain and Austria, 17–21, 27–31, 33–5, 41–3, 191–3, 197; see also Foreign Office, propaganda British attitudes to Soviets, 116, 121, 196; see also Foreign Office, Red Army British Troops in Austria (BTA), 92, 135, 159, 184 Broad, P., 109, 146 Brooke, General Sir Alan, 82 BTA, see British Troops in Austria Cadogan, Sir Alexander, 44 CCAO, see Chief Civil Affairs Officer CCS, see Combined Chiefs of Staff Chamberlain, Sir Neville, 17, 18 Cherrière, General P.R., 71, 182 Chief Civil Affairs Officer (CCAO), 5, 50 Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), 82 Chief of Staff to Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), 2, 77, 80 Churchill, Winston, 12–14, 19, 20, 21, 28, 29, 30, 41, 42, 43, 53, 56, 69, 70, 81, 82, 124, 168, 188

218

Index 219 Ciano, Count Galeazzo, 23 CIGS, see Chief of the Imperial General Staff civil affairs, 88–9, 93–4, 136–9, 139–52; see also displaced persons, G-5 Clark, General Mark, 64, 82, 173 Clowder Mission, 107, 109–11, 206n5; see also AFHQ, Combined Chiefs of Staff, resistance Colville, John, 119 Combined Chiefs of Staff (AngloAmerican), 13–14, 80, 87, 91, 200n13, 205n1 Control Office for Germany and Austria, 179–80; see Hyndquarters co-ordination, 12, 45, 46, 60, 79, 86, 91, 101, 114–15, 140, 146, 178, 194, 197–8; see also ACA, EAC COSSAC, see Chief of Staff to Supreme Allied Commander Cossacks, 153–4; see also Displaced Persons, Low, Macmillan, Tolstoy Council of Foreign Ministers, 172 Cranbourne, Viscount, 29, 201n14 CROSSWORD, 70, 119–21 Cullis, Michael F., 21, 44 currency, 193

entry, military, 1, 132–4 European Advisory Commission, 2, 40, 45–8, 51, 54, 56, 60, 65–7, 69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 80, 113, 114, 161, 164, 165, 204n1, 204n2; see also tripartite division Executive Council, 177 expenditure, 193–6 Fischer, Ernst, 188 Flory, General, 71 Floyd, General Sir Henry, 159 food, 165, 167, 168, 171–4, 175–6, 181, 193, 209n14 Foreign Office, 10, 14–15, 20, 21, 24–5, 29–30, 88, 91, 101, 102, 103, 113, 121, 123, 168, 180, 198–9; see also Cullis, Harrison, Harvey, Hood, Jebb, O’Neil, Roberts, Sargent, Troutbeck, Vyvyan, Ward Franckenstein, Sir George, 21, 25, 27 fraternisation, 58, 88, 89, 123 FREEBORN, 116, 123; see also RANKIN ‘C’

Danubian confederation, 19, 35, 38, 41–3 de-Nazification, 150, 156–8, 208n14 directives, 83, 87–8 disbandment, 155–6 displaced persons, 114, 134, 152–5 DRAGOON, 82 Dunn, James C., 39

G-5, General staff division, 86, 92, 97–8, 114–16, 143, 145–7, 149, 179; see civil affairs Germany vis-à-vis Austria, viii, 1, 86, 125, 137, 164, 180–2; see also Hyndquarters Gousev, Fedor, 45, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 64, 70 Grandi, Count Dino, 23 Grigg, Sir James, 65, 165 Guderian, General Heinz, 22 guilt, British, 17–20

EAC, see European Advisory Commission Economic and Reconstruction Department, 15; see also Jebb Eden, Anthony, 18, 25, 26, 29, 30, 35, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42, 56, 69, 124 Eighth Army, 92, 104, 132, 133, 159, 184, 189; see also BTA Eisenhower, General Dwight D., 51, 70, 77, 125–6

Habsburg, Archduke Otto, 36 Halifax, Viscount, 19, 20 Harrison, Sir Geoffrey W., 4, 21, 25, 26, 36, 44, 190 Harvey, Oliver, 18, 44 Henderson, Sir Arthur, 19 Henderson, Sir Nevile, 18 hesitancy, British, 3, 26–8, 32–5 Hitler, Adolf, 16, 200n2 Honner, Franz, 37, 157, 188

220 Index Hood, Viscount, 57, 71, 91, 100–1, 113–14, 165 Hull, Cordell, 39 Humphrey, Sir Geoffrey, 94 Hyndquarters, 180; see Control Office for Germany and Austria Ismay, General Sir Hastings, 12, 13, 168 Izvestia, 42 J Mission, 150, 162–4, 166 Jebb, H.M.G. (Lord Gladwyn), 12, 28, 42, 44, 79, 197 jeep, policemen in, 179 Joint Chiefs of Staff (British), 13–14, 125, 205n1 Joint Planning Staff, 13 Keightley, General Sir Charles, 133, 153, 158; see also Cossacks Kesselring, Field Marshal Albert, 81, 82, 112, 126, 132, 205n9; see also CROSSWORD, FREEBORN Kirby, General S.W., 86, 96 Kirkpatrick, Sir Ivone, 41 Kommandatura, 63, 64, 163, 175, 176, 177–8 Koniev, Marshal Ivan, 164, 171 Koplenig, Johann, 37 Kosak, General, 164–5 Law, Richard, 43, 50 Lawson, Jo, 154, 158, 159, 180, 195 Leahy, Admiral, 37, 120 legalism, Soviet, 171 Lloyd George, Earl David, 17 Lockhart, Sir Robert Bruce, 112 Low, Brigadier (Lord Aldington), 153; see also Cossacks Mack, W.H.B. (later Sir Henry), 65, 67, 98–9, 102, 159, 189 Macmillan, Harold, 19, 29, 48, 200n11; see also Cossacks Mair, J., 17 Maitland-Wilson, General Sir Henry, 7, 77

Makins, Roger, 15, 29–30, 79, 90, 203n46 manpower, 4, 85, 194–6 Massigli, M., 45 McCreery, General Sir Richard, 132–3, 158, 159–60, 168, 172–3, 174–5, 176, 180, 189, 191, 195–6; see also ACA McSherry, General F.J., 141 military administration, justification of, 4–10; see military government military government, 9, 126, 135, 151, 159–60, 199, 200n6; see also civil affairs, G-5, military administration Missions to Vienna, 67–9, 71, 91; see also Clowder, J Mission Molotov, Vyacheslav, 39, 119–20, 168, 170 Morgan, General Sir W.D., 130–1 Moscow conference 1943, 38–40; see also Moscow declaration Moscow Declaration, viii, 16, 35–8, 199, 204n9 Mosely, Phillip, 38 Mussolini, Benito, 23 National Redoubt, 108; see also 123–4, RANKIN ‘C’, FREEBORN New York Times, 56, 202n37 O5, 202n25 O’Neil, Sir Con, 44, 81, 91, 185–6 occupation, 1, 4, 107–8, 123–6, 131–4, 164–7; see also expenditure FREEBORN, National Redoubt OCTAGON, 54 OVERLORD, 15, 82, 123, 197 PHP, see Post Hostilities Planning Staff planning, 2–3, 76–8, 85, 116, 197–9; see also FREEBORN policy and strategy, relationship of, 3, 15, 197–9 Political Warfare Executive, 32–4, 36, 41, 112

Index 221 Portici, civil affairs school, 147, 148 Post Hostilities Planning Staff (PHP), 7, 45, 50, 85 Post Hostilities Planning SubCommittee, 15, 86, 95; see also Bovenschen Potsdam, conference, 39, 165–6, 167–70 propaganda, 26–7 RANKIN ‘C’, 87, 90, 112, 117; see FREEBORN Red Army, liaison with, 111–16, 125, 133, 196; see also FREEBORN Renner, Karl, 23, 169, 170, 172, 175, 185–91 reparations, 169–70, 209n11 requisitioning, 165 Red Army, 60, 68, 71, 76, 91, 105, 106, 111, 113, 165, 166, 171 resistance, 22–6, 202n25, 202n37; see also Clowder Mission, Political Warfare Executive, SOE responsibilities, allocation of, 77–80, 81, 84–5, 87–8, 90 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 23 rivalry, AFHQ and SHAEF, 77–92 Roberts, Frank, 15, 22, 34, 44, 67, 120 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 37, 42, 48, 53, 54, 70, 124 ‘S’ day, 131–2 SACMED, see Supreme Allied Commander Sargent, O., 15, 44, 121, 126, 165, 168 SCAEF, see Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Forces scenarios, 3; see also RANKIN ‘C’ scepticism, British, 23–5 Schuschnigg, Kurt von, 18 Seyss-Inquart, Dr Arthur, 23, 24 Shackleton, Wing Commander, 17S HAEF, see Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces Shepherd, G. Brooke, 26 Smuts, Sir Jan, 159 SOE, see Special Operations Executive, 108–9

sovereignty, 9 Special Operations Executive (SOE), 108–9 Stalin, Josif, 29, 37, 42, 43, 67, 91–2, 101, 120, 169, 172; see also CROSSWORD Strang, W. (later Sir William), 15, 39, 45, 53, 59, 64, 65, 66, 69, 205n21 Sunday Times, 108 Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean (SACMED), 2, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 90–1, 99, 123, 199; see also Alexander supreme authority, 6, 7–8, 9, 50, 62, 71–2, 101, 133 Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Forces (SCAEF), 76, 82–3 Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), 2, 51, 53, 76–80, 123 The Times, 40, 187 Tito, Marshall Josip, 57; see also Trieste Tolbukhin, Marshal Fedor I., 67, 68, 125, 162 Tolstoy, Nikolai, 153–4 Toynbee, Professor Arnold, 28, 44 Trieste, Tito’s claims to, 121–3, 126–7, 129–31, 133–4 tripartite division, 47–51, 53–4, 56–7, 65–9, 70–1, 85, 91, 93–4, 103–4, 105–6, 161, 164, 204n9, 207n28; see also J Mission, planning military Troutbeck, J.M., 44 Truman, Harry, 168 United Nations, 4, 46 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), 89, 114, 137, 155 UNRRA, see United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Vansittart, Sir Robert, 28 Venice, 159

222 Index Vienna sectors, 64, 66, 71, 161, 166–7, 175, 177, 181; see also ACA, airfields, J Mission, Kommandatura, zones Vyshinsky, Andrei, 39, 69 Vyvyan, J.M.K., 44 war aims, 1, 16–17, 28, 29–31 War Cabinet, 10–15, 86 War Office, 14, 76, 102, 113, 179

Ward, J.G., 116 Winant, John, 45, 53 Winterton, Brigadier T.J.W., 64, 71, 92–4, 96, 97, 98–9, 205n14 Wolff, General Karl, 70 Zheltov, General A.S., 160, 163, 173 zones, 1–2, 48–51, 53–62, 64, 67, 71, 93, 165–6, 181

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