Читать книгу The Red Army in Austria - Группа авторов - Страница 21

Aleksei Filitov

The attitude of the Soviet leadership to the post-war status of Austria was already defined and even written out in full at the earliest stage of the Second World War, at the climax of the Battle for Moscow. As a concrete date, November 21, 1941, can be named. It should be made clear, however, that it was not an official declaration but a top-secret telegram which the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, sent on this day to the delegated Soviet representative in London, Ivan Maiskii. In all likelihood, Maiskii was somewhat bemused as to the choice of words used by Iosif Stalin in a speech on November 6, 1941, for Stalin expressed the following: “As long as the Hitler people were busy with collecting German lands and the re-unification of the Rhineland, Austria, etc., one could characterise them with a certain justification as nationalists.”¹ With reference to a request made by the British communists, the USSR’s political delegate in London sent a telegram on November 14 with a request to People’s Commissar Molotov for an elaboration of Stalin’s statement, which had indeed raised a number of questions.

The occupation of the left bank of the Rhine by Entente troops, in accordance with the Versailles Treaty, drew to a close at the time of the Weimar Republic and the operation carried out in 1936 by Hitler did not constitute a “reunification” but a remilitarization of the Rhineland—two terms which can in no way be equated with one another. Just as difficult to interpret was the attempt by Stalin to equate the Rhineland with Austria, which had at no point in history prior to the Anschluss been part of Germany. From the formulation selected by Stalin, one could thus deduce a renunciation of the early assessment of the Anschluss as a manifestation of the aggressive and predatory policies of National Socialist Germany.

Molotov’s telegram response of November 21, mentioned above, ran as follows:

In relation to your enquiry, I can inform you that the passage in question in Stalin’s speech on Austria was commented on by Comrade Stalin in the following manner: The annexation to Germany of an Austria inhabited by a majority of Germans can be viewed in the framework of German nationalism, but this in no way means that Comrade Stalin is trying to justify this annexation, for Comrade Stalin does not regard German nationalism as a justifiable and acceptable concept. At this point, Stalin wanted to say that even from the point of view of German nationalism, the current policy of expansion on the part of the Nazi leadership [literally: “Hitler people”] is to be regarded as disastrous for Germany and that the NSDAP is a coarse [and] imperialist and not a nationalist party. Stalin wanted thereby to cause confusion in the ranks of the Nazi leadership and drive a wedge between Hitler’s government and the nationalist strata of the German nation. Regarding the attitude of Comrade Stalin toward Austria, the Rhineland etc., Stalin is of the opinion that Austria is to be separated from Germany in the form of an independent state and that Germany itself, including Prussia, must be broken up into a series of more or less autonomous states in order to be able to safeguard a peaceful future existence for the states of Europe.²

How can one assess this dialogue between the People’s Commissar and the Ambassador, in which the “Soviet leader” indirectly participated in the form of a third person or a higher authority? Just saying that a statement made by Stalin was not entirely clear and necessitated an explanation required under the conditions prevailing at that time a considerable measure of fearlessness and moral courage on the part of the person voicing the request—in official form at that—for an explanation. Every statement made by the “Soviet leader” was to be regarded as a truth from the highest authority, and any scepticism as to the wisdom and perfection of the statement, regardless of how it was expressed, could have the most serious consequences. It is correct that Maiskii did not raise the question of his own accord but rather at the request of the British Communist Party, but in this form his telegram could be construed as a manifestation of independent thought, which at that time was not approved of in any form whatsoever.

No less unusual were the reactions of Molotov and Stalin himself, whom the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs had approached with the request for explanation, as emerges from the text of the telegram from November 24. This was not followed by a brusque rebuke but by an attempt to provide a detailed and to-the-point response to a question that was in no way straightforward. Molotov’s (or rather Molotov’s and Stalin’s) answer testifies to a certain discrepancy between pragmatic and propagandistic components in Soviet policy. Dogmatic teachings and the objectives actually pursued by Soviet policies constituted in the eyes of the Soviet leadership completely different categories, which did not necessitate any conformity or adjustment. It was evidently believed that such a correlation between these two components could ensure a political flexibility and efficiency. The accuracy of such an approach is more than questionable. In the concrete case at hand, one could argue that the reference to German nationalism at the time of the Second World War did not have any noticeable results. If the aim was “confusion,” then this was at most caused among the opponents of National Socialism.

But now for the most decisive factor in the context of the issue being addressed: The aforementioned telegram from Molotov to Maiskii undeniably demonstrates that the separate treatment of the “German” and the “Austrian” questions and the particular emphasis placed on an Austrian identity (as defined at the beginning of the operation of the radio station “Freies Österreich” on November 19, 1941)³ was not merely hollow propagandistic rhetoric designed to weaken the enemy but that the reestablishment of the Austrian state, its independent existence in the post-war world, constituted a declared aim of the Soviet leadership from the earliest phase of the Second World War, despite propagandistic shifts.

This factor deserves all the more attention if one keeps in mind that within the leadership circles of the other states in the anti-Hitler coalition and among Austrian émigrés for a long time no such clear concept for the future of Austria had existed. During a discussion with Maiskii on November 27, 1941, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made no differentiation between the status of Bavaria, Austria, and Wurttemberg when determining the future framework of peace, according to Maiskii.⁴ Against the backdrop of the Anglo-American talks in March 1943, the Soviet Ambassador in the United States, Maksim Litvinov, submitted a report to Moscow on the different ideas on the future of Austria proposed during these negotiations. The ideas ranged from the reestablishment of Austrian statehood via “unification with Czechoslovakia”⁵ to a restoration of the Habsburg monarchy. Litvinov painted a particularly ambivalent picture of the position of the United States. If, according to the words of the British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, “the President ([Franklin D.] Roosevelt) and [Cordell] Hull (US Secretary of State) [. . .] [had] shown no interest in a resurrection of the Habsburg monarchy,” the Soviet Ambassador had received entirely contradictory information from his Italian dialogue partner, Carlo Graf Sforza: “The flirting of the USA with Otto Habsburg has its origins in the White House, and [. . .] the President is under the influence of different monarchist circles residing in the USA and in Italy.”⁶

A letter written by Litvinov, who had just returned from the United States, on the eve of the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers of the three victorious powers, contained a similar analysis of the plans for Austria with balanced arguments for the resurrection of an independent Austria. Litvinov stated that plans were circulating in the West for the establishment of various federations—an Austrian-Hungarian federation (a variation which, according to Litvinov, was brought into play by Eden), a southern German one, a central European one, and an eastern European one. Among Austrian émigrés, there were “persons who are prepared to leave Austria in a democratic Germany,” while alongside them also advocates of a “federal solution” (in this context, the “former Austrian envoy to London, Kunz” was named). As Litvinov pointed out, “the opponents of an independent Austrian state [would] invoke above all the inability of such a state to survive. But at least Austria existed for 20 years as an independent state and its population hardly lived under worse conditions or greater hardship than the populations of Austria’s neighbours, the Balkan states.”

Litvinov brings an additional argument against the Austro-sceptics into play: in the war years, the economic potential of Austria grew sharply; oil production reached 0.5 million tons and steel production was doubled following the launch of the “Hermann Göring Works.”

In concluding the Austria-related part of his letter, Litvinov even suggests that the possibility of an expansion of the territory of a future Austrian state be considered: “Austria can make a justifiable claim for the incorporation of a small part of German territory, the districts of Passau and Berchtesgaden. One might also return South Tyrol, which was taken by Italy, to Austria, though that is connected with the question of the treatment of Italy.”⁷

The last named idea was admittedly not implemented, but Litvinov’s remarks otherwise reflected the basic stance of the three powers and the resurrection of an independent Austria was defined as one of the aims of the anti-Hitler coalition in the “Declaration on Austria” agreed on November 1, 1943, at the Moscow Conference. This aim was ultimately realized.

The question of fixing the occupation zones in Austria deserves particular attention. This was discussed in the “European Advisory Commission” (EAC), whereby the position of the Soviet Union in this three-power organ had been formulated within the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR on the basis of the recommendation of the “Commission for Cease-fire Matters,” established in accordance with the resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from September 4, 1943. Marshal Kliment Voroshilov was appointed head of the Commission, for which reason it was for the most part dubbed the “Voroshilov Commission.”

In a first variation of a draft of the summary “Conditions of Surrender for Germany” from February 4, 1944, the demarcation line “between the armed forces of the USSR on the one hand and the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the USA on the other hand” was fixed as follows (Article 16):

From Heiligenhafen (not Soviet) along the western coast of the Bay of Mecklenburg to the city of Lübeck (not Soviet), further along the western border of Mecklenburg as far as the River Elbe and further upstream as far as the administrative border of the Prussian province of the Altmark, then further to the western border of Anhalt, further along the western administrative border of the Prussian province of Saxony and Thuringia as far as the intersection of their border with the Bavarian [border] and further in an easterly direction along the northern border of Bavaria as far as the Czechoslovakian border at the village of Hof, further along the western, south-western and southern border of Czechoslovakia as far as the city of Bratislava and then from this city the course of the Danube downstream to the city of Silistra and further eastwards along the Romanian-Bulgarian border as far as the Black Sea coast.

The “disarming of the German troops, the troops of other Axis powers and of the so-called ‘volunteers’” in the territories east of this line would be incumbent on the armed forces of the USSR, in the territories west of this line the troops of the Western powers.⁸ A glance at the map is sufficient to come to the conclusion that this planned line excluded a military presence on the part of the USSR not only in Austria but also in the western part of Hungary.

In a second variation of this draft (from February 8, 1944), the term “occupation zones” (Article 15) appears for the first time, whose borders were only fixed, however, as far as the intersection of the Bavarian and Czechoslovakian borders. Their further course across the borders of Germany remained open.⁹

Only in a third variation of the draft, which Molotov sent to Stalin on February 12, 1944, to be signed, was Austria addressed, for which the same status was envisaged as for Berlin—the status of a “common zone.”¹⁰ In this context, Article 15 was supplemented with point “d,” according to which the “territory of Austria is to be occupied jointly by the troops of the USSR, the United Kingdom and the USA.” Stalin signalled his agreement to this variation in his resolution “To Molotov. Stalin.”

In his telegram of February 12, 1944, to the Soviet delegate in the EAC, Fedor Gusev, Molotov mentioned that the proposed status for Berlin and Austria was to be regarded as an “exception” to the rule because “each zone will only be occupied by troops of that particular one of the three powers [. . .] to whom the respective zone is allocated.”¹¹ It is understandable why so much importance was attached to this rule on the Soviet side and why the British draft, according to which in each zone the presence of troops from the other Allied countries was also allowed, was regarded as unacceptable: the variation of a “mixed occupation” carried with it the danger of an uncontrolled growth in contact between members of the armed forces of “East” and “West” and, accordingly, would potentially have paved the way for that which was designated “ideological diversion” in Soviet jargon. It is more difficult to understand why an exception to this rule was considered permissible in the cases of Berlin and Austria.

Incidentally, both in Berlin and in Austria, the principle of territorial demarcation was soon being spread between the occupation contingents. In the case of Berlin, it was a matter of two sectors; with regard to Austria, of two zones. In the following, the relevant article (Article 2) of the draft of the “Voroshilov Commission” from April 17, 1944, is quoted in full:

For the occupation of Austria, the following zones will be established:

a) The territory of Austria east of the line starting at the border city of Retz in a south-westerly direction as far as the city of Horn and further south in the direction of the city of Krems, from where it runs in an easterly direction along the right shore of the Danube as far as the city of Tulln and further in a southerly direction via the cities of Hainfeld, Mürzsteg, Turnau, Bruck, Leoben and further along the Rivers Mur and Lavant as far as the southern border of Austria, will be occupied by troops from the USSR with the exception of the special occupation arrangement noted under point “d”;

b) the territory west of the line named in point “a” with western boundary via the line starting from the Austrian-Bavarian border along the right shore of the Danube as far as the confluence of the Enns and further along the aforementioned river in a southerly direction as far as the city of Eisenerz and from there to the south-east along the stipulated line to the city of Leoben, will be occupied by troops from the United Kingdom;

c) the entire remaining territory of western Austria will be occupied by troops from the USA;

d) the city of Vienna will be occupied by troops from the USSR, the United Kingdom and the USA with the following allocation of zones: troops from the USSR occupy the eastern part of the city located between Danube and Danube Canal; troops from the United Kingdom and troops from the USA the remaining territory of the city, whereby the demarcation line between the troops from the United Kingdom and the troops from the USA will be established by an agreement between the command of the United Kingdom and that of the USA.¹²

During the course of the session of the “Voroshilov Commission” on the issue of occupation zones in Austria, held the following day, April 18, 1944, Admiral Ivan Isakov and Maiskii spoke their mind. Isakov referred to the borders of the Soviet zone having to allow for a direct rail and shipping connection on the Danube, and Maiskii stressed “that the Soviet zone should if at all possible border both Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.” Furthermore, Maiskii noted that “the location of the industrial plants in this country and the population figures for the individual federal regions of Austria must be taken into account. All three zones must possess approximately the same population.”

In another of his remarks, Maiskii underlined his vision, according to which “the borders between the zones must be drawn by and large in accordance with the administrative borders between the federal regions or between individual districts (municipalities).”

On this, the Commission’s minutes of the session note that “Comrade Bazarov was given the task of obtaining a map of Austria with the borders of federal regions marked on it, in order to be able to discuss at the next session of the Commission the issue of the allocation of occupation zones among the three Allied powers on the basis of the administrative structure of Austria.”¹³

In its session on April 30, the Commission again returned to the question of the drawing of borders between the occupation zones. The suggestions submitted for review were found “by and large” to be good. As noted in the minutes, the “Soviet occupation zone was allocated the following federal regions: Burgenland, half of Lower Austria and of Styria; the zone of the United Kingdom—half of Lower Austria and of Styria as well as half of Carinthia; the zone of the USA—Upper Austria, Salzburg, Tyrol and half of Carinthia. The population in each of the zones amounts to around 1.5 millions.” With regard to Vienna, the decision reached earlier regarding the zones was confirmed.¹⁴

The final results of the preparatory work of the “Voroshilov Commission” on Austria were summarized in a résumé by its chairman to Stalin, Molotov, Vyshinskii, and Dekanozov, dated June 12. It read:

In Austria, the Soviet occupation zone has an area of 21,066 square kilometres with a total population of 1,407,000 people. The remaining part covers an area of 62,587 square kilometres with 2,738,000 inhabitants. The city of Vienna, with its population of 1,929,000 people is to be treated separately as an independent unit with a joint occupation by troops of the three powers.

The Commission is of the opinion that the demarcation line between the British and the American zone in Austria and in the city of Vienna must be fixed by the English and the Americans themselves.

The territorial components do not underlie the allocation of zones in Austria, but rather the population figures and the distribution of industry.

A large proportion of the industrial plants are located in the Soviet zone (whose population makes up a third of the population of Austria), and the Soviet zone is furthermore connected directly with Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary via railway routes.¹⁵

The history of the debate on the Austrian question within the EAC constitutes one of the hitherto least handled topics in the literature. This can already be seen in the differing reading of dates: thus, for example, according to one author, the Soviet proposal regarding the zones was put forward on June 29, 1944;¹⁶ according to another, this happened only on July 1.¹⁷ Considerably more important, however, is the question as to how the delegates of the Western powers in the EAC responded to this proposal and how and when an agreement was reached that was acceptable to all parties.

If one is to believe the brief comments in Aleksei Roshchin’s book (himself a member of the European Advisory Commission and author of the only work on this institution in the Soviet and Russian historiography), the proposal for the Soviet zone made by the British side on August 22, 1944, actually foresaw a larger territory than the Soviet side had envisaged. This was connected with the circumstance that the American side had initially not wanted to participate in the occupation of Austria and only declared itself willing to send merely “symbolic contingents” (France’s position was similar). For this reason, the British plan was based on merely on a Soviet-British occupation of Austria. The territory of Upper and Lower Austria (excluding Vienna) was intended for the Soviet side—the remaining part of the country was to be occupied by British troops. Vienna was elected as a zone of common occupation in which the aforementioned “symbolic” contingent of the United States would have been stationed.

The stance of the United States and France later underwent a change, upon which the British side submitted a new proposal in the EAC on January 30, 1945, according to which the USSR would only receive the territory of Lower Austria (without Vienna) for its occupation zone. Styria and Carinthia were foreseen for Great Britain; Salzburg and Upper Austria would be allocated to the United States, and Tyrol along with Vorarlberg to France. The Soviet side responded to this by proposing an enlarged Soviet zone: the territory of Upper Austria situated on the left (northern) bank of the Danube and Burgenland should belong to this. Ultimately, this proposal met with approval and constituted the basis for the Allied agreement regarding the occupation zones for Austria, signed on July 9, 1945 (five days earlier, on July 4, 1945, the agreement on the control machinery had been signed).¹⁸

It should be noted that there existed with regard to the zone boundaries a considerable difference between the situation in Austria and that in Germany. Whereas the zone agreement for Germany had already been signed on September 12, 1944, at that point in time—as demonstrated by the correspondence of Churchill and Stalin from May 17 and 18, 1945—there had been no contracted decision for Austria regarding the establishment of zones in that country.¹⁹ Against this backdrop, it makes sense to correct a portrayal of the diplomatic history of the final phase of the war in Europe by Valentin Falin:

In April 1945, Soviet troops in Austria pressed forward westwards in pursuit of the enemy across the demarcation line agreed by the three powers. In the framework of a consultation with Stalin, the head of the 3rd European (German) Section of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Andrei Smirnov, expressed the opinion that the Soviet Union cling to the line reached and, if need be, bring about a fresh examination of the Allied agreement. Stalin’s reaction to this was as follows: “Wrong and harmful.” On his order, a telegram had already been prepared for Eisenhower with the following substance: “The military situation has made it necessary for the troops of the Red Army to cross the line agreed on by the Allies. It goes without saying that these troops will be pulled back into the territory foreseen for the USSR upon the cessation of hostilities (communication to the author by Vladimir Semenov, who was present at the aforementioned consultation).”²⁰

It is evident that Semenov’s memory had let him down and that Falin borrowed from the memories of his oral history source too uncritically. Just to repeat: until July 9, 1945, there were no “agreed demarcation lines.” Nevertheless, there is no reason to assume that the quoted passage entirely lacks a certain authenticity. It is most probable that certain Soviet circles contemplated for a period of time the option of using the most advanced Soviet formations on Austrian territory in order to force through the Soviet proposal for the zone boundaries, which the Western powers were initially not prepared to accept. It is most probable that numbering among the advocates of this tactical option was the aforementioned Smirnov, whose proposal was rejected by Stalin, although this—and even this possibility cannot be excluded—did not necessarily happen immediately.

Indirectly, the fact that different contemplated approaches toward the Allies existed within Soviet politics as well as the chosen variant of non-confrontation is also reflected in Western historiography, for example, in the monograph of the American researcher Audrey Kurth Cronin. Together with the information that “an arrival in Vienna on the part of the leaders of the Western missions was only allowed on 3 June—almost two months after the entry of Soviet troops into the city—and the Western garrisons did not arrive until the end of August,” Cronin cites a notification in the Times from June 22, 1945, according to which “the Russian requests for a most rapid arrival of the Allies in Vienna were fulfilled.” According to Cronin, a “change” in the Soviet position had come about, which she explains in that “the Soviet commanders on the ground had recognized that they were not in a position to feed the civilian population,” which is why they were subsequently interested in being able to share the responsibility for this with the Western powers. Such a change in position cannot, incidentally, be discerned for Stalin, which is demonstrated by the fact that it was suggested to the leaders of the Western missions following a one-week stay to leave the capital again.²¹

There is much in this portrayal of events and their interpretation that arouses well-founded doubts. In this context, it is above all the differing positions of Stalin and the Soviet representatives “on the ground” that seem to be exceedingly unlikely. If one of these had allowed himself even to the slightest extent to think independently and, furthermore, in relation to such an important political issue as relations with the Allies, one would in no way have wished to be in his shoes. The reason given by Cronin for the change in the Soviet stance is also not very convincing. She bases it on the preconceived and in no way provable theory of the “plundering” of the Soviet-occupied territories of Austria by Soviet troops. It should be pointed out here that even following on from this point of departure, which indicates that large-scale confiscations were carried out on the Soviet side, it should at all costs be kept in mind that the confiscated goods were, firstly, industrial installations and, secondly, items whose value for the provisioning of the population with food can be described as minimal. On the other hand, statistics exist for the delivery of foodstuffs to Austria during 1945, which show that the Soviet contribution to these deliveries was the largest.²² Is this a case of distorted statistics, which give a false picture? If not, then the cause and effect relationship established by the American academic is to be characterized in essence as incorrect.

In my opinion, the Soviet side pursued a specific tactic with the aim of forcing through a settlement for the zone allocation that was most favorable for them. How efficient this tactic actually was can be questioned in view of the fact noted by Cronin that the Western Allies (at least the Americans) were not initially interested in a rapid deployment of their troops on Austrian territory and that the inflexible approach of the Soviets only gave them an excuse to conceal their “wait and see” policy. Ultimately, both sides moved away from their policy of irrational tactical manoeuvres, which eventually led to the signing of the aforementioned jointly drafted documents, which established both the zone borders and the fundamental principles of the occupation regime. The territory of the Soviet zone covered a larger area than had been foreseen in the aforementioned paper of the “Voroshilov Commission” from June 12, 1944 (it comprised a territory of 26,273 square kilometres with a population of 1,843,000 people, whereas the letter of the “Voroshilov Commission” had talked merely of 21,066 square kilometres with 1,407,000 inhabitants), but was nevertheless considerably smaller than the territory that had been liberated by the Soviet armed forces and was under their control at the end of the war (36,551 square kilometres with a population of 4,532,000 people).²³