Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, European Advisory Commission, Austria, Germany, Volume III

740.00119 Control (Austria)/1–1145

Memorandum by the Department of State²⁷

[Washington, January 1, 1945.]

Treatment of Austria—Summary

I. The basic aim of American policy in Austria is its immediate separation from Germany and establishment of an independent Austrian state. This aim is expressed in the Moscow declaration of November 1, 1943 (text attached in Appendix I), which promised Austria liberation from German domination and pledged the three powers to open the way for the Austrian people themselves to find that political and economic security which is the only basis for a lasting peace. Austria’s strategic location in Central Europe makes both its future internal stability and its relations to neighboring states a matter of pressing concern to the international community and to the United States.

. . . . . . .

III. The aims of American policy, the Moscow Declaration, and the requirements of general security can best be achieved by the following steps:

A. Complete tripartite military occupation and government of Austria. (To assure us a full voice in Austria, the Department of State recommends that we occupy a zone equally with the British and Russians. It is clear that we cannot have an equal voice without equal participation in the actual occupation. The Department of State recommends that changes be made in the Soviet proposal for zonal occupation to enlarge the area of the City of Vienna to include the Gau of Vienna to extend tripartite division to the Innere Stadt of Vienna, and to include Ost-Tirol in the same occupation zone as the province of Kärnten).

B. Legal, administrative and economic separation from Germany, and denazification.

C. Treatment different from Germany, designed to foster:

1. Restoration of self-government at local and national levels as rapidly as military exigencies and internal political conditions permit;

2. Revival of a sound Austrian economy within the framework of European reconstruction;

3. Prompt establishment of an independent Austrian state.

IV. It is in the interest of the United States that Austria develop that type of political and economic structure which will not place it in the position of a special ward of the international community or of any single power. The Austrian people should be free to determine their own form of government and the adjustment of their political and economic relations with their neighbors with the proviso that the new regime be democratic and that it accept such international responsibilities and obligations as the tripartite powers may see fit to impose.

27. Transmitted as an enclosure to Department’s instruction 5107, February 15, 1945, to London. This document was one of a set of papers being transmitted for urgent delivery to the United States Political Adviser on Austrian Affairs, Mr. John Erhardt. Also included were two memoranda prepared by the Committee on Post-War Programs of the Department of State and approved by the President on June 27, 1944: PWC–218, “The Treatment of Austria”, dated June 8, 1944, and PWC–217a, “Summary: The Treatment of Austria: Policy Recommendations”, dated June 21, 1944. For texts of these memoranda, see Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. i, pp. 438 and 447, respectively.