740.00119 E.A.C./1–1645
Memorandum by the Political Adviser to the United States Delegation to the European Advisory Commission (Mosely)24
The U.S. Delegation feels that there are important practical advantages to be gained by the use of the present boundaries of Vienna, together with the present district boundaries within Vienna, as a basis for military government. It believes the use of the present boundaries will better serve the accomplishment of the vital political objectives of the occupation of Austria than the use of the pre-1938 boundaries.
1. Allied Military Government in Austria will have a number of vital and difficult tasks to accomplish, among them, the separation of Austria from the Reich, the supervision and administration of local government, the creation of a new Austrian central administration, the thorough de-Nazification of Austrian life, the sorting out and transfer home of large numbers of displaced persons, the direction of Austrian economy, including its reorientation away from Germany, and the preparation of conditions for democratic self-government. To add to these tasks, which are of the highest political importance, the very complicated job of re-drawing local administrative boundaries and of re-aligning local administrative functions to fit the resulting changes would enormously complicate the work of Military Government.
In their work of removing all vestiges of Nazi domination in Austria, it would seem important for the Allies to concentrate their effort on the major issues. Surely the Austrians will be much more impressed if the Allied administrators conduct a thorough purge of administrative personnel and take vigorous steps to recreate a central administration for Austria than if the Allied administrators dissipate their time and effort in trying to accomplish a complicated series of petty administrative changes.
If the present administrative boundaries of Vienna are retained provisionally, the area would again be called by its traditional Austrian name of “Land Wien”, and Nazi institutions and terminology, such as Gau, Gauleiter,25 Reichsstatthalter,26 etc., would be abolished [Page 5] at once. It would also be made clear to the population by proclamation that as soon as conditions are favorable they will have an opportunity to decide whether they wish to remain in an enlarged Vienna or to be reintegrated into their pre-1938 administrative units. The Austrians have long been accustomed to the administration of Vienna as a Land; it would not seem unusual to them for Vienna to continue, for the time being, as a Land with an increased area and a population increased by some 200,000.
[Here follows a detailed discussion regarding administrative, problems which a change back to pre-1938 Vienna and Vienna district boundaries would involve.]
- Transmitted to the Department in despatch 20402, January 16, from London, not printed. Telegram 460, January 13, from London, not printed, reported that Ambassador Winant had sent a copy of this memorandum to Soviet Ambassador Gousev (740.00119 Control (Austria)/1–1345).↩
- Highest Nazi Party official in a Gau.↩
- Reich Governor; representative of the German Reich Government in a Land or Reichsgau controlling the entire administration (with one exception all were also Nazi Party Gauleiters).↩