The occupying forces on parade, Heldenplatz, Vienna,
1955
"Four men in a jeep", patrol of the four
Allied forces in Vienna.
(Image: Votova)
During the last weeks of World War II, Allied
troops occupied the whole of Austria: Soviet Russia Lower Austria,
Vienna, Burgenland and large parts of Styria, the USA Upper Austria,
the provinces of Salzburg and Tyrol, the French Vorarlberg, Britain
parts of Carinthia, Styria and East Tyrol, and Yugoslavia the
southern part of Carinthia. On July 4, 1945 an agreement was reached
on the First Control Agreement and the occupation zones. The Soviet
zone encompassed Lower Austria under the borders of 1937, Burgenland
and the Mühlviertel region in northern Upper Austria; the United
States took the southern part of Upper Austria and Salzburg; the
British Styria, Carinthia, and East Tyrol; the French North Tyrol
and Vorarlberg. In Vienna, the city centre (the first district) was
placed under joint four-power control, while the remaining "old"
districts were divided as follows: districts 2, 4, 10, 20, 21 Soviet;
districts 7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 19 American; districts 3, 5, 11, 12, 13
British; districts 6, 14, 15, 16 French. This division remained
until the Austrian State Treaty came into force on July 27,1955 and
characterised the first 10 years of the Second Republic. In August
1945 the Western powers took control of their respective Viennese
zones; on September 11 the Allied Council was constituted, which was
made up of the four commanders-in-chief (later the ambassadors)
acting as high commissioners. They had supreme power of decision and
met on a monthly basis in Vienna under rotating chairmanship. The
Second Control Agreement of June 28, 1946 extended the authority of
the Austrian government.
While initially the occupying armies numbered 700,000 men, by 1955
the Western powers were reduced to around 20,000 and the Soviet
forces to 40,000. The occupation costs had to be covered by Austria
(initially making up 35% of its budget; from December 3, 1946, this
went down to 15%). In 1947 the US declared that it would pay its own
occupation costs; the other three powers followed suit in 1953.
The occupation powers also intervened in local affairs in their
zones. The Soviet Union confiscated German Assets in its zone in
1946.
Text source in extracts:
aeiou - das kulturinformationssystem des bm:bwk
14.000 keywords and 2000 images from
Austrian history, geography, politics and economics
Internet Portal
Betriebsges.m.b.H.
Praterstrasse 33/20
A-1020 Vienna
Tel: +43/01/9580808
Fax: +43/01/9580909
E-Mail: office@citype.com www.citype.com
FN 200659 m
ATU 50515900
WIEN-VIENNA.AT associates itself
with a liberal, tolerant, cosmopolitan, ecumenical and politically
neutral world view.
Diversity of information and the support of free formation of
opinion for people of every age, every social levels, cultures,
denominations and political orientations are matters of concern for
us.
WIEN-VIENNA.AT is a link and information platform with the aim to
inform about Vienna while at the same time creating a collection of
links from official and private Vienna-related internet pages. We
strive to maximise the density of the presented information about
Vienna. In part, contents of this link and information platform
