How effective would an agreement in the early Cold War on a non-alignment of Germany have been, similar to the Austrian state treaty, in creating a strong buffer between the East and West?

This question might be better suited to /r/historicalwhatif

However, I don't think such an arrangement would have been possible. A major impetus for the split of Germany was the fact that dividing the country would quell Germany's military capacity. During the first half of the twentieth century, Germany nearly achieved hegemoic status in Europe twice, resulting in two World Wars. After WWI, France's President Georges Clemenceau, wanted to deindustrialize Germany and turn it into pasture land in order to prevent another German military buildup. It's possible that Germany would have risen again and led to another containment alliance between the USSR, France, Britain, and the United States. The Cold War's status as a Soviet-American rivalry was primarily due to the fact that Germany no longer had a serious possibility of establishing hegemony in Western Europe.