Austrian Economic Malaise: Soviet-American Cold War over Austria, 1946/7

Abstract

The Cold War broke into the open early in Austria as the result of Soviet economic depredations in their zone of occupation and the hardening of the American response during 1946/7. Flush with the success of the Red Army against Hitler’s Third Reich, the Soviet Union stayed on the offensive and built an “empire by coercion”, adding security zones all along its extended periphery. As a response, the United States overcame its isolationist instincts and embarked on containing Soviet expansionism. The outbreak of the Cold War in Europe is best understood as a game of tit-for-tat between Soviet pressure, probing Western weaknesses along its peripheries, and Western responses, containing perceived Soviet aggression.

Vienna is a sad city. Like Berlin, but even more so. Everybody is carrying a package, or bundle, or a rucksack. I saw one woman this evening with a netzli [sic] which showed the contents of at least some of the packages — six or eight pounds of potatoes.¹