This article lists the administrators of Allied-occupied Austria, which represented the Allies of World War II in Allied-occupied Austria (German : Alliierten-besetztes Österreich) from the end of World War II in Europe in 1945 [1] [2] [3] until the re-establishment of Austrian independence in 1955, in accordance with the Austrian State Treaty. [4]
Source: [5]
| No. | Portrait | High Commissioner [6] | Took office | Left office | Time in office | Defence branch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | General Mark W. Clark (1896–1984) | 5 July 1945 | 16 May 1947 | 1 year, 315 days |  United States Army | |
| 2 | Lieutenant general Geoffrey Keyes (1888–1967) | 17 May 1947 | 19 September 1950 | 3 years, 125 days | United States Army | |
| 3 | Walter J. Donnelly (1896–1970) | 20 September 1950 | 17 July 1952 | 1 year, 301 days | none | |
| 4 | Llewellyn Thompson (1904–1972) | 17 July 1952 | 27 July 1955 | 3 years, 10 days | none |
| No. | Portrait | High Commissioner | Took office | Left office | Time in office | Defence branch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | General Sir Richard McCreery (1898–1967) | July 1945 | March 1946 | 8 months |  British Army | |
| 2 | General Sir James Steele (1894–1975) | March 1946 | October 1947 | 1 year, 7 months | British Army | |
| 3 | Lieutenant general Sir Alexander Galloway (1895–1977) | October 1947 | 1 January 1950 | 2 years, 3 months | British Army | |
| 4 | Major general Sir John Winterton (1898–1987) | 1 January 1950 | 1 August 1950 | 212 days | British Army | |
| 5 | Sir Harold Caccia (1905–1990) | 1 August 1950 | 5 February 1954 | 3 years, 188 days | none | |
| 6 | Sir Geoffrey Wallinger (1903–1979) | 5 February 1954 | 27 July 1955 | 1 year, 172 days | none |
| No. | Portrait | High Commissioner | Took office | Left office | Time in office | Defence branch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Army general Antoine Béthouart (1889–1982) | 8 July 1945 | September 1950 | 5 years, 1 month |  French Army | |
| 2 | Jean Payart (1892–1969) | September 1950 | October 1954 | 4 years, 1 month | none | |
| 3 | Jean Chauvel (1897–1979) | October 1954 | February 1955 | 4 months | none | |
| 4 | Roger Lalouette (1904–1980) | February 1955 | June 1955 | 4 months | none | |
| 5 | François Seydoux de Clausonne (1905–1981) | 3 June 1955 | 27 July 1955 | 54 days | none |
| No. | Portrait | Commander | Took office | Left office | Time in office | Defence branch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | Marshal of the Soviet Union Fyodor Tolbukhin (1894–1949) Commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front (in Vienna ) | 13 April 1945 | July 1945 | 2 months |  Soviet Army |
| No. | Portrait | High Commissioner | Took office | Left office | Time in office | Defence branch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Konev (1897–1973) | July 1945 | 25 April 1946 | 9 months | Soviet Army | |
| 2 | Army general Vladimir Kurasov (1897–1973) | 10 May 1946 | 2 April 1949 | 2 years, 327 days | Soviet Army | |
| 3 | Lieutenant general Vladimir Sviridov (1897–1963) | 4 May 1949 | 7 June 1953 | 4 years, 34 days | Soviet Army | |
| 4 | Lieutenant general (Ret'd) Ivan Ilyichev (1905–1983) | 7 June 1953 | 27 July 1955 | 2 years, 50 days | Soviet Army (Ret'd) |
The Potsdam Agreement was the agreement among three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union after the war ended in Europe that was signed on 1 August 1945 and it was published the next day. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany, its border, and the entire European Theatre of War territory. It also addressed Germany's demilitarisation, reparations, the prosecution of war criminals and the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from various parts of Europe. France was not invited to the conference but formally remained one of the powers occupying Germany.
The Paris Peace Treaties were signed on 10 February 1947 following the end of World War II in 1945. The Paris Peace Conference lasted from 29 July until 15 October 1946. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of peace treaties with those former Axis allies, namely Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland, which had switched sides and declared war on Germany during the war. They were allowed to fully resume their responsibilities as sovereign states in international affairs and to qualify for membership in the United Nations. Nevertheless, the Paris Peace Treaties avoided taking into consideration the consequences of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, whose secret clauses included the division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the occupation of the Baltic States, and the annexation of parts of Finland and Romania. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact changed the borders agreed after the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), and was signed on August 23, 1939. One week later, World War II started with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland, followed three weeks later by the Soviet invasion of Poland, which was completely erased from the map. In the following years, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union changed the borders established by the peace treaties at the end of World War I.
The final battles of the European theatre of World War II continued after the definitive surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German leader Adolf Hitler's suicide and handing over of power to grand admiral Karl Dönitz on the last day of April 1945, Soviet troops conquered Berlin and accepted surrender of the Dönitz-led government. The last battles were fought on the Eastern Front which ended in the total surrender of all of Nazi Germany’s remaining armed forces such as in the Courland Pocket in western Latvia from Army Group Courland in the Baltics surrendering on 10 May 1945 and in Czechoslovakia during the Prague offensive on 11 May 1945.
Following the termination of hostilities in World War II, the Allies were in control of the defeated Axis countries. Anticipating the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan, they had already set up the European Advisory Commission and a proposed Far Eastern Advisory Commission to make recommendations for the post-war period. Accordingly, they managed their control of the defeated countries through Allied Commissions, often referred to as Allied Control Commissions (ACC), consisting of representatives of the major Allies.
The Austrian State Treaty or Austrian Independence Treaty established Austria as a sovereign state. It was signed on 15 May 1955 in Vienna, at the Schloss Belvedere among the Allied occupying powers and the Austrian government. The neighbouring Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia acceded to the treaty subsequently. It officially came into force on 27 July 1955.
The Saar Protectorate, officially Saarland, was a French protectorate and a disputed territory separated from Germany. On joining the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957, it became the smallest "federal state", the Saarland, not counting the "city states" of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen. It is named after the Saar River.
The entirety of Germany was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II, from the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945 to the establishment of West Germany on 23 May 1949. Unlike occupied Japan, Nazi Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and former state: after Germany formally surrendered on 8 May 1945, the four countries representing the Allies asserted joint authority and sovereignty through the Allied Control Council (ACC).
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania. The fate of the territories held by Romania after 1918 that were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 is treated separately in the article on Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.
The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of two superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US). The aftermath of World War II was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia, Oceania, South America and Africa by European and East Asian powers, most notably by the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
The industrial plans for Germany were designs the Allies of World War II considered imposing on Germany in the Aftermath of World War II to reduce and manage Germany's industrial capacity.
Austria was occupied by the Allies and declared independent from Nazi Germany on 27 April 1945, as a result of the Vienna offensive. The occupation ended when the Austrian State Treaty came into force on 27 July 1955.
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland, as well as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, part of eastern Finland and eastern Romania. Apart from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and post-war division of Germany, the USSR also occupied and annexed Carpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia in 1945.
The London and Paris Conferences were two related conferences held in London and Paris during September–October 1954 to determine the status of West Germany. The talks concluded with the signing of the Paris Agreements, which granted West Germany some sovereignty, ended the occupation, and allowed its admittance to NATO. Furthermore, both West Germany and Italy joined the Brussels Treaty on 23 October 1954. The Agreements went into force on 5 May 1955. The participating powers included France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, and remaining NATO members.
Relations between Austria and Germany are close due to their shared history and culture, with German being the official language and Germans being the major ethnic group of both countries.
The Allied Control Council (ACC) or Allied Control Authority, and also referred to as the Four Powers, was the governing body of the Allied occupation zones in Germany (1945–1949/1991) and Austria (1945–1955) after the end of World War II in Europe. After the defeat of the Nazis, Germany and Austria were occupied as two different areas, both by the same four Allies. Both were later divided into four zones by the 1 August 1945 Potsdam Agreement. Its members were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. The organisation was based in Schöneberg, Berlin.
Fliegerhorst Leopold Figl – Flugplatz General Pabisch is an Austrian Air Force base located approximately 5 km (3 mi) east-southeast of Tulln; about 30 km (19 mi) northwest of Vienna.
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous city and state. Austria is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The landlocked country occupies an area of 83,879 km2 (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of around 9 million.
Austria–Soviet Union relations were established in 1924, discontinued in 1938 following German annexation of Austria and renewed following Austrian independence after World War II.
