Abstract
When the Second World War concluded, the Allied Powers were left with the complicated question of how to deal with the territories that they had occupied on their march to Berlin. Of all the territories conquered by Germany under Nazi rule, Austria proved to be one of the most difficult and polarizing to define. It towed the line between victim and accomplice, having endorsed its own annexation to Germany in 1938. For ten years after the war’s end, the Allied Powers occupied Austria, locked in a stalemate over the country’s fate. This paper examines how the various occupying powers, in particular the United States and Soviet Union, chose to define Austria in ways that aligned with their own geostrategic goals in an increasingly polarized Cold War context. It also explores how the U.S.’s willingness to overlook Austria’s culpability in Nazi takeover contributed to Austria Victim Theory, which prevented Austrians from acknowledging their role in the Holocaust for the first three decades of their country’s independence.
Recommended Citation
White, Katherine E.
(2025)
"Making a Victim: The Quest to Define Austria in a Cold War Context,"
The Cardinal Edge: Vol. 3:
Iss.
1, Article 13.
Available at:
https://ir.library.louisville.edu/tce/vol3/iss1/13
Included in
Diplomatic History Commons, European History Commons, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons, Political History Commons, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Commons, United States History Commons