Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold ? The Case of

✣ Erwin A. Schmidl Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 In strategic terms, Austria’s position during the differed significantly from that of or , let alone Ireland. Like , Austria was situated right along the . In 1945 the “mental” and political divide between East and West (the actual barricade was not built until after 1948) went right through Austria, and the hoped to bring the Austrian Communists to power by more or less democratic means. This goal failed, however, when the Communists were defeated in the November 1945 elections.1 Soviet policy eventually preferred a “neutral” Austria to other options such as a division of the country, which would have left the strategically important western part under Western control.2 Consequently, when the real Iron Curtain with its barbed wire and mine fields was put up in 1948, it followed Austria’s eastern borders, unlike the interzone boundary that divided Germany. The long, hard route leading to the Austrian State of 1955 and the restoration of the country’s sovereignty in exchange for a commitment to neutrality based on the Swiss model has been amply researched and described elsewhere.3 On 15 May 1955, the four major powers signed the State Treaty in Vienna, reestablishing Austrian sovereignty, albeit with certain restrictions.

1. The Soviet Union had not expected the Communists to receive only 5.4 percent of the vote. The Christian Socialist People’s Party received 49.8 percent, and the Socialist Party received 44.6 percent. 2. See Wolfgang Mueller, Die sowjetische Besatzung in Osterreich¨ 1945–1955 und ihre politische Mission (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2005); Wolfgang Mueller et al., eds., Sowjetische Politik in Osterreich:¨ Dokumente aus russischen Archiven (Vienna: Osterreichische¨ Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2005). 3. See, first and foremost, ’s magnum opus, Um Einheit und Freiheit: Staatsvertrag, Neutralitat¨ und das Ende der Ost-West-Besetzung Osterreichs¨ 1945–1955,5threv.ed.(Vienna:Bohlau,¨ 2005). See also Rolf Steininger, Der Staatsvertrag: Osterreich¨ im Schatten von deutscher Frage und Kaltem Krieg 1938–1955 (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2005); and Manfried Rauchensteiner and Robert Kriechbaumer, eds., Die Gunst des Augenblicks: Neuere Forschungen zu Staatsvertrag und Neutralitat¨ (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2005). See also Wolfgang Mueller’s article in this special issue of the journal, as well as the excellent overview offered in Michael Gehler, Finis Neutralitat?¨ Historische und politische Aspekte im europaischen¨ Vergleich: Irland, Finnland, Schweden, Schweiz und Osterreich¨ , Discussion Paper C 92 of Center for European Integration Studies (Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat,¨ 2001).

Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 18, No. 4, Fall 2016, pp. 36–50, doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00679 C 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

36 Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War?

The occupation troops were withdrawn in due course, and on 26 the Austrian parliament adopted the Neutrality Law as an amendment to the Austrian .4

Shaping a Neutral Policy

The Austrian government had pledged to follow the “Swiss model” of neutrality in the Moscow memorandum of 15 April 1955, which was the necessary Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 prerequisite for Moscow’s willingness to accept the State Treaty.5 By December 1955, however, Austria had already digressed from the Swiss interpretation of neutrality by becoming a member of the (UN)—a step Switzerland did not take until 2002.6 Franz Cede, one of the leading Austrian experts in international law and himself a retired ambassador, used metaphors to describe the phases of Austrian neutrality in the following way: After starting with a “Frank Sinatra phase” (“We do it our way!”), neutrality moved on to a “Mushrooming phase” (“everything is neutrality”) in the 1960s and 1970s, when all diplomatic activities were interpreted as a consequence of neutrality. With the end of the Cold War, neutrality reached the “avocado phase,” with the flesh peeled away and neutrality reduced to the core.7 This evolution could hardly have been foreseen in 1955. How would Aus- tria interpret the obligations and possibilities of its newfound status? At first, Western observers were highly skeptical, to put it mildly. In January 1956 the British legation in Vienna complained about Austria’s “lamentably muddled” and “neutralistic” policy, which might lead “toward an ambiguous neutrality” or even a pro-Soviet “satellization” of the country.8 This assessment changed only when Austria took a clear pro-Western stance during the Soviet invasion

4. “Bundesverfassungsgesetz vom 26. Oktober 1955 uber¨ die Neutralitat¨ Osterreichs,”¨ Bundesgesetz- blatt fur¨ die Republik Osterreich¨ , Vol. 57/1955 (4 November 1955), No. 211, p. 1151, available at http://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblPdf/1955_211_0/1955_211_0.pdf. 5. The full text is presented online by the Institute for Contemporary History of the University of Innsbruck, http://www.uibk.ac.at/zeitgeschichte/zis/library/steininger2.html#dok2. 6. For a detailed account of Switzerland’s neutrality, see the article by Thomas Fischer and Daniel Mockli¨ in this special issue. 7. Franz Cede, “Staatsvertrag und Neutralitat¨ aus heutiger Sicht,” in Rauchensteiner and Kriechbaumer, eds., Die Gunst des Augenblicks, pp. 526–527, 531. For a recent account, see Franz Cede, “Die osterreichische¨ Neutralitatskonzeption¨ im Jahre 1961,” in Stefan Karner et al., eds., DerWienerGipfel 1961: Kennedy-Chruschtschow (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2011), pp. 809ff. 8. Report of the UK Legation in Vienna, Confidential (1012/-/56), Twice Monthly memorandum No. 2, 20 January 1956, in The National Archives of the (TNAUK), Public Record Office, Foreign Office (FO), 371/124082.

37 Schmidl of in 1956, which it harshly denounced. The nascent Austrian army guarded the Hungarian border, across which nearly 200,000 Hungarians even- tually fled for safety. In a serious incident, a Soviet soldier was killed when he crossed the border into Austrian territory while chasing Hungarian refugees.9 In an annual report for 1956, British diplomats praised Austria’s performance:

For Austria, 1956 was pre-eminently a year of unspectacular but steady consoli- dation. Her infant neutrality which had been delivered with such haste and had Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 at first toddled so uncertainly, learned to walk with a welcome sense of purpose and direction.... Austria has converted a dangerous lack of direction in her policy into a positive concept of neutrality.10

Although Austria’s policy became more cautious during the later stages of the crisis than in in the early days, the concept of “being neutral militarily but pro-Western politically” continued in subsequent years. During the Lebanon crisis of 1958, discussions about unannounced flights over Austrian territory by U.S. planes provided the Soviet Union with a pretext to warn Austria that the pro-Western interpretation of neutrality could go too far.11 One might doubt whether this demonstration was really necessary, though, as Austria increasingly developed an agenda of its own. In 1960, for example, Foreign Minister Bruno Kreisky, who shaped Austrian foreign policy in the 1960s and 1970s, decided to bring the issue of the German-speaking population of South Tyrol to the UN despite strong U.S. reservations.12 Even so, a degree of independence from U.S. or Western policy never meant that Austria wanted to follow a Soviet lead. When the Soviet Union proposed to move the UN headquarters from New York to Vienna in 1961, or when Moscow first proposed a European security conference, Austrian diplomats were careful to avoid giving the impression that their country was acting like another of Moscow’s satellites.13

9. For a more detailed account, see Erwin A. Schmidl, ed., Die Ungarnkrise 1956 und Osterreich¨ (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2003). 10. Annual Report, R. P. Heppel for Sir Geoffrey Wallinger, Vienna, 24 January 1957, in TNAUK, FO 371/130273, RR 1011/1. 11. See Walter Blasi, “Die Libanonkrise 1958 und die US-Uberfl¨ uge,”¨ in Erwin A. Schmidl, ed., Osterreich¨ im fruhen¨ Kalten Krieg 1945–1958: Spione, Partisanen, Kriegsplane¨ (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2000), pp. 239–259. 12. Erwin A. Schmidl, Blaue Helme, Rotes Kreuz: Das osterreichische¨ UN-Sanitatskontingent¨ im Kongo, 1960 bis 1963, 2nd Rev. Ed., Vol. 1 of -Studien (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2010), pp. 45–46. 13. Ibid., p. 15; and Thomas Fischer, Neutral Power in the CSCE: The N+N States and the Making of the Helsinki Accords 1975 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009).

38 Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War?

Phases of Austrian Foreign Policy

Kreisky shaped Austria’s foreign policy for three decades—first as deputy for- eign minister (1953–1959), then as foreign minister (1959–1966), and even- tually as chancellor (1970–1983). The 1966–1970 conservative government was but a brief interlude; the short-term foreign ministers Lujo Tonciˇ c-Sorinj´ and Kurt Waldheim did not come close to fundamentally altering the coun- try’s foreign policy. When Kreisky became chancellor in 1970, career diplomats Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Rudolf Kirchschlager,¨ Erich Bielka-Karltreu, and Willibald Pahr more or less executed his policy as his foreign ministers.14 Nevertheless, the Austrian foreign policy of the 1970s differed from that of the 1950s. In the 1970s Austria started to conduct an increasingly pro– policy. Austrian his torians still discuss to what extent this was a continuous development of Kreisky’s “active neutrality policy” or whether he consciously changed his priorities at some point. The apparent changes can probably be attributed, at least in part, to the general developments in world politics. One of the first significant signs of changing priorities occurred in the late 1960s, when Waldheim, then Austria’s permanent representative to the UN, occasionally voted against orders from Vienna in the UN General As- sembly, following a pro–Third World policy rather than a pro-Western one.15 Austria claimed that it had joined the UN with a caveat regarding its neutrality.16 This position was maintained by an older generation of legal experts, most notably Alfred Verdross-Drossberg and Karl Zemanek. In reality, however, Austria operated along the same lines as Switzerland, “autonomously” adopting measures called for by UN sanctions, such as those applied against (South-) Rhodesia in 1965–1966 and South Africa in 1977, and sometimes staying out of matters on the grounds that there could be no implications for a in peacetime.17 In 1957, Felix Ermacora had promoted the

14. For an excellent overview of Austria’s foreign policy, see Michael Gehler’s two-volume Osterreichs¨ Außenpolitik der Zweiten Republik: Von der alliierten Besatzung bis zum Europa des 21. Jahrhunderts (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2005). See also Franz Cede and Christian Prosl, Ambition and Reality: Austria’s Foreign Policy since 1945 (Innsbruck: StudienVerlag, 2016). 15. Ahead of a vote on sanctions against (South-) Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Vienna had ordered Waldheim to abstain, but he voted in favor of the sanctions. 16. For a more detailed study of Austria’s neutrality policy and its varying interpretations, see Alfred Verdross, The Permanent Neutrality of Austria (Vienna: Verlag fur¨ Geschichte und Politik, 1978). 17. For an excellent overview, written under the impact of the 1991 Gulf War and the changed global situation, see Sigmar Stadlmeier and Heinz Vetschera, “Dauernde Neutralitat¨ und kollektive Sicherheit im Lichte des Golfkriegs 1990/91,” Osterreichische¨ Militarische¨ Zeitschrift, Vol. 29, No. 4 (July/August 1991), pp. 316–317, with references for further reading.

39 Schmidl idea that the genesis of the UN had placed new conditions on the practice of neutrality—accordingly, the question was not whether a neutral state could be a member of the UN but which policies a neutral member of the UN had to follow.18 In 1983, Kreisky’s Social Democrats lost their absolute majority, which they had held since 1970. Under the new chancellor, Fred Sinowatz, and his successor, , who presided over a coalition government with the liberal/right-wing Freedom Party until 1987, the Foreign Ministry was Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 headed by three foreign ministers who each followed very different policies: the outspoken and left-wing-leaning Erwin Lanc was followed by the more conservative Leopold Gratz in 1984, who was succeeded two years later by the more pragmatic Peter Jankowitsch, an experienced career diplomat and former secretary to Kreisky who personally was not much of a conservative. In the renewed tensions of the so-called Second Cold War, Austria’s official foreign policy continued to support Eastern ’s Communist rulers. In 1984, Gratz was the first Western foreign minister to visit Poland after the declaration of martial law. Social Democratic foreign ministers left the establishment of contacts with the rising leaders of the East-bloc citizens’ movements, such as Solidarno´s´c, to the more far-sighted conservative politicians of the opposition (notably Erhard Busek). Under the new Socialist-Conservative coalition government inaugurated in January 1987 and headed by Vranitzky, the Foreign Ministry passed to the Conservative Alois Mock. Under Mock, Austrian foreign policy again set out clear priorities and for the first time since 1955 set out to achieve the foremost of these priorities, namely,: accession to the European Communities (EC). Eight years later, in January 1995, this policy reached fruition as Austria joined the EC’s successor organization, the (EU), despite the official maintenance of neutrality. In the lead-up to membership, discussions had taken place about the possibility of remaining neutral as a member of the EU. Legal experts had their doubts, but “neutrality” and European “solidarity” were publicly declared to be compatible. Austria’s position was made easier by the fact that the EC/EU already included one neutral member (Ireland) and two other neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, were set to join at the same time as Austria.19 The same year Austria joined the EU, it also joined the

18. Ibid., p. 315. 19. See Erich Reiter, “Landesverteidigung und Neutralitat¨ bei einer Teilnahme Osterreichs¨ an einer kunftigen¨ politischen Union der EG,” Osterreichische¨ Militarische¨ Zeitschrift, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan- uary/February 1992), pp. 9–14.

40 Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War?

Partnership for Peace (PfP) program of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Austria also considered accession to NATO proper. This idea was sup- ported mainly by Conservative and liberal politicians and opposed by Social Democrats, although discussions crossed party lines.20 Popular fascination with “neutrality” thwarted all these ideas, however, and in 1998 the government failed to achieve consensus on the so-called Optionenbericht,anattempttolist

Austria’s options for a future security policy, including the option of joining Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 NATO, something the Social Democratic Chancellor Viktor Klima wanted to avoid.21 The new security doctrine, adopted by the center-right govern- ment under Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel¨ in 2001, included the theoretical option of joining NATO.22 By then, however, the idea of accession had be- come politically highly unlikely, given the changes in popular mood in the wake of NATO’s air campaign against in 1999, the ill-conceived EU “sanctions” against the center-right government in protest at the role of Jorg¨ Haider in 2000, and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Nonetheless, in the early 2000s, official parlance favored non-alignment over neutrality. In 2007, the Social Democrats returned to power in a coalition government with the (conservative) People’s Party. The new, left-leaning, decidedly anti- NATO defense minister Norbert Darabos introduced a new security doc- trine in 2010 that actually contained few changes other than not mentioning NATO. For a foreign audience in the 1990s, Austria’s internal discussions were hard to comprehend. The EU was developing its own security and defense concepts in close cooperation with NATO, and Austria cooperated in EU foreign and security policy, had ratified the of Amsterdam, Nice, and Lisbon, and had adopted the appropriate constitutional amendments to incorporate the latest EU policy, all the time remaining nominally “neutral.”23

20. See the record of one of the leading advocates of joining NATO, and a remarkable strategic thinker in the Austrian Ministry of Defense, Erich Reiter, Neutralitat¨ oder NATO: Die sicherheitspolitischen Konsequenzen aus der europaischen¨ Aufgabe Osterreichs¨ (Graz: Styria, 1996). 21. An excellent survey of the evolution of Austria’s neutrality doctrine is Heinrich Schneider, “Der sicherheitspolitische ‘Optionenbericht’ der osterreichischen¨ Bundesregierung: Ein Dokument, das es nicht gibt—und ein Lehrstuck¨ politischen Scheiterns,” in Die Sicherheitspolitische Entwicklung in Osterreich¨ und der Schweiz, Vol. 16 of Informationen zur Sicherheitspolitik (March 1999), available at http://www.bmlv.gv.at/pdf_pool/publikationen/01_seo_02_soo.pdf. 22. “Sicherheits- und Verteidigungsdoktrin,” 2001, http://www.bka.gv.at/2004/4/4/doktrin_d.pdf. 23. This refers mainly to the new article 23f of the constitution, introduced in 1999 in response to the Amsterdam Treaty. See also Gunther Hauser, Europas Sicherheit und Verteidigung: Der zivil-militarische¨ Ansatz (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2010).

41 Schmidl

The Development of Austrian Security and Defense Concepts

Although discussions of the future of the armed forces, including the debate over suspending or even abolishing mandatory conscription, are still ongoing, the role of the military has changed significantly since 1955. Although official statements, issued in the course of the 2003 Reform Commission and the sub- sequent Bundesheer 2010 reform project, claim that the military’s three main Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 tasks (national defense, international operations, and aid to civil authorities) are of equal importance, most observers agree that, in reality, participation in international peace support operations has become the main task. This recent development can be traced back to the mid-1990s, particularly to Austria’s accession to NATO’s PfP in 1995 and its participation in NATO- led peacekeeping operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina beginning in 1996 and in 1999. Until then, military defense had been the main task of the Austrian armed forces—or so the top brass thought. During the four-power occupation of 1945–1955, Austria had no military forces of its own, although paramilitary formations were established within the federal gendarmerie (rural police) in the Western zones from 1949.24 In 1955– 1956, these formed the nucleus for the new Federal Army, the Bundesheer, established on the basis of obligatory national service of nine months. The Bundesheer saw its first deployment along the border with Hungary during the 1956 crisis, just two weeks after the first recruits had entered the barracks. In 1957 the British military attache,´ Colonel J. J. Packard, stated that “the Austrian armed forces have started off well,” and D. J. Swan of the British Foreign Office added: “The Austrian Army is being built up into a force where morale is high and which demonstrates the country’s determination to defend its neutrality.”25 The latter statement was an illusion, however. Evidently, political lead- ers had decided early on that the Austrian army, to quote Prime Minister Julius Raab, himself a respected engineer officer and I veteran, “would never fight a war”. A defense committee protocol dated February 1958 makes clear that most high-level politicians, from both the Conservatives and the Social Democrats, believed the new army was intended mainly as “an

24. See the contributions in Walter Blasi, Erwin A. Schmidl, and Felix Schneider, eds., B-Gendarmerie, Waffenlager und Nachrichtendienste: Der militarische¨ Weg zum Staatsvertrag (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2005). 25. Report by Col. J. J. Packard, Vienna, 22 July 1957, in TNAUK, FO371/130301, RR 1201/3; and D. J. Swan’s Commentary to Packard’s report, 1 August 1957, in TNAUK FO371/130301, RR 1201/3.

42 Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War? educational element for the youth” and as a useful tool in emergencies or to support the police on the border in the case of a crisis such as Hungary in 1956, when tens of thousands of refugees crossed the border. The secretary general of the Social Democratic Party, Otto Probst, pleaded that “a symbolic defense” was best suited for Austria, and the conservative Commerce Minister Fritz Bock worried about too many tanks damaging the expensive roads. De- fense Minister Ferdinand Graf was alone in maintaining that more than “nice 26 words” would be needed to defend Austria’s freedom and sovereignty. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 This attitude, so different from Swiss or Swedish concepts of “total de- fense,” is perhaps understandable given Austria’s experience of two world that ended in defeat, bringing wholesale destruction of property and economy in addition to huge numbers of Austrians killed and wounded.27 In any case, the gap between public pledges for a credible defense and the continual refusal to provide the military with the necessary means of mounting such a defense remained a constant of Austrian policy throughout the Cold War.28 Despite some improvements in the 1960s, the Austrian army was contin- ually denied adequate funds, in part because some clauses of the 1955 State Treaty were erroneously interpreted as prohibiting the acquisition of anti-tank or anti-aircraft missiles.29 Consequently, the army lacked modern aerial defense and anti-tank weapons, and these glaring weaknesses persisted throughout the Cold War. Unless hostile air forces proved incapable of operating because of the weather, Austria’s chances of successfully repelling an attack were slim indeed. Some decision-makers certainly hoped for support from NATO in the case of an invasion by Warsaw Pact forces. In the aftermath of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, when hundreds of thousands of troops moved in and crushed the widely popular reform movement, Austrian Prime Minister Josef Klaus explored whether the would

26. Gedachtnisniederschrift¨ uber¨ die LVR-Sitzung am 25.2.1958, BMLV Sektion IV, Handakte 1958, in Manfried Rauchensteiner, ed., Das Bundesheer der Zweiten Republik: Eine Dokumentation,Vol.9 of Schriften des Heeresgeschichtlichen Museums in Wien (Vienna: Bundesverlag, 1980), Doc. 26, pp. 41–42. 27. See the proceedings of the 26th International Military History Congress held in 2000 in Stockholm, The Total War—The Total Defence, 1789–2000 (Stockholm: Swedish Commission on Military History, 2001), esp. the papers by Sir Michael Howard (pp. 42–45), Olav Riste (pp. 136–144), and Adrien Tschumy (pp. 145–158). 28. See the various contributions in Manfried Rauchensteiner, ed., Zwischen den Blocken:¨ NATO, Warschauer Pakt und Osterreich¨ , Vol. 36 of Schriftenreihe des Forschungsinstitutes fur¨ politisch- historische Studien der Dr.-Wilfried-Haslauer-Bibliothek Salzburg (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2010). 29. In 1955, the Austrian Foreign Ministry had refused efforts to eliminate the restrictive defense clauses from the text of the State Treaty. Some of these clauses—for example, those that would have prohibited the acquisition of Airbus aircraft by Austrian Airlines—were later ignored and eventually declared obsolete by the Austrian government on 6 November 1990.

43 Schmidl be willing to pledge military support in case of an attack against Austria. Although U.S. officials acknowledged that aggression against Austria would be considered a slightly more serious breach of peace than a move against Yugoslavia, they refrained from making any formal commitment.30 Austria’s policy, influenced by its obligations under the Neutrality Law of 1956, of maintaining good relations with the signatory powers of the State Treaty and with other neutrals, such as Sweden and Switzerland, affected its military diplomacy. Although Austria maintained good bilateral relations Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 with these countries and later with all of its neighbors, it had no formal ties to either of the two opposing blocs. In the late 1950s, Social Democratic leaders such as the foreign minister and the deputy defense minister vetoed all attempts to enter into talks with NATO representatives in preparation for joint defense efforts in future wars. The clear priority was not to jeopardize future neutrality by engaging in prior coordination of Austrian and NATO military preparations.31 Such talks had been proposed by several high-ranking military officers who believed that Austria and NATO needed to prepare as effectively as possible for a joint defense of the coming Soviet or Warsaw Pact onslaught against the West, which in their minds naturally would have included Austria. On at least some occasions, NATO planners foresaw operations in Austria in the case of a future war in Europe.32 Soviet and Warsaw Pact exercises usually included Austrian forces among the opposing NATO forces.33 Given

30. Doc. 202, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. 17, pp. 536–538. See also Herbert Grubmayr, “Als Pressesprecher bei Außenminister Waldheim,” in Stefan Karner et al., eds., Prager Fruhling:¨ Das internationale Krisenjahr 1968, Vol. 9 of Veroffentlichungen¨ des Ludwig Boltzmann-Instituts fur¨ Kriegsfolgen-Forschung (Cologne: Bohlau,¨ 2008), p. I/1159. I am indebted to Ambassador Grubmayr for additional information. 31. Stefan Bader, General Erwin Fussenegger 1908 bis 1986: Der erste Generaltruppeninspektor des Osterreichischen¨ Bundesheeres der Zweiten Republik, Schriften zur Geschichte des Osterreichischen¨ Bun- desheeres 1 (Vienna: Gra&Wis, 2003), p. 124. See also Manfried Rauchensteiner, “Landesverteidigung und Außenpolitik—Feindliche Bruder?”¨ in Manfried Rauchensteiner and Wolfgang Etschmann, eds., Schild ohne Schwert: Das osterreichische¨ Bundesheer 1955–1970, Forschungen zur Militargeschichte¨ 2 (Graz: Styria, 1991), pp. 129–171, esp. 147; and Horst Pleiner, “General Erwin Fussenegger (1908 bis 1986): Der erste Generaltruppeninspektor des Osterreichischen¨ Bundesheeres der Zweiten Republik,” Truppendienst, Vol. 43, No. 1 (January/February 2004), pp. 1, 36–38. 32. See Dieter Kruger,¨ Brennender Enzian: Die Operationsplanung der NATO fur¨ Osterreich¨ und Nordi- talien 1951 bis 1960, Vol. 46 of Einzelschriften zur Militargeschichte¨ 46 (Vienna: Rombach, 2010), drawing mainly on NATO South documents from the 1950s. 33. See, for example, the documents about the Hungarian 1965 “war game” published on the website of the Parallel History Project (http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/; and Daniel Povolny,´ Vojensk´e Reˇ ˇsen´ı: Prazskˇ ´eho jara 1: Invaze armad´ Varˇsavsk´e Smlouvy (Prague: VojenskyHistorick´ y´ Ustav,´ 2008). See also Hans Rudolf Fuhrer, Alle roten Pfeile kamen aus Osten—zu Recht? Das Bild und die Bedrohung der Schweiz 1945–1966 im Licht ostlicher¨ Archive, Der Schweizerische Generalstab 11 (Baden, Switzerland: Hier und Jetzt, 2010).

44 Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War? the nuclear scenarios of the 1960s, war in Europe would likely have made Austria the target of nuclear strikes as each superpower sought to deny the other passage across the Brenner Pass or through the Danube Valley. In contrast, Austrian military planning was largely structured around the idea that in any future war Austria would be defending its territory by itself. To codify the “neutral” position, military preparations were undertaken along all borders, even though most people expected an attack from the East rather than the West. For public consumption, great care was taken to ensure a balanced Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 portrayal of “enemy” forces, mixing models of Eastern and Western tanks in drawings and always depicting “hostile” arrows crossing Austrian territory with points at both ends. Partly based on Swedish, Finnish, or Swiss models, the concept of “Com- prehensive Defense” (Umfassende Landesverteidigung) was developed in the 1960s and gradually implemented in the 1970s.34 Four fields were identified: economic, , psychological, and military defense. In reality, however, preparations in the three non-military fields were never fully completed, and the concept had few practical consequences, although it facilitated coordi- nation between non-military and military structures for civilian emergencies such as natural disasters. On the provincial and district levels, this coordina- tion proved its worth not only during various catastrophes but also during the 1991 emergency along the border with Slovenia. In the wake of the 1968 Czechoslovak crisis, the Austrian government’s de- cision not to deploy its military forces along the border with Czechoslovakia— and instead to maintain a “security distance” of some 30 kilometers—was heavily criticized both within the army and outside, coinciding with anti- military slogans of the 1968 period.35 Why spend huge sums on the military when it was not even defending the border in times of crisis? This was an im- portant factor in the election that brought the Social Democrats to power in 1970. They campaigned with the promise that they would shorten mandatory national service from nine to six months. Eventually, it was reduced to eight months. The reorganization of the Austrian army in the 1970s managed to instill new pride into the ranks. The standing forces, consisting of three mechanized brigades and some specialized battalions (including an airmobile battalion) in addition to aviation assets, would be readily available in the event of a crisis.

34. For an insightful analysis of Austrian defense politics, see Johanna Rainio-Niemi, The Ideological Cold War: The Politics of Neutrality in Austria and Finland (New York: Routledge, 2014), esp. chs. 5–6. 35. See Erwin A. Schmidl, “Osterreich¨ und die CSSR-Kriseˇ 1968,” Der Donauraum, Vol. 48, No. 1–2 (2008), pp. 109–127.

45 Schmidl

Known as the Bereitschaftstruppe (Readiness Force), they were originally going to be named the Neutralitats-Schutztruppe¨ (Neutrality Protection Force), thus clearly linking their purpose to the defense of Austria against any (intended or unintended) breach of neutrality.36 Crisis scenarios followed three “cases” that had been defined in the 1960s. The “crisis case” would be invoked when any crisis in the vicinity called for increased measures at the border. The next level was the “neutrality case,” which referred to fighting in a neighboring country and the danger of armed elements crossing the border. In this case the army Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 would be deployed to prevent a spread of the conflict onto Austrian territory. The third level was the “defense case”; that is, defense against a direct attack on Austria. At the same time, the original doctrine of “border defense” as specified in the 1920 and 1955 defense laws was replaced by a concept of “national defense” (Landesverteidigung) in 1975.37 This was more realistic and in line with the 1970s military concept of “territorial defense” (Raumverteidigung), which sought to dissuade a potential aggressor from entering Austrian territory in the first place. The new national defense doctrine was the consequence of the realistic assumption that no aggressor would attack Austria alone and that any Austrian involvement in a war would be in the context of a major European conflict. Therefore, more or less adequate preparations were made throughout the country to render entry, passage, or occupation of Austrian territory as “expensive” for a potential adversary as possible. In addition to mobile and fixed defense positions, partisan-like forces would harass the invading army’s rear. Known as the “Spannocchi Doctrine” after its best-known proponent, Army Commander General Emil (Count) Spannocchi, the idea of using guerrilla-like forces was influenced by the Vietnam experience and the successes that small, ill-equipped but determined forces had achieved against an overwhelming superpower. Whether the experience of the Viet Cong could truly be applied to Central Europe was problematic, but fortunately the Austrian doctrine was never tested in practice.

36. The original proposal was quickly dropped because the abbreviation of Neutralitats-Schutztruppe¨ , “NS,” might bring to mind the earlier acronym for National Socialism. 37. The Constitutional Law of 10 June 1975 (Bundesgesetzblatt fur¨ die Republik Osterreich¨ , 118/1975, 8 July 1975, No. 368) introduced the Comprehensive Defense doctrine as Article 9a and described Militarische¨ Landesverteidigung instead of mere border defense as the main task of the federal army. The numerous changes to the Austrian constitution are well documented on the Austrian federal chancellery’s webpage, https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage =Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10000138. The Defense Law was altered by the Defense Law Amendment of 29 June 1977. See Bundesgesetzblatt fur¨ die Republik Osterreich¨ , 103/1977, 26 July 1977, No. 385; available at https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblPdf/1977_385_0/1977_385_0.pdf.

46 Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War?

In addition to the “Readiness Force,” Austria intended to build up a reserve force of 300,000–400,000 soldiers to defend Austrian territory in case of war. This was never a realistic figure, though. In 1971, national service had been reduced from nine months to six months plus up to 60 days of refresher training.38 Many young men opted to serve the total time of eight months in the renowned “Readiness Force,” thus bypassing later call-ups, much to the relief of future employers but frustrating the state’s efforts to build up a sizable reserve component. Nonetheless, the efforts and devotion of thousands Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 of reservists who voluntarily dedicated thousands of hours to training, often on weekends and in their spare time, enabled the reserve component—called “Miliz” in an effort to copy the Swiss model at least in name—to grow considerably in the 1980s.39 Even so, specialized and heavy equipment was constantly lacking, and by 1986, officials had decided to reduce mobilization strength of the reserve force from 300,000 to 186,000. The government’s reluctance to risk the costs of mobilizing in times of crisis was demonstrated anew during the brief Yugoslav-Slovenian conflict of June 1991, when calls for partial mobilization were ignored. Since the end of the Cold War, the army has been reorganized several times, eventually being reduced from two corps with a sizable reserve component to four brigades and a current mobilization strength of 55,000.

Neutrality Policy without Military Defense?

The defense measures outlined in this article concern military aspects only. However, senior political figures had decided early on that the Austrian army would not fight in a future war at all. In reality, Austria’s “security policy” developed in complete separation from the military field. High-ranking officers complained that they never received “advice” about potential threat scenarios from the Foreign Ministry, and diplomats usually ignored the military. Thus, interaction between foreign and defense policies was rare on all levels. The “mastermind” of Austria’s foreign policy, Kreisky, had himself devel- oped a remarkable understanding of foreign policy and international relations, partly because of his own experience in Sweden during the War, which distinguished him from most other politicians and senior diplomats of his time. He was clearly convinced that Austria’s security was to be ensured

38. Law of 15 July 1971 (Bundesgesetzblatt fur¨ die Republik Osterreich¨ , 79/1971, 30 July 1971, No. 272; available at https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblPdf/1971_272_0/1971_272_0.pdf. 39. In 1988, the Miliz principle was even included in the constitution.

47 Schmidl more by international engagement than by military efforts, even if this belief was never formulated on paper as a formal doctrine. It is therefore not suprising hat Austrian neutrality policy digressed from the “Swiss model” as early as December 1955, when Austria joined the UN. Subsequently, Vienna was promoted as a “neutral” place for negotiations and conferences. In 1957, the Austrian capital was chosen over , Copen- hagen, and Rio de Janeiro to host the founding conference of the International

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which took place in the Konzerthaus just one Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 year after the Hungarian crisis and in the wake of the first Sputnik flight on 4 October 1957. The agency’s official history states that “the delegations and the Secretariat were overwhelmed by the generous hospitality of the Austrian Government and the City of Vienna.”40 The Vienna conferences on diplomatic and consular relations followed in 1961 and 1963. In 1962, Kreisky organized a conference on economic cooperation that formulated the concept of a “new Marshall Plan” for the Third World (also known as the “Vienna Declaration”) and led to the establishment of the Vienna Institute for Development Studies. Partly as a result of these conferences, Vienna became a seat for inter- national organizations, starting with the IAEA in 1958. The UN Industrial Development Organisation followed in 1966, and in 1979 the Vienna Inter- national Center was officially handed over to the UN. Kreisky once remarked that to have the UN present in Vienna was worth two armored divisions (which the Austrians never had anyway). In addition to the UN, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) moved its seat to Vienna on 1 September 1965.41 Later, Vienna also became the seat of the main bodies of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE; known since 1995 as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE).42 Austria’s active role in the international arena, often characterized as Kreisky’s policy of “active neutrality,” also included participation in UN peace- keeping operations. The contribution of a medical unit to the UN Operations in the Congo in 1960 was largely prompted by the Austrian desire to get support for its South Tyrol policy vis-a-vis` , and later contributions were granted in response to increasing UN demands or in support of Austrian UN

40. See David Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency: The First Forty Years (Vienna: IAEA, 1997), pp. 49, 57; available at http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF /Pub1032_web.pdf. 41. For more details about OPEC’s history, see “Brief History,” OPEC, n.d., http://www.opec.org /opec_web/en/about_us/24.htm. 42. See Fischer, Neutral Power (see note 13 supra).

48 Lukewarm Neutrality in a Cold War?

Secretary General Kurt Waldheim rather than out of a clearly formulated Aus- trian policy.43 Thus, Austria’s salient role did not really stem from a conscious strategy. Rather, it was the result of Kreisky’s policy of using available military assets for the pursuit of diplomatic goals. In the 1970s, Austria even became one of the leading troop contributors to the UN, with almost one-tenth of all Blue Helmets coming from Austria.44 Only after the end of the Cold War, as the number of UN and non-UN peacekeeping efforts increased, did Austria’s proportional participation in international peace operations drop. But the total Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 number of Austrian personnel contributed to UN, EU, OSCE, and NATO missions continued to rise until the early 2000s. These contributions were increasingly seen in the context of Austria’s “neutrality policy” and in connection with what Cede calls the “mushrooming phase” of Austrian neutrality policy, which left aside the question of whether the contribution of military troops to UN operations was even possible for a neutral country. During the Congo operation of 1960–1964, the Republic of Katanga (although not officially recognized as a country) even formally declared war on the UN, a disconcerting scenario for a neutral country to face. Likewise, was Austria’s membership in the UN Security Council (in 1973– 1974, 1991–1992, and 2009–2010) really compatible with a neutral status? In 1991, for example, Austria’s permanent representative at the UN, Am- bassador Peter Hohenfellner, chaired the Iraq Sanctions Committee. Some contemporaries doubted that this was appropriate for the representative of a neutral country, perhaps unaware that Hohenfellner had succeeded a Finnish diplomat in the role. Austria considered contributing a medical unit to the allied forces in Operations “Desert Shield” and “Desert Storm” but eventually refrained from participating. Only after the 1991 Gulf War did Austria take part in several UN-sponsored peacekeeping missions in the region.45

Neutrality as a Myth?

Since the end of the Cold War, the transformation of the European security environment largely superseded the obligations of the 1956 Neutrality Law. This has led to a foreign policy that is often hard to explain to outsiders, such as when Austria, despite being a member of the EU and applauding NATO’s

43. For more detail, see Schmidl, Blaue Helme, Rotes Kreuz (note 12 supra) 44. The number of Austrian Blue Helmets varied, but Austria contributed one battalion in 1972 (to the Cyprus operations) and a second in late 1973 (to the Middle East). These deployments raised the level of Austrian Blue Helmets to about 900—out of 7,000–10,000 UN troops in the 1970s and 1980s. 45. Stadlmeier and Vetschera, “Dauernde Neutralitat,”¨ (see note 17 supra).

49 Schmidl

1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia, prohibited the use of Austrian air space by allied aircraft flying missions against .46 Austria likewise formally invoked its neutrality in 2003 upon the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. However, these acts were a consequence of the political considerations of the day, in part reflecting public opinion rather than the result of a clear policy of neutrality. Opinion polls show that the majority of the population sees “neutrality” as a valid security concept and the best policy for keeping Austria out of a future war, but this view is based on a false perception of Swiss and Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/4/36/700029/jcws_a_00679.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Swedish experiences of the World Wars.47 Over the years, politicians “sold” neutrality as a successful security policy. In 1989, leading Social Democrats praised neutrality as “the most important element of their foreign and security policy.”48 This sales pitch is maintained by some even today, as comments by prominent figures such as Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann, Vienna Mayor Michael Haupl,¨ and Defense Minister Norbert Darabos from 2010 show.49 Social Democrats are not alone in this attitude, with leading Conservatives and others sharing their sentiments. “Neutrality” in Austria has transitioned from a legal to a mythical concept, becoming deeply entrenched in Austrian national identity even though its legal implications have increasingly been eroded—first by Austria’s accession to the EU and then by the concept’s subsequent evolution in the fields of security and defense. As a crucial element of Austrian identity, however, “neutrality” still flourishes, belonging perhaps to the same group as snowy mountains, Mozart’s music, Lipizzaner horses, and sweet Viennese desserts.

Acknowledgment

This text was originally written before the migration crisis of 2015–2016 led to a shift of emphasis from international peace operations to internal security duties as the main tasks of the Austrian armed forces.

46. In addition, Western observers were quick to point out that information about the supposed Serbian Operation Horseshoe against Kosovar forces was provided by Austria. 47. On the development of the neutral countries in Europe, see Michael Gehler and Rolf Steininger, eds., Die Neutralen und die europaische¨ Integration 1945–1995 / The Neutrals and the European Integra- tion 1945–1995 (Vienna: Bohlau,¨ 2000). 48. An excellent survey of the evolution of Austrian neutrality doctrine is Heinrich Schneider, “Der sicherheitspolitische ‘Optionenbericht’ der osterreichischen¨ Bundesregierung: Ein Dokument, das es nicht gibt—und ein Lehrstuck¨ politischen Scheiterns,” in Die Sicherheitspolitische Entwicklung in Osterreich¨ und der Schweiz, Informationen zur Sicherheitspolitik, No. 16 (Vienna: Rombach, March 1999); also available at http://www.bmlv.gv.at/pdf_pool/publikationen/01_seo_02_soo.pdf. 49. In a speech on 26 October 2010, the National Day in Austria, Faymann even claimed, “Wer Osterreichs¨ Neutralitat¨ in Frage stellt, erweist dem Land einen schlechten Dienst!” (“Whoever questions Austrian neutrality is doing a disservice to the country!”).

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