Hey CouncilOfReligion,

Coincidentally, I've recently learned a lot about Austria's post-war history by working on my masters thesis. Allow me to answer your question by describing what the occupations of Austria and Germany had in common and in what ways they were different.

Germany was under direct military occupation from 1945 until 1949. Afterwards it was divided into the German Democratic Republic (Soviet occupation zone) and the Federated Republic of Germany (French-British-American zones), though occupation technically did not end until 1990. Austria, on the other hand, was under military occupation from 1945 until 1955 and became a neutral state afterwards. Just like Germany, Austria was divided in Soviet, French, American and British zones, of roughly equal size. Just like Berlin, Vienna was divided between the four occupied powers as well. Both countries had an allied military council as the supreme authority during occupation. Both of them were staffed with one French, one American, one Soviet and one British member. The decisions that these councils made needed to be supported unanimously, something that would quickly become problematic.

This is where the similarities between the two occupations end though. Germany was treated as a defeated foe, while Austria was (at least diplomatically speaking) seen as a victim of Nazi Germany, not as a part of it. There was a military council overseeing Austria, but the country had its own elected government from 1945. This government acted relatively independent from the occupiers,, even though the Allied Military Council in Austria could overrule its decisions. Germany, on the other hand, was really occupied until 1949 - the Allied Military Council decided things in the country. Within their respective occupation zones though, the Soviet Union, the United States, France and Britian mostly followed their own policies. This meant that there could be large legal and political differences per occupation zone.

While the council could agree on more obvious things, like that war-criminals should be persecuted, more concrete moves to re-establish a form of German independence were difficult to agree on unanimously. Especially France was afraid that a newly independent Germany would surely become revanchist and might start a new war. How the new German state should be organised was also a contentious topic, as a result of the ideological divide between Western capitalism and Soviet communism. The Western powers feared that a Soviet takeover of the whole of Germany was imminent and the Soviets feared that the Western Powers could take over at any moment. Simply said, the Allied Military Council in Germany was a mess and relations deteriorated quickly, resulting in the councils collapse when the Soviets walked out in 1948. With East-West relations only worsening further as the Cold War developed, this proved impossible to reverse. The collapse of the Allied Military Council also meant that it could not de jure end the occupation, which only happened in 1990, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Even though the GDR and FRG were founded in 1949, they stayed occupied in the sense that there were large Soviet and Western armies stationed in these countries

While Austria was the subject of Cold War disputes in her own way, things evolved quite differently there. The allied powers were in agreement that it should become a neutral and independent republic as soon as possible. Remember that Austria was judged a victim by the allied powers, not as a part of Nazi Germany per se. There was no widespread fear that a newly independent Austria would soon conquer Europe or become nationalsocialist – though there were worries that independence could lead to Austria being annexed by Germany again. Since there was a civilian government ruling the country instead of direct allied military control, the Cold War tensions were also less consequential for Austria. While the talks about independence were soon tainted by the Cold War mistrust between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, the country remained undivided under the government of chancellor Figl. The Communist Party of Austria requested Stalin to consider dividing Austria in 1948, but he refused, as the resulting state of ‘Communist East Austria’ would be too small and artificial to be feasible. Talks pretty much collapsed in 1950, after a large and violent strike led by the Communist Party of Austria in october of that year. When negotiations about Austria’s independence resumed after Stalins death in 1953, they then resulted in an agreement on Austria as a neutral and independent republic relatively quickly. In 1955 the Staatsvertrag or ‘state treaty’ was signed between Austria and the four powers. After the treaty went into effect in the summer of that year, all foreign troops left the country.