From 1945-1955, Austria was under military occupation by the four Allied powers, much like Germany. Unlike its Germany, the geography of Austria and Vienna did not lend itself well to an easy partition. The military administration and occupation of Vienna was particularly cumbersome, with the Allies forming unified patrols (four men in a jeep) which was clumsy and did not lend itself well amidst the increasing suspicions of the early Cold War.

Much of this confused situation was the result of the Allies' muddled strategic planning with regards to Austria. Although the Moscow Declaration of 1943 had avowed that Austria was a separate nation that was the first victim of Hitler's aggression, the Allies behind the scenes held significant doubts about the viability of Austria as an independent state. Austria's seeming inability to resist Hitler in 1938 validated the opinion that the post-Versailles Treaty Austrian state was too small to keep out aggressors, but whose strategic location invited interlopers to interfere in Austrian politics. While Soviet foreign policy with regards to Austria was to keep their options open in the postwar order, the British floated various solutions such as a Danubian confederacy or a political union with Bavaria that would strengthen postwar Austria and prevent a resurgence of Prussian-German militarism. These plans proved stillborn, but the problem of Austria still remained. The British Deputy Undersecretary of State Oliver Harvey encapsulated how the British saw this dilemma:

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 command any following. Austria will fall into the first arms which are opened to her.

The Americans were reluctant to commit to a full-scale occupation of Austria and were content to push only for an occupation of Vienna. Both the Soviets and the British pushed for a full American commitment to Austria in order to relieve them of burdensome occupation costs. It was this pressure from their Allies coupled with the fear of a supposed "national redoubt " in the Alps that made the Americans switch course and commit to an occupation.

The first years of the occupation made Austria into one of the important sites for the early Cold War. The Americans' close proximity to Soviet troops and the unsettled nature of the occupation made it an epicenter for intelligence gathering operations. Although the Roosevelt State Department looked askance at the British plans for an Austrian-South German confederation. the Truman administration reversed course and proposed an East-West division of Austria in 1947, but the Soviets balked at this idea. The communist's electoral defeats in November 1945 Austrian elections had underscored to the Soviets the generally unfavorable attitude many Austrians held towards the Soviets. The fear in Moscow was that settling the Austrian question on terms proposed by the West would only benefit the West and undercut Soviet security. The result was stasis in Austria until the negotiations for the State Treaty began after Stalin's death.

After Stalin's death in 1953 and the resulting Thaw, the Soviets saw a renegotiation of the occupation as an opportunity to signal a new direction in the Soviet relationship in Europe. By negotiating an end to the Austrian occupation, the hope in Moscow was that the Soviets' position on a neutral Germany would gain traction in the FRG. On a more practical level, the ending of the occupation would end what was becoming a costly occupation for the Soviets. As negotiations for the Austrian State Treaty began, the Soviets staked out a basic position that Austria was to not seek a military alliance with an outside power and explicitly forbid any unification with Germany. A neutral Austria had an additional benefit to the Soviets by creating a gap in NATO's German and Italian front line, which would complicate NATO's existing military plans.

Many in the US State Department saw the Austrian State Treaty as Austria undertaking a voluntary decision to become another Switzerland. The Soviet's insistence on Austria's military neutrality was a marked change from other Soviet peace treaties. There was little concern of "Finlandization" in which a peace treaty with the Soviets also carried certain defense obligations that favored the Soviets. The Americans gambled that although neutral, Austria would politically and culturally align itself with the West. This gamble did pay off as the emerging political consensus in Austria was largely pro-Western.

The Western influence of the Cold War upon Austria was largely cultural. Austria's borders to the West were open, those to the Eastern bloc were, for the most part, not. American cultural missions flooded Austria with programs and materials as a part of the US's strategy of cultural diplomacy. Western products, tourists, and other connections further integrated Austria into the West, even if it could not join the various Western defensive alliance systems. Therefore, Austria emerged as something of an anomaly during the Cold War, culturally and economically connected to the West, but politically restrained by the Treaty from joining either Superpower bloc.

Sources

Steininger, Rolf. Austria, Germany, and the Cold War: From the Anschluss to the State Treaty 1938-1955. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008.

Wagnleitner, Reinhold. Coca-Colonization and the Cold War The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria After the Second World War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Austria/Vienna were jointly occupied by the four powers, just like Berlin. Unlike Germany, in 1955 the powers agreed to end their occupation on the condition that Austria stay neutral. That's why Austria never joined NATO.