William Tyler
Harry Lime and Post War Vienna
William Tyler - Harry Lime and Post War Vienna
- Right, shall I fire away there? Sorry about that. We got carried away. As I’m sure many of you have been by the Ukraine crisis. Now I’m not of course talking about that today. I’m talking about post-war Austria, post-war Vienna, and I suppose an alternative title. I gave it the title “Harry Lime in Vienna,” because I thought you would all be able to think back to that fantastic Orson Welles film, which captures the essence of immediate post-war Vienna, and the fact that the films in black and white makes it even more atmospheric, shall we say. But another title is “One War Ends and Another War Begins.” The Second World War Ends and the Cold War begins. And in terms of Austria, the Cold War, you could argue, and some historians have argued that the Cold War actually started in Austria. So my story today is the story of Vienna and Austria in the decade after World War II, between 1945 and 1955. But my story doesn’t begin in Vienna, but in Moscow, and it doesn’t begin in 1945, but it begins in 1943. In 1943, the three allies, Britain, America, and the Soviet Union met at the Moscow Conference of 1943 during the 18th of October and the 11th of November. Large number of diplomats attended, generals attended and ministers attended. The ministers were foreign ministers, so it was Anthony Eden for Britain, Cordell Hull for the United States, and Molotov for Russia.
And they met and they decided on how they would pursue the war against Germany and its allies in Europe. They did not discuss Japan because Russia was not in the war against Japan, only joined that war at the very last move in order to secure the island of Sakhalin. That’s another story. But in 1943, they were planning how they war would be won. They were by 1943 confident that the war would be won, but they were also looking at what would happen post-war. And one of the things they looked at was the question of Austria. Austria you remember, had through the Anschluss in 1938, become an integrated part of Germany. It was no longer a separate state. It wasn’t a client state, it was Germany, and they needed to discuss about that. And the first thing they all agreed on was that the Anschluss of 1938, the union with Germany should be marked down as null and void. It did not exist. In other words, Austria would be reborn post-war as a separate country to Germany. They also went further and they said that the people of Austria, the Austrians, were to be held responsible for the declaration of participation with Germany in the war. Now that’s pushed largely by Molotov, and we’ll see later in this talk how the allies, the Western allies, Britain, France, and America view about denazification. The word that’s in the news again is different from the Russians idea of denazification, and maybe in the light of the Ukraine, that’s an important point to remember. Remember always that Putin is ex KGB not a particularly high ranking member of the KGB, but he was KGB. And therefore, he has all the history of that within. In fact, on one occasion, Putin said, “Once KGB always KGB.” Well, on the 25th of April 1945, the war ended, or at least it should have ended.
And I’m using here book on “The Cold War” by John Lewis Gaddis. John Lewis Gaddis’s book, “The Cold War,” lots of books on “The Cold War.” This just happens to be one that I always use ‘cause I think it’s a good historian. And he begins the book in this way. This was the way the war was supposed to end with cheers, handshakes, dancing, drinking, and hope. The date was the 25th of April 1945, the place, the east German city or Torgau on the Elbe, the event, the first meeting in the armies converging from opposite ends of the earth, that had cut Nazi Germany in two. Five days later, Adolf Hitler blew his brains out beneath the rubble that was left of Berlin. Just over a week after that, the Germans surrendered unconditionally. So the war was finally in Europe, at least the war with Germany was over. Gaddis goes on to write this. Why then years later would Churchill title his memoir of these events, triumph and tragedy, triumph, certainly, and tragedy. And Gaddis says, the answer to all these questions is much the same. That the ward being won by a coalition whose principal members were already at war ideologically and geopolitically, if not militarily. In other words, the division between Britain, France, and America, or with Marxist Russia. They were therefore at war already, ideologically and geopolitically, we won another. Whatever the Grand Alliances triumphs in the spring of '45 in defeating Germany, it success had always depended upon the pursuit of compatible objectives.
The compatible objective as agreed at Moscow, was unconditional surrender of Germany. By incompatible systems, Western liberal democracy, Russian, Russian Marxism incompatible systems. And Gaddis finishes by saying, “The tragedy was this. That victory would require that victors either to cease to be who they were or to give up much of what they had hoped by fighting the war to attain.” In other words, he said that as the Second World War ended and the Grand Alliance of Russia with the Western allies who defeated Hitler and Germany and Nazi Germany, the divisions between them resurfaced. Some of you may know that in 1945 Churchill was the opinion that we should move into an immediate real war with Russia to stop the expansion of Marxism within Europe and the wider world. The Americans were horrified at Churchill’s suggestion, and indeed it would’ve been madness. And Churchill even considered using the Wehrmacht at what remained of it as part of an allied advance on Russia. Well, Churchill was ahead of his time, because of course today, Germany is an integrate, reintegrated, and is a key member of NATO despite its lack of military forces and its lack of expenditure on military affairs in general. That of course is now going to change in the light of the Ukraine. But undoubtedly, in practise, the Americans were right. There was no way that we could continue. Although of course, it is later that year the Americans dropped the bombs on on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and we could have dropped bombs on Moscow, presumably, but that’s a might have been.
But I emphasise it to show you that this war did not end. It simply, it’s simply changed, slid slowly, but irretrievably into what we call the Cold War. I always find that term an extremely annoying one, because it was a very hot war in Korea. It was a very Hot War in Vietnam, but we call it the Cold War, one will I suppose with that title. In a book called “Killing Hitler’s Reich.” Which is the battle for Austria 1945. This is a very, in two senses the word, a very heavy tone. But if anyone who’s really interested in a day by day account of the collapse of Austrian '45, then “Killing Hitler’s Reich” is the book you need. It’s by a man called William Alan Webb. But in the very beginning, Webb writes this about Churchill, which I think is important. Winston Churchill had no illusion about Stalin’s plans for post-war Austria. He wrote letters to both President Roosevelt and then to President Truman expressing concerns about a Soviet block in Eastern Europe, including all or part of Austria. The Americans didn’t share his worries and trusted Stalin more than Churchill ever did. Events proved Churchill correct. I’m afraid by 1945, Churchill is an old man born in 1874. He’s an old man and Truman as well. Well, Truman more, Roosevelt rather admired Churchill on an individual personal basis. They got on well. Which drove Eleanor mad because they would stay up.
Now, Roosevelt went to bed very early, with Churchill, he couldn’t get to bed because Churchill said, drinking and talking into the early hours. But Roosevelt liked it, and they talked about things like books and things in the middle of the war. But by 1945, and particularly when Truman becomes president, they’re looking at Churchill aghast, really. This is an old man fighting old man’s battles, and they certainly don’t want to continue a hot war in Europe. If they had done, they would’ve won, and the world would’ve been better or the same or worse, answering 10,000 words if you want to think about that. Now, this new Cold War, as Churchill said to Roosevelt and then to Truman, he was worried about Austria, and indeed Austria was to be in the middle of this new Cold War as the Cold War began. We know, of course, and I hope a map reached you. We know, of course, that Austria and Vienna, like Germany and Berlin was divided four waves between the Russians, the Americans, the British, and the French. And we all know what happened in Germany that eventually, and very quickly, to be honest, the Americans, British, and French zones handed control to the people that subsequently become West Germans, including the parts of Berlin that the three Western allies held whereas of course, Russia did not, and turned East Germany into a client Marxist state.
Now the fear was, of course, that having split Vienna up in the same way, what Churchill fear is, is that the Russians will do what they are subsequently to do in Germany that is either to divide Austria into two, a western orientated independent Austria and a Russian client, Austria, or were still a Russian client entire Austria. So there was concern, at least by some people, and that really means by Churchill of what was going to happen. Now the new Austria or the old Austria, it depends how you look at it. What happens now is the Second Republic, the First Republic, remember, had started after the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, and lasted until the Anschluss of '38. Now a Second Republic, so they’re going back to pre-1938 is proclaimed on the 27th of April 1945 and the day the allied occupation of the country officially began. Yes, it may have officially begun, but so did the Cold War because neither the Americans, the British, or the French were there. It’s the Russians who are there, the Russians who have taken Vienna, and the Russians act pretty quickly. They first of all, decided to have and appoint a president and chancellor, and they appointed Renner. Now Renner, who had been a pre-war politician, actually you remember Austria fascists, but he’s nearly a Duke for the Russians, a figurehead if you like. And he’s required by the Russians to take Austrian Marxists into his government. They did that on the 20th April 1945.
And seven days later, after I just said the 27th of April, Renner declared Austrian independence and the Democratic state. Now Renner is hardly a Democrat, but that’s what was declared. The Russians also ensured that district administrations and local mayors were all appointed. Is that not exactly what Putin is doing in the Ukraine? As you sit and listen to me today, they don’t change their colour, does the Russians, they’re the same. Renner was overseen by Russian intelligence. They sat in the room with him. The Russians are pulling his strings. And as chancellor, Renner was forced to take a Secretary of State for the Interior and Secretary of State for Education, Marxists, Austria Marxists, but told by the Russians, these are the two men you must have. So holding the home ministry and education are key, are absolutely key, are they not? To the development of post Austrian, post-war Austria, the British are beside themselves that the Russians have jumped the gun by appointing an Austrian government under their control. The British say that this is simply a puppet Marxist state. Truman believed that Renner was a much more amenable figure than the British did, either Churchill or the incoming government of Attlee. but Truman said, no, no, I think we can do business with Renner. But on the other hand, even Truman believed that he was a front man for Kremlin policies. So post-war Austria didn’t set start off well.
It isn’t until July 1945 that the first Americans arrived in Vienna, which you remember was agreed to be divided four ways. Russian, American, French, and British, exactly the same as Berlin. So the first Americans to arrive in Vienna, and remember, this isn’t like Germany, this is this tiny alpine state created after the fall of the Habsburg. Vienna is the key to absolutely everything. The first Americans who arrive arrived in July '45, and just stopped the Russians gaining all control of all the oil fields. And they were only able to control the oil fields in their part, but they were doing a deal with Renner to take all Austrian. This was vetoed by the Americans. The British didn’t arrive until September 1945. And the French later than that, the allies, the Western allies refuse to accept Renner as chancellor. And so Renner from his point of view is he does want an independent Austria, but he obviously realises he’s a puppet of the Russians, but he’s cautious about the Western allies. And so he appointed as foreign minister, a man called Karl Gruber, who was very definitely pro-Western, pro-American, pro-British, pro-French, in an attempt to show America, because America’s the lead body in this, as in Germany, show America, that actually this isn’t a Marxist government, that we are wider than that. Not that the Americans or the British in particular were prepared to believe that, but he did reform his cabinet enough for the Western allies to say, okay, you can continue as chancellor, you can continue with your government. And they agreed that the division agreed before the war into four parts. All four allies agreed to that, including that in, sorry, in Vienna.
So it’s quite a positive, it’s quite a positive development. So the Second Austrian Republic is now going, but the government is odd. It’s odd and there’s going to be, and the Russians can’t stop that elections, can the Russians rig it? Well, quite difficult to rig it in Austria. It’s not going to really be possible for them to rig it. In “The History of Austria” that I’d be using by Steven Beller. Steven Beller writes this, and it’s important for me to read this I think at this point. “The transformation from fascist Austria to Democratic Austria had not been without its setbacks and hasn’t been since without its setbacks and some potentially tragic force. The economic prosperity and political cohesion of this Second Austrian Republic were made possible partly because of a sociopolitical path that led to political stagnation and partly by conspiratorial manipulation of the Austrian past. Next sentence is the critical one. All he’s saying there is once they’re up and running for themselves, they have coalitions. And it’s it these coalitions, well, we shall see in the weeks come ineffective. But Beller adds this, critical, abusive history helped cement Austrian national identity at the expense of Austrian self-understanding. Stop. After the fall of the Habsburg. Czechoslovakia, Hungary knew who they were. Austria did not know who it was. It had not been a country. They were Germans. That’s how they saw themselves. That’s why Vienna, Vienna of all places welcomed the Nazi troops in 1938 at the Anschluss. They hadn’t any idea what it was to be Austrian.
So Beller says, abusive history in other words, reinterpreting the war, helped cement Austrian national identity at expense of Austrian self-understanding. In other words, they were now saying, we were forced into Germany, we were forced to be Nazis. That isn’t who we are. We are Austrian, we are not Germans. Now that was a massive step, and they can only say that if they airbrush out of history, the appalling things that Austrians did during the period of 1938, '45, of which we mentioned last week, and everyone is aware. So the oddity of this is that this gives Austria the opportunity to become Austrian rather than hankering after being Germans, which was the position in the interwar years you remember. Now they see themselves as Austrian, but in order to see themselves as Austrian, they have to adjust the history. They have to adjust what happened during the war, and Beller adds finally, Austrians today are still living with unsettling consequences. And we shall look at that. What is Austria today? Have they really come to terms with the Second World War? We know neo-fascism is alive and well in Austria. clicking stir, for example. We’ve got problems with Austria still. It’s what South Africa tried and which Austria didn’t in terms of reconciliation. And I’m afraid the Western allies have to take America, Britain, France some of the blame, some of the blame for what happened. Now when the Russians moved in 1945, they sent both the Red Army, but with the Red Army came the intelligence services of Russia and they combed through Austria.
You remember they arrived in April by 23rd of May, they had arrested 268 former Red Army men who have pled, they’ve arrested 1,200 German soldiers from Wehrmacht and 1,655 Austrian Nazi civilians. In July, August, the Soviets brought in four regiments of intelligence, troops to what they called mop up Vienna, repression was so heavy against Austrian civilians at the Red Army’s reputation was so bad that by September 1945 the Kremlin issued an order forbidding a violent interrogations, the Kremlin. So you can imagine what the interrogations were like. Red Army morale sank as soldiers were not being sent home, and when they were sent home, their replacements didn’t want to come. And they thought that coming to Vienna they could do what they like. And throughout 1945 and 1946 is well-documented levels of Soviet plundering, rape, you name it. And the Russian officer court either could not or chose not to enforce order in their own troops. Austrian police records, Austrian police records for 1946 said that, Soviet soldiers usually drunk, accounted for more than 90% of registered crime. American soldiers by comparison, were only responsible for about five to 7% of the crime. So we can blame the Russians can we? Let me give as a Britain, British example, our hands are clean.
No, they’re not. Britain and America, but particularly Britain, 'cause they were in the British area, control repatriated, we don’t know how many, probably something like 40,000 Cossacks, Russians and Ukrainian Cossacks who had fought for Nazi Germany, and it had been agreed at Yalta that they would be handed back to Russia, Ukraine being part of Russia. We would hand them back to Russia as they were Russians. But what we were doing was handing them back to certain death. Some of them hadn’t even been born in Russia. Their families had left at the time of the revolution, but we handed 40,000. And the politician in Britain responsible was Harold Macmillan. Later Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan was the minister in the Mediterranean. He oversaw this. And the British historian, Alistair Horne, who is the biographer of Macmillan says it in the last journey of his life, when all this became public, Macmillan was haunted by this controversy and very hurt by it. In his diary, Macmillan wrote, "Among the surrendered Germans are about 40,000 Cossacks and white Russians with their wives and children. To hand them over to the Russians is condemning them to slavery, torture, and probably death. To refuses deeply to offend the Russians, and incidentally break the Yalta agreement. The British knew what they were doing.” British military leaders demonstrated with McMillan, you cannot send these people to their death. Macmillan was the resident minister for Central Mediterranean at the time. Macmillan overruled them and sent them, and sent them to their deaths in Russia. No one’s hands are clean in war, and we mustn’t think that our hands are necessarily absolutely verging clean. Neither American nor British nor French hands are clean.
Oh, you can argue, of course, that we were simply abiding by the agreement at Yalta. And it wasn’t for us to judge how Russia would deal with its own citizens. Oh, you can argue until the cows come home. But I leave the moral question to you to answer. Well, back in Austria November 1945, the first free elections are held since before the war. And I said that the Russians couldn’t control these elections. And I’m right, why? Because only just over 5% of the people voted for the Austrian Communist Party. And the two parties, Democratic parties, which formed a coalition, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, that is to say, centre right, centre left, got between them 90% of the vote. So the Austrians got the government that they wanted, and the Russians nose is put out of joint you might say. The chancellorship was obviously no longer going to be with Renner where it had been when the Russians came in earlier that year. But goes to the Christian Democrat, a man called Julius Raab, no relation as far as I’m aware of the current British Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, whose family were from Czechoslovakia, not from Austria. The Soviets veto Raab’s appointment because he was an Austria fascist that didn’t seem to concern them earlier in 1945 when Renner was given the job, but now it does concern, oh no, no, we can’t have him, he’s a fascist, they say. And Renner, who’s been kicked upstairs to be president with limited, very limited powers, then appoints a new chancellor as approved by the Austrian parliament themselves. And the Soviets and the three Western allies agree to that. On the other hand, Russia retaliates by expropriating vast parts of Austria’s economic assets, which happened to be in the Russian era. You remember in East, East Germany how all the heavy industry and machinery was taken back to Russia.
All the same happens in the Russian controlled zone of Austria. Now there is at this point a difference of opinion between the Soviet Union and the Western allies. The Soviet Union wished to pursue a policy of denazification which would end with trials and possible executions, but also sackings from important jobs. The allies, of course, with the Austrian government want to turn the page over, start afresh. Don’t ask what did you do in the war? Turn the page over. Now the allies remembered, did exactly the same in Germany. So we have high ranking Nazis, impositions of power economically in the government even, and in every aspect of West German life, East Germany. The Russians pulling the strings to the East German government continue a policy of denazification. Now you know what Churchill said, you must be magnanimous in victory. But if you wanted to set yourselves a question, can you answer the question? We’re the allies, both the Western allies, both in Germany and Austria to magnanimous in victory? And in terms of Austria, perhaps not in terms of Germany, that’s a different story, but in terms of Austria, by being magnanimous, did they not actually root out the poison of fascism in the Austrian economy and in the Austrian society and politics? I’ve recently had a root canal filling. I hate dentist, but I’m sorry if anyone listening to a dentist, it’s nothing personal, you understand? And they said, oh no, we found something else. Now we’ve gone down there. Yeah, no, we’ve got to, we’ve got to get it all out they said, oh, well, we didn’t get it all out. We left it. We left bits in.
The Russians didn’t, we have to be very careful when we come to making judgements, particularly judgments, which are fairly contemporary. Many of you as indeed I was alive in 1945, '46. We have to be careful about thinking that because we were on the side of good as we see it, everything else is bad. We have to be really careful, really careful. Why did the Chinese have such low opinions of us? Well, particularly the British, because of the opium trade. We’ve got to be careful. Robbie Burns, the Scottish poet said, we must learn to see ourselves as others see us. We must see ourselves as others see us. The British in particular are not very good at that. We like to take a superior stance. We must be right because we’re British. The Americans are far behind in that view. And as for the, well, we won’t go there. In June of 1946, a year or so after the collapse of the Third Reich, the allies signed a second control agreement that in Russians for Austria. They began to loosen their control of the Austrian government. In fact, the Austrian government in practise was now free of allied control and was in practise, if not in theory, running the country. The Soviets were not happy about some of this, and the sort of divisions you see in the United Nations Security Council between the Soviets and the West showed themselves up at this early date in Austria. And there’s no movement. This is 1946. It’s another nine years before Austria becomes truly independent. Now had Russia not been involved in Austria, undoubtedly America, Britain, and France would have withdrawn if for no other reason that it was expensive to keep troops in Austria and putting money into Austria. If you take Britain, we were in austerity ourselves in the 1950s, and yet we’re holding up, holding up like that the Austrian government.
So we are keen to get out for good reasons, let them run themselves, but also for very personal reasons that we can’t afford it, and the expenditure does go up and up and up. And then, of course, part of that expenditure is because of the collapse of Austrian infrastructure. We’re seeing that on our television screens day by day. The collapse of the infrastructure of the Ukraine, of Ukraine. If we take Vienna, more than 20% of the housing stock was either completely or partly destroyed. 87,000 Viennese flats were uninhabitable, 87,000. There were more than 3,000 bomb craters in the middle of Vienna. Bridges had been blown up. Sewers, gas, and water pipes broken. And so all of this had to be put into working order and it costs money to do it. In November 1945, alongside the national elections, local elections were held in Vienna and a city council. A democratic city council was set up, divided between socialists and conservatives, not Marxists. The Marxists only had six out of a hundred seats on the Viennese city council, following the elections of November 1945. The city council began a policy of welfare programmes. This is very much in the tradition of the Hapsburgs. They put money into education. They put money into young people. They put money into the care of the elderly, as well as putting money into the repair of their city and their utilities in the city. And they continued that programme of recovery right through to the 1960s. But there was a terrible blow right at the beginning of this period. They’re elected across Austria, local government in November '45. But the winter of '46, '47 was one of the most terrible European winters in memory. And certainly, my parents would always talk about the winter of 1947.
And if you’re British every of our age anyhow, everyone knows of the horror of the 1947 winter. Well, Austria had something similar. It hit Austria badly because they weren’t producing enough food. And one American official said that Austrian survived the winter of '46, '47. He described it in these words as a near starvation diet. And an additional problem was that 65% of Austrian agricultural production was in the Russian half. And of course, they were moving food to Russia. So what had to happen was that we had to supply it. Now the United Nations are paid for supplies for the Western allies to bring food into Austria. But in the summer of 1947, the winter obviously finishing, the United Nations stopped food supplies. But the need for food was still very great. And it led to food virus. On the 5th of May 1947, there was serious food virus in Vienna orchestrated by, yes, you’ve guess it, Austrian Marxists. In August, there was a further food writing bad issue, which turned into an anti-Semitic riot, Austria post-war question. Does the Austrian leopard change its spots? Question which we come back to. Food riots continue through the summer of '47, right up until Christmas '47. It was very difficult and was relieved really by the Americans. The Marshall Plan for Austria, finally was up and running by the end of that year 1947. And the aid first arrived in March 1948. The Marshall Plan channelled available financial aid into Austrian heavy industry, which was in the American and British zones. An American said, we cannot afford to let this area of Austria fall under the key area Austria, the whole country.
We cannot allow it to fall under the exclusive influence of the Soviet Union. So the Marshall Plan was idealistic in the sense where we’re all the Americans are helping with money, but it’s also political. But to be able to stop any movement by Russia politically, there were Marshall Plan funds distributed in Soviet occupied Austria, but to a very limited extent. The American ambassador to Vienna said that, Austria was the European nation who benefited most from the Marshall Plan. No other nation, proportionately got more than Austria. But remember, this is political move. The Americans need to be seen to be doing something by the Austrians for fear of Austrian Marxism and of the Russians moving in. They also were involved, the allies in all those things like law, education, and there’s a lot of push from the West in all of that. The Austrians annoyed the Americans. So because the Austrians did deals behind closed doors and the Americans wanted deals done in the open. So there’s fascism, but gradually Austria began to pull up in the western part, the Austrian, sorry, in the American, British, and French sectors. But in the early 1950s, the Cold War bites deep. So more than just putting money in, what else do you do? The British began first by quietly arming gendarme, in other words, armed policeman. This was in effect a police force.
That’s what it said to me. But they are trained. They are trained more than that. They are trained to deal with internal trouble, political trouble. The Americans follow that up with money, not just for training, but for army, the gendarmerie. So in fact, what Britain and America are doing is setting up an Austrian army under the cover of setting up a gendarmerie. The Americans fear that Vienna might become like Berlin, so short of food that the Russians would take over. And so as in Berlin, they feared they would have to organise an airlift. So what the Americans did was to set up supply dumps of food in Salzburg, so that they could get it to Vienna very quickly. So at this point, at the beginning end of the '40s beginning of the '50s, the Americans and the British are still deeply worried about the possibility of Russia taking Austria. The very thing I began with earlier in the talk with Churchill’s concerns about Russian intentions towards Austria, and it’s not looking good. In fact, it’s looking pretty grim to be honest. The same story is being acted out if you are interested in why the European history in Finland, but it’s being acted out here in Austria. There were general stripes organised ha-ha who by? By Austria Marxists, of course. All of this is extremely difficult, extremely difficult to deal with. And then suddenly, 1953 a sea change in Moscow, Stalin dies. There’s a ceasefire in Korea. The Russians follow the Americans and British and French by appointing a civilian governor in their area rather than a military governor. And gradually, Khrushchev gains power and control. And we reach a period in which the American call the Khrushchev Thaw, T-H-A-W, the Thaw in relations with the West. Now we know it was not much of a thaw but it was a thaw that worked in Austria to be thankful for small gains.
There were certainly more freedom, more of the rule of law. In Russia, once Khrushchev took power and Stalin was dead. And you remember that Stalin, sorry, that Khrushchev made his speech against Stalin and Stalinization to a secret meeting of appellate bureau. There were people that were released, political prisoners released from Gulags, and Khrushchev sought relationships with the wider world. Things were beginning to change. You remember that the foreign minister in Austria was a man called Karl Gruber, who was pro-western. Well, the Chancellor Raab removes him with a more neutral person. Raab is trying to take Austria as the chancellor, we would say prime minister is trying to take Austria into a neutral position so that he can get rid not only of the Western allies, but that he can get rid of the Russians and that Austria can be independent. In 1955, the Russians come up with a policy, a Soviet initiative by foreign Minister Molotov. And Molotov says there are three conditions for Austrian independence. So Raab has really been extraordinary successful in his negotiations in Moscow. The Russians say there are three conditions. One, Austria must be neutral. Two, Austria must have no foreign base, ie American bases. And thirdly, Austria must give guarantees against any possible future Anschluss with Germany. Neutrality, no foreign bases, no Anschluss.
The West are absolutely caught on the wrong foot. They never imagined that the Russians would list such easily net targets, if you like, for Austrian independence. Of course, the Russians demanded that Austria should pay for those what was described as German or Nazi assets that were in the Russian zone and remained with an independent Austria. Yes, yes, yes, well, that’s on the side, that’s not really. A British diplomat-
Perform to see if you have it.
Sorry, can you can take into mute.
So sorry, William, I’ve just unmuted myself by mistake.
It’s all right. Okay, don’t worry, don’t worry. So a British diplomat a man called Geoffrey Wallinger reported back to London. Quote, “The deal from Moscow was far too good to be true, to be honest, but it went forward.” The foreign ministers met Harold Macmillan, and Antoine Pinay from France, Molotov, and John Foster Dulles. Well, John Foster Dulles and Harold Macmillan look considerably superior to what we have in the West today, I have to say. And they signed the Austrian State Treaty. The Austrian State Treaty gave Austria its independence, a decade after World War II 1955. Why did the Russians do it? Because to take Austria would’ve been far more confrontational than they wanted in the mid-1950s. And to put a puppet regime in was impossible because the West knew about puppet regimes by 1955. They could not extend Soviet rule to Austria. They knew that. So the best they could do was to neutralise Austria. Austria was not allowed to join NATO or for that matter, the Warsaw Pact. It was never allowed to join Germany. And all of this is readily agreed by the West. And so finally, Austria becomes independent in 1955 with the Austrian State Treaty. It came into effect on the 27th of July to be precise, 1955. Minority rights of Slovene and Croats living in Austria. The remnants of the old Habsburg empire were expressly laid out. The Anschluss was expressly laid out. Nazi and fascist organisations were prohibited. And in October 1955, the Austrian government passed a Neutrality Act after the last ally troops, Russians as well as Western had left. And so Austria becomes an independent country. And maybe for the first time, Austrians have to think about Austria and not the Austrian empire of the Habsburg.
And they don’t want to think about Anschluss, nothing to do with us, say the Austrians. It was these nasty Germans who did all, and remember what I said last week about how many Austrians were high positions. The only person to object to Austrian re-independence in 1955, whilst the West German Chancellor Adenauer. Why? Because he felt that the allies had dealt better with Austria, then they had managed in Germany, with Germany still divided between east and west. But Austria is up and running, free of Russians, Westerners. And for the first time, I think really Austrians think of themselves as Austrians and have now come to terms with living in a country with an old imperial capital, but a small alpine state. And as I said before, if you want to get a feel of Vienna and Austria, revisit the film, “The Third Man,” Harry Lime theme tune, brings back all of that post-war Austria of 1945 to 1955. Now I want to end with three little quotations. Let’s walk back to the book about “Killing Hitler’s Reich.” The story of the Austrian defeated in 1945. And Webb ends with this sentence, it’s the last sentence he writes. “The Austria for Austria. For Austria, the torment of 1945 eventually gave way to a transformation into a modern democracy.” I would simply add the word, discuss. Steven Beller, not at the end of his book, but near the end, writes this, “Austria ended the occupation on the basis of airbrushing out the horrors of its Nazi past for the sake of its future social harmony, political unity, economic prosperity, and the new what I’ve just been saying, and the new Austrian national.
And he emphasises the word national identity. But my question is, how far has Austria come in the year 2022? In a world, certainly a Western world, I’m talking about Western world, including America, but Europe in particular in this context where liberal democracy is challenged. How interesting in the story of the Russia-Ukraine War, that Poland are now the heroes. Whereas the Polish government is decidedly moving towards fascist positions on so many things and is in major dispute with the European Union to the possibility that before the war, they could have been thrown out of the EU. And what about Hungary all bad? Don’t go there. The man is to all intents and purposes facists. But what about Austria? What about Austria? Well, that’s a question we will turn to next week and the week after. And I thought, I don’t want to leave you all with such a depressing end in a sense to say that the story doesn’t end in 1955. And everyone lives happily ever after with "The Sound of Music” playing in the background, if only. Instead I’ll leave you with a line from the film “The Third Man” which apparently was written into the film whilst it was being filmed, Orson Welles.
And it’s a lovely line. It’s said by Harry Lime You know what the fellow said, in Italy for 30 years under the borders, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy in peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. And what about Austria? What about Austria? In the centres of Habsburg rule. And then in the Austria post 1945, what have they got? The Sound of Music. We’ll come back to those questions as I wanted to lead you on to the further talks I’m going to give, I think I’m just two more or something like that. So I hope you enjoyed that. I enjoyed preparing that. It’s a story that isn’t very often told is Austria post 1945. What I hope to show you in the next week, next two weeks, why the Austrian story is important and has lessons, wider lessons than just for Austria. So thanks very much for listening. Shall I see? Oh gosh, I’ve gone over time. I’m well, my excuse is I started late.
[Judi] William, go ahead and see what questions.
Let me see what I’ve got and I’ve got some questions.
Q&A and Comments:
We have too many lawyers and too few historians in government roles. Well, as probably you know, my first degree is in law. If you all accept the phrase, we have too many bad lawyers and too few good historians in government then I would agree.
I want you to think about Putin’s request for help from China. It’s very odd really, it emphasises the point that I’m going to write in a blog, I’m going to do later this week about, the inefficiency of the Russian army. But I doubt whether the Chinese would be terribly interested. Liddell Hart wrote a book on tank warfare read by Rommel, but not the British Generals.
Oh, excellent point. Who made that? Nicholas, an excellent point, Liddell Hart, a British historian, wrote a book on tank warfare before World War II read by Rommel, but not the British Generals. Another example, Gallipoli, the awful horror of Gallipoli in World War I. The whole area and the defences put up by the Turks with German support was detailed in a report by a British officer working out of the embassy in Istanbul, sent to London and never read. We know it was sent. After the war, it went missing. No one knows, it was destroyed obviously I think all these diagnosis of Putin condition are all wishful thinking.
I’m not sure. I’m not sure, Clive, that that’s so, I mean this information because of the way that the British and American security services have been operating in making information available, no, no, no. I think there is truth in that.
Did not Henry Kissinger say that what the Russians lack in imagination, they make up in persistence. Well true, but only up to a point. If you think about Afghanistan, for example, it’s certain they make up in large numbers. But in a world that we live in, the deaths of young men, Russian boys who don’t even know where they are, it cannot be hidden however hard Putin tries.
Q: If Putin fails, who will replace him?
A: A general is the answer to that. Look, I know no more than you do. So if you ask me a question, I’ll answer it. I don’t think I know the answer. I don’t see anything working except a military coup. The third, oh, thank you.
Amara asked a question, Gerald has answered it, and Clive has corrected Gerald. I love this. I don’t have to do anything. It’s “The Third Man,” yeah. And it’s Carol Reed. It was hailed in the 1990s to be the greatest British film ever made. And I’m not going to argue with that. You are correct.
Keep pointing out, says Betty, well, I like someone who agrees to me. Betty, you’re my friend for life. You are correct to keep pointing out to always remember that Putin was KGB. The philosophy of the KGB is to find the weakness, the Achilles heel of a person, a country or situation, and then drive a locomotive through that weakness. You are right, Betty.
Oh yes, George Patton also wanted to go to war with, well, that wouldn’t have helped the American presidents to feel that the, General Patton wanted to go to war against Russia in '45. Yes, that would not have endeared him to Eisenhower or indeed to the American political establishment in the same way that Churchill’s view did not endear him to the British generals or the British political establishment. But they may not, you may feel that they may be, I wish we could meet for a sort of a month and then we could argue these questions out. We wouldn’t come to a assess. We wouldn’t come to an agreed solution.
USS, who is this? Ivy, oh, Ivy, I mean USSR was off more totalitarian rather than Marxist by that time. I suspect Marx would’ve been, yeah. Okay, okay. Words, yeah. Communist is a better word than Marxist.
This is Adrianne, “The Ratline” by Philippe Sands is very good, about Nazis on the run and how they were aided and also swap sizes despite from the US. Yeah, lot of things about that. This is Paul, America could not have dropped a nuclear bomb in Moscow. It only had three. Well, yeah, that might have been a slight problem. That’s true. But I think they could have produced some more if they had to, have done.
Oh, sorry, there’s another question from Irene. My late husband was convinced that the film, “The Sound of Music” was a piece of propaganda. Oh, well, that’s a very good point. Yeah, I won’t necessarily, I don’t know whether that’s true, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to disagree with it.
Mike, the expression of the mills of God grinding slowly but they grind exceeding find the cost section Lithuanian Nazis got what they deserve, thanks to the Russians. Yeah, okay. Personally, my whole Austrian family except one were murdered, yeah. Lord Addington and the affair under Macmillan.
Sorry Nicholas, that takes me into more than I can do in two minutes. Yeah, yeah, Martin’s gone there. No, I wasn’t going to talk about that because I think it gets us, somebody said to me in another context, you missed something out. Well, I can only speak for an hour and I have to make a judgement and I try and keep, it may not seem like it, I try and keep to the major theme and I don’t have time to go off on many tributary arguments and stories. If there’s one that people particularly want, send it through to Lockdown University, and we could always do one.
Oh, Jonathan, what a lovely comment. Christopher Plummer called it The Sound of Mucus. Oh, I love that. That’s fantastic. Susan, I don’t mean to be simplistic. I’m sure you’re not, one of the biggest problem in men and I know no women at the table. Will we ever learn? Well, that is of course true. And if there have been women, would it be been done better? And the argument is possibly yes or even probably yes. But to believe that women would be always, women in those positions at par would always be more conciliatory. Think of Margaret Thatcher. Think of what would’ve happened if Hillary had become President, neither of them seemed to me, particularly, people that would look for compromise. But you make a very good point, nevertheless. Yeah, you need to, you need to get a woman historian to answer you.
The Marshall Plan, Jackie, the Marshall Plan, American plan to help Europe recover from the war. Money is ploughed in. Yes, you are right. I know, oops, sorry, I’ve missed that.
Somebody said, let me get to that, 'cause that’s important 'cause it was, where are we? I think speak for us to the party congress says, absolutely right. I know I said it wrong. An old adult educator friend of mine said, “If you make a slip up, just keep going.” Most people won’t notice. Those who do will assume you misheard, but there will be people like who will fool you right, and you are right, you are right. I’m sorry I knew, what do they say now? I’ve misspoken. I knew it at the time, but I just kept going. The problem is, if you are talking live, you suddenly misspeak something, and it’s best to keep going. I tend to try and avoid reading every word I’ve written. I do write every word, but I try not to read every word. If I was writing a book or an article, things like that wouldn’t happen, at least I hope that wouldn’t.
Who says? Martin, my father was a TUC delegate to the IHCFU Congress in Vienna in '53. He was astonished by the poverty and damage revetted in Vienna at the time. I think his disillusionment with communism started with this visit and the manipulation by the communist at the Congress.
That’s interesting. Marian said, the book that I referred to was a book by the Harvard Professor Plokhy. P-L-O-K-H-Y. I’ll put some books on my blog, so you can get the details. Yet we’re going to talk about the chancellors in the '50s. Yeah, I’m afraid most Austrian chancellors are sort of not really well-known. Finland’s history, Finland had been a Grand Duchy in Czarist Russia times broke away in 1917, and the Russians were anxious to pull it back into the fold in '45. And only by the skin of their teeth that the fins escaping incorporated back into Russia. And if you’ve been following the Ukraine crisis, you will have seen that there’s been reports in Russia or from Russia that one of Russian, Putin’s goals is Finland as well as the three Baltic states. Because Finland, as I say, was part of Russia. But it had left in 1917, Finland is a very, very interesting country.
Yes, Kurt Waldheim I promise I’d talk about Kurt Waldheim.
No, that’s nice. Thank you for the people, like Barbara said, they liked it, that’s always reassuring. And you don’t have to always agree with me. And I’m not as you’ve seen earlier, I’m certainly not the oracle that never gets anything wrong. Of course, we do. What I’m trying to do always is to give you a flavour of the period, a flavour of the history as accurately as I can. But with making comments to the side, which you know are comments. And you don’t have to agree with my comments or my interpretation, but I hope that some of you, if you feel this is interesting, or read a book, see a film, read in, whatever, you read. And if you think I was wrong and would like really to rub my nose in it, then also read a book. This is what moves us forward. We live in democratic societies. We need to be able to think for ourselves and to give our own interpretations. And you must not, I would not teach like this if I was teaching children or undergraduates. Let me make that quite clear. I would teach quite differently. But you can make those judgements about me and what I say. So I don’t, in adult education, hold back.
Oh, Peter, I often skied in Austria and enjoyed their food, but I also experienced several instances of blatant Nazi sentiments, and ex-SS funeral ceremonies there. That’s what I’m trying to say, Peter, you are absolutely right. This narcissism was never rooted out and the fault lies with the Americans and the British.
Q: What about Kurt Waldheim?
A: Yes, other people have asked that. Yes, yes, I will deal with that. Yes. Yes, I said I deal with Waldheim, I’m going to, but I’m going to deal with it either next week or the week after. I haven’t decided which one? I like this.
A biblical comment. Genesis explains it all, Cain slew Abel. Well, you absolutely right. You are absolutely right. And it’s awful that we, we think we progress, and we thought we’d progressed in Europe and we’re back in some mediaeval world of what Russia is doing in Ukraine. You’re absolutely right, and that is the answer. It’s human nature.
Q: How do you deal with a sort of Cain slew Abel question?
A: You deal with it in liberal democracies by the rule of law. You deal with it in the acceptance of democracy and democracy’s rule of law. That’s why we have to be particularly worried about the crisis in liberal democracy in western societies, because there isn’t a better system than democracy, as Churchill said. But Churchill also said he lost faith in democracy when he met the first voter in an election.
Q: Why is Putin sought to be ill?
A: Because of his changed appearance, his bloated face. That’s why they think he’s ill. But I suspect because a number of this has come out from British and American sort of semiofficial sources, that this is what British and American intelligence have picked up. There will be British and American assets close to Putin and that you can put on money on.
Yes, Valerie, you are absolutely right to talking about Britain. We had rationing of bread into the '50s, and were sending wheat to Germany so they wouldn’t starve. But of course, we didn’t send wheat to Germany in 1918, 1919 because Lord George refused to, and that’s many historians would say is one of the reasons that led to Hitler. These are not easy questions.
Yes, you are absolutely right. Churchill was sidelined by Roosevelt and Stalin in the latter stages of the war. This is because Roosevelt felt that he was, I’m not sure quite how to put this, that he wasn’t gaga, but that he was, he was an old man fighting old battles, let me just leave it at that.
Monty, what a wonderful George Patton, I believe said, you mustn’t die for your country. You must let the other bastard die for his country. Oh, that’s wonderful. And I didn’t say the word bastard, Monty. You did, and I’m allowed to read out that. Fantastic, I love that.
Bruno Kresky, yes, can you give a talk on Finland and the Baltic? Well, we may get round to doing that. It depends on what Lockdown University asked me to do. It’s what Trudy, Wendy, and everyone agrees we should do. And I’m always very happy. I am doing a talk called Crisis in Liberal Democracy. I haven’t got a date for that yet. Trudy’s working out the dates.
Oh, someone has put, thank you for fascinating talk. You make me feel young. I’ve never seen “The Third Man” and not heard of Harry Lime. Oh, really? Well, it’s more than worth seeing. It’s based on a book by Graham Greene. But the film is different and it’s different because of Orson Welles. And he had a big influence in the film and he’s brilliant in the film.
I think I’ve come to the end. I probably come to the end of what I can do tonight as well.
[Judi] Thank you, William. Thank you so much, William. And thank you everybody who joined us and we have part two of Julian Barnett’s Hidden Jewish Sex of Jerusalem in about 40 minutes. So we’ll see everybody later again. Thank you so much William, and bye-bye.
Bye-bye, bye-bye everyone. Bye-bye. Keep safe.