Austrian Democratic Republic

Like Germany, Austria was divided into four occupation zones. Unlike Germany, however, no part of Austria ended up behind the Iron Curtain. Vienna was also divided, just like Berlin. In both cases the capital also ended up surrounded by the Russian occupation zone. So what stopped Russia from doing the same in Austria that they did in Germany? Also, what would have happened to the other parts of Austria? Would they become part of the German Federal Republic or would they have formed a separate West-Austrian state with another capital.

A difference between the two countries was that in Austria, the capital was divided in a more complex way than in the German case. I will add a map of it in a later post. It was only possible to post one attachment in this post.

1400px-Austria_1945-55.svg.png
 
Interesting but unlikely. The formal division of Austria simply was not in the USSR's interest, since it could lead to a West Austria that would serve to connect West Germany and Italy in NATO. It might even lead to a West German-West Austrian Anschluss--see my post at
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/fc64e82fd0a6e064 A neutral Austria was much more in the Soviet Union's interests. The Soviets were always careful to at least keep the door open for this; that is why they never attempted to establish anything like the East German SED-regime in their occupation zone of Austria, and allowed an all-Austrian government to function from 1945 on, even if it did not become sovereign until 1955.

Then why wasn't the Austrian State Treaty signed earlier? The answer is that the Soviets tried to use the status of Austria as a bargaining chip on Germany. Once the West made it clear that West Germany was going to rearm and join NATO, just about everyone in the Presidium except Molotov concluded that neutralizing Austria made sense.
 
Here is a map of the occupation zones in Vienna. As you see, Vienna was divided in a more complex way than Berlin.

1280px-Wien_Besatzungszonen.png
 
IF the Soviets blockade Vienna as they did with Berlin that would result in a fully Soviet Vienna as there is no way to resupply the City from the air (Airfields are well beyound the city limits in the Within Soviet occupied Lower Austria).
 
Interesting but unlikely. The formal division of Austria simply was not in the USSR's interest, since it could lead to a West Austria that would serve to connect West Germany and Italy in NATO. It might even lead to a West German-West Austrian Anschluss--see my post at
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/fc64e82fd0a6e064 A neutral Austria was much more in the Soviet Union's interests. The Soviets were always careful to at least keep the door open for this; that is why they never attempted to establish anything like the East German SED-regime in their occupation zone of Austria, and allowed an all-Austrian government to function from 1945 on, even if it did not become sovereign until 1955.

Then why wasn't the Austrian State Treaty signed earlier? The answer is that the Soviets tried to use the status of Austria as a bargaining chip on Germany. Once the West made it clear that West Germany was going to rearm and join NATO, just about everyone in the Presidium except Molotov concluded that neutralizing Austria made sense.

Why did the NATO-countries take a different position when it came to Germany than when it came to Austria? If they had guaranteed a neutral Germany, East Germany might have avoided becoming part of the Soviet block and would instead have reunited with a neutral Germany. And when it comes to the Soviet Union, if it was important for them to avoid the western-occupied parts of Austria to become part of a NATO-country, I would assume that it would be even more important for them to avoid that West Germany became a NATO-country. Why was Austria and Germany treated differently? It seems that the same arguments could be used by both sides in both the two cases.

IF the Soviets blockade Vienna as they did with Berlin that would result in a fully Soviet Vienna as there is no way to resupply the City from the air (Airfields are well beyound the city limits in the Within Soviet occupied Lower Austria).

Looking at the map, it does not look as it is any longer distance from the western zones of Austria to Vienna than it is from West Germany to Berlin.
 
Looking at the map, it does not look as it is any longer distance from the western zones of Austria to Vienna than it is from West Germany to Berlin.

IF the Soviets block the land connection from the Western Zone to Vienna, as they did in Berlin, there is no possiblity to Support the City from air (airfields are within Soviet zune, None in the Wesrtern Zone). So resupply must come by land, but would the Wallies risk to fight a war to resupply Vienna.
 
There were plans for that case to build an airfield in the American zone, sandwiched between the railroad and the Donaukanal, at Heiligenstadt in Döbling. That's the large northeastern blue district. The area had been industrial, but so heavily bombed that there wasn't much left standing, it wasn't built upon until the 80s.
 
The topography of the 19th district would probably not allow for an airfield big enough to support the whole City - Better suited would be the (eastern) 11th District, which was in the British Zone. But 11th and 3rd district were surrounded by the soviet One and only connected through the 1st district, which was "CommoN" occupational Zone and likely would have been seized when it was Russias turn to "control" it.
 
it's unlikely there would be a "west austria" - east austria has the vast majority of the population and west austria is basically mountains and farmers - even today.

west austria joins/stays with germany, come 1989 east austria becomes part of wiedervereinigung.
 
The topography of the 19th district would probably not allow for an airfield big enough to support the whole City - Better suited would be the (eastern) 11th District, which was in the British Zone. But 11th and 3rd district were surrounded by the soviet One and only connected through the 1st district, which was "CommoN" occupational Zone and likely would have been seized when it was Russias turn to "control" it.

What if the Western powers, expecting such a development, refused to hand over the 1st district to Russia?

it's unlikely there would be a "west austria" - east austria has the vast majority of the population and west austria is basically mountains and farmers - even today.

west austria joins/stays with germany, come 1989 east austria becomes part of wiedervereinigung.

Seems like a likely scenario, although the exact later development of the cold war might change somewhat as there would be butterflies from this development.
 
Seems like a likely scenario, although the exact later development of the cold war might change somewhat as there would be butterflies from this development.

i dont really see it that way - both sides planned to just ignore austrian neutrality in case of war anway.
 
I somehow think the Allies, or the Soviets, aren't going to be too happy with the idea of "Greater Germany" lingering around, reduced as it is. It's also internally inconsistent with the "First victims of Nazism" party line - why would Austria want to stay with Germany if the latter had inflicted so much evil upon the former?
 
i dont really see it that way - both sides planned to just ignore austrian neutrality in case of war anway.

The fact that the Eastern Austria would be part of the Soviet block would mean that there would be one more player, plus that Western Austria would probably become part of the Bundesrepublik.

I somehow think the Allies, or the Soviets, aren't going to be too happy with the idea of "Greater Germany" lingering around, reduced as it is. It's also internally inconsistent with the "First victims of Nazism" party line - why would Austria want to stay with Germany if the latter had inflicted so much evil upon the former?

It might be that Eastern Austria would choose not to become part of Germany after an ATL fall of the Soviet Union (I assume that it is likely that it will fall eventually also in this time line, although there would be butterflies), but by then Western Austria would have been part of Germany around 40 years, if we assume that the ATL development would be relatively similar (although this is not certain). There is of course a possibility that Western Austria would be an independent state while waiting for a reunion with Eastern Austria, but as mentioned by anotherlurker, Western Austria would be a very rural state, and it seems likely that they would become part of Germany. Besides, the Bundesrepublik, even with Western Austria added, would not be a Greater Germany, as East Germany, East Austria and the areas lost to Poland would not be included. Also remember that many Austrians actually wanted to be part of a united Germany, although the idea probably had become less popular after the nazi experience.
 
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