There's a few things to note about Austria: they were considered to be the first victim of Nazi Germany rather than being considered Germany itself (if that makes sense). As such, the allied forces deemed Austria an independent state and the goal was to re-establish an Austrian government.

The second thing to note is that Austria was split by the allied forces. Where Germany was split into East and West Germany, Austria was split into four zones - all agreed by "the governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Provincial Government of the French Republic" (as per the treaty).

• Lower Austria was controlled by the Soviets.

• The province of Salzburg and a part of the province of Upper Austria was controlled by the US.

• The province of Tirol and Vorarlberg was controlled by France.

• The province of Carinthia and Styria was controlled by the UK.

• Vienna was occupied by all four forces so no one truly had control over the city.

There's a tonne of other information about the politics of Austria (it mirrored Germany a lot in Cold War terms) which other people can hopefully fill in a bit more but the annexation of Germany from Austria was decided (unanimously) a few years before the war officially ended. As such, its position as 'liberated' rather than 'defeated' was part of the reason why Austria was treated a little differently from those vying to control it in soft power.

It should be noted that the communists in Austria wanted to follow the model of Germany where the country would be split but this was vetoed by Andrei Zhdanov; Austria was more useful as a functioning state than the instability of Germany.

Hey there,

Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.

If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!