From prehistory to frontier state
The Danube region was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic period, between 80,000 and 10,000 BC. The "Dancing Woman" and the "Venus of Werndorf" excavated in the Krems region are important first-hand testimonies of this early culture, and in 1991 a world-shattering mummy of a man from the Stone Age was discovered in the glacier region of the J?tztal Alps. During the Early Iron Age (800 to 400 B.C.), living in this part of Austria were the Kerten people, who were already engaged in the salt and iron trade on a European scale. Around the time of Christ's birth, the Roman Empire occupied the vast majority of present-day Austria. The provinces of Laetzien, Noricum and Bannoni were established as frontier dependencies. The Romans established many camps, and the camp of Bannoni, located east of Vienna, was the largest city built by the Romans in this part of Austria. In the 2nd century AD, Christianity began to spread. The Great Migration of peoples led to the decline of the power of the Roman Empire. With the end of the Roman Empire, the Latin way of life and culture also died out from this region. From the 6th century onwards, the Bavarians began to settle here again and met up with the Slavs and Avars, who were advancing from the east. The establishment of church organizations in this land dates back to the 4th century AD. The Frankish ruler Charles the Great (747-814) founded the "East Carolingian State" on what is today Austria, between the rivers Enns, Lapp and Draaau. However, after a failed war with the Magyars, the Eastern Dependencies were dissolved in 907. It was not until 955 that Otto the Great was able to regain the land by defeating the Magyars, and in 976 the area between the Enns and the Theresien River was granted to Lelpold von Schwarzenegger, a Bavarian nobleman of a prominent family. Von Babenberg. Babenberg.
Rule of the Babenberg royal family
The new rulers of this frontier countship initially established their center of rule in Mayrk, but in 1156 Duke Henry II "Jasomirgott" (Heaven and Earth) finally chose Vienna as his capital. The Babenberg rulers continued to expand their territories north of the Danube to the east and south. Even before the turn of the millennium, in 996, the former Alpine region was already called Austria (?Ostarrichi") in one document.
In 1156, the ruler of Babenberg was honored by Emperor Friedrich ? Barbarossa, the frontier countships were elevated to dukedom, which meant greater independence from imperial power.In 1192, the Babenberg ruler Leopold V won the dukedom of Steiermark through a marriage, and in 1246, when Duke Friedrich II, who was without a heir at the knee, was killed at the Battle of Letta against the Hungarians, his fiefs became the subject of a neighboring power-political struggle. object of political struggle for power in neighboring states. The Austrian nobility eventually sided with the Bohemian king, Ottokar II Premysil, who secured his inheritance of the fief by marrying the sister of the last Babenberg ruler. Ottokar II soon succeeded in restoring order in the country, regaining Stelmak, and in turn, by a treaty of succession, also placing the Cairn vine under his rule. However, the newly elected king of the Roman Empire, Rudolf? Von Habsburg, the newly elected King of the Roman Empire. Habsburg considered the Bohemian king to be insubordinate to the imperial decrees and was therefore unwilling to recognize his authority. Thus, a war conflict broke out, and in 1278, Ottocar was killed at the Battle of Dornkreut. In 1282, Rudolf crowned two of his sons as dukes of Austria and Steiermark, thus laying the groundwork for the expansion of the Habsburg royal family's power.
600 years of Habsburg royal rule
From the end of the 13th century to the middle of the 15th century, the Habsburg rulers enlarged their territories by acquiring the dukedom of Cairn Vine (1335), the countship of Tyrol, and the borderland of Wendy (1365). The loss of territory in Switzerland was compensated by the purchase of fiefs in the region of Vorarlberg in the present-day Federal Province. Her founder, the brilliant Rudolf IV, not only founded the University of Vienna, but was also able to strengthen his family's position for generations by forging Privilegium maius documents. Rudolf's heir, the industrious Duke Albrecht V, married the daughter of the Emperor Sigismund and became King of Bohemia and Hungary. After the death of his father-in-law, Albrecht became the first Habsburg ruler to be reelected king of Roman Germany. He died young during a campaign against the Turks in 1439. Friedrich V (Emperor Friedrich III) from the Tyrolean line took over the reigns in Austria and the Empire. Through the politics of alliances between right and left, he laid the foundations of the powerful Habsburg Empire. He had his son Maximilian married to Mary, the heiress of Burgundy. Maximilian in turn secured the succession of his grandsons Ferdinand and Karl in Bohemia and Hungary, as well as in Spain, through clever alliance politics. Thereafter, the Habsburg dynasty was divided into two lines, Austro-German and Spanish-Dutch, and in 1526 the last Jagiello ruler, Louis II, died at the Battle of Mohács, with which Bohemia and Hungary were united with Austria.
The Ottoman Empire, which had been advancing into Europe since the 14th century, was a growing threat to the continent, and after capturing Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans continued to advance westward and posed a continuing danger to the Habsburg fiefdoms. Twice the Ottoman armies reached the gates of Vienna before being stopped (the Turks besieged Vienna twice, in 1529 and 1683). After one bloody battle, the Ottomans were driven out. Hungary was retaken. Austria's prosperity and development into a powerful empire should be attributed first and foremost to the genius of the commander-in-chief who assisted three emperors (Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI), Eugen? Prince von Savoyen. Prince Eugen von Savoyne. In 1700, the Habsburg line in Spain died out. In a European war, the "War of the Spanish Succession", the Austrian crown (Casa d'Austria) was unable to regain the Spanish territories, but retained its dominion in Italy and the Netherlands, and in 1740, with the death of the Emperor Charles VI, the patrilineal Habsburgs became extinct. Since the Edict of State, issued as a royal decree in 1713, ensured the indivisibility of the fiefs and made female succession possible, Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresia took over the fiefs. Theresia took over the rule of the fief. This female ruler, married to Franz Stefan of Rotterdam, was a member of the Court of the Roman Empire. The female ruler, married to Franz Stefan of Rothenburg, was confronted by a group of enemies who coveted the Habsburg domains. Firstly, King Friedrich II of Prussia sought to take over the territory with impunity. After two difficult wars (the Silesian War of 1740-48 and the Seven Years' War of 1756-63), Maria? Theresia was in a position to keep the territory, and only the rich province of Silesia was ceded to Prussia.
This historically important female ruler began a fundamental reform of the dominions. Her husband, elected as Franz I as German Emperor of Rome in 1745, lived in her shadow for the rest of his life. Her son, Joseph II, continued along her path of reform, outlawing serfdom, decreeing the right of toleration and the removal of monastic and ecclesiastical property for secular use, and contributing decisively to the formation of a consistently centralized system of government. The French revolutionary ideas, though they spread fearfully in Austria, caused the Austrian autocracy to experience a serious threat. Maria? Theresia's grandson, the nephew of the executed French queen Marie? The grandson of Maria Theresia, nephew of the executed Queen Marie Antonette of France, Emperor Franz II joined the coalition against revolutionary France, with the result that Austria was forced to swallow the bitter defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in the battle against him. After Napoleon was crowned Emperor of France in 1804, Emperor Franz responded by establishing himself as Emperor of Austria. The formation of the League of Laing under French patronage led to the dissolution of the Roman German Empire in 1806. Franz II removed the imperial crown. A series of battles waged by Napoleon later resulted in a devastating defeat for Austria (Napoleon captured Vienna twice). However, the victory of Archduke Karl against the great Corsican at the Battle of Aspern proved that Napoleon was not invincible. The Austrian Chancellor Clemens Wentzel, known as the "Chevalier of Europe", was the first person to be appointed to the post of Chancellor of Austria. Wentzel? Rothar? Von Metternich, Margrave of Vienna. The Congress of Vienna, presided over by the Margrave of Metternich, restored the old system in Europe in 1815.
The bourgeois revolutionary ideas spread from France to Austria in the spring of 1848. The Liberals demanded a constitution and a free press. The hated Metternich system of a police state was swept away. In October of the same year, however, the revolt was crushed and the conservatives won a complete victory. The young Emperor Franz? Joseph I established a new autocracy. His questionable policy of neutrality in the Crimean War (1854-1856) left Austria dangerously isolated in Europe. As a result, Austria had to deal alone with Sardinia, which was allied with France and supported the Italians in their independence movement. After the failures of Mazzenta and Solferino in 1859, Austria had to give up Lombardy, and also had to compromise the strong domestic political demand for the formation of a parliamentary system with the Emperor's October Manifesto and the February Edict of State. Political developments within the Austrian imperial half ("Cisleithanien") were marked by the establishment of mass political parties (the Social Democrats and the Christian Socialists) and by the demand for fundamental rights for the citizenry, and in 1907 the Reichstag was for the first time subjected to general and direct elections. A complex system of European alliances sustained a long period of peace until the outbreak of the First World War, during which Austria-Hungary was in a triple alliance with the German Empire and Italy. However, growing nationalism in this multinational state gave rise to many serious conflicts. The legitimate demands of the working class for humane working conditions and higher wages also had to be urgently addressed. The heir to the Austrian throne, Grand Duke Franz? Ferdinand's murder in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 was only the trigger for the outbreak of the First World War. It was a four-year, senseless war in which the European powers competed against each other. It was only with the entry of the United States that the war took a turn for the worse. The defeat of the Central European powers (Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, and Turkey, which was allied with them) tore apart the hitherto European order. The Dualist Dynasty also disintegrated into a number of nation-states, and from this remaining land arose the Austrian **** and State.
The Austrian **** and State - An Unpopular Democracy During Two World Wars
Statehood
In 1918, in the final days of the war, when defeat was irretrievable, U.S. President Woodroof? Wilson's declaration on the right of nations to self-determination was seen as a lifesaver. Emperor Karl's national declaration, though well-intentioned, came too late. The peoples of the Dualist Dynasty preferred to follow the path of national independence. On October 21, 1918, 232 German-speaking members of the Reichstag (102 of the German National Party, 72 of the Christian Socialist Party, 42 of the Social Democratic Party, and 16 of the other parties) met in a country house in Lower Austria *** to discuss the future fate of German-speaking Austria.On October 30, this provisional national assembly elected a national parliament consisting of 22 members. . The Social Democrat appointed to take charge of the office of the national parliament, Karl? Reiner presented a draft constitution for the period of excess. With regard to the form of the future state, the views of the parties were almost unanimous, the German National Party and the Social Democrats having always been in favor of the **** and system. The attitude among the Christian Socialists toward determining the direction of the development of the ****he state invited the theologian and politician Ignaz? On November 12, the Provisional National Assembly, meeting in the parliament building off Vienna's Ringstrasse, declared German-speaking Austria a democratic ****hestate. This **** and State - according to self-assessment - did not seem to have much life in it. Therefore, at the same time, it was also declared to be bound to the democratic Weimar **** and State. The newly elected national parliament was faced with a long list of almost unmanageable tasks: establishing a democratic constitution, adjusting relations with the neighboring states, preparing for the World Peace Conference, reorganizing the social structure, and, most urgently, getting the entire population through this first winter. The political situation in the country was volatile, and a steady stream of soldiers returning from the front were unable to find work. To ensure stability, home guards were established in the villages, workers' councils emerged in the factories, and soldiers' councils were elected in the barracks. The border areas of the new state were unstable, with the SHS-State (the state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) to the south demanding the recovery of the Cairntine region, and to the north the territorial security of Bohemia and the German-speaking part of Merende was hopeless without an armed force.On February 16, 1919 elections for a Constituent National Assembly were held, and for the first time, women were given the right to vote. The Social Democrats became the first party with 40.76% of the vote and 72 seats, the Christian Socialists received 35.93% of the vote and 69 seats, the League of German Proletarians received 26 seats, and other parties took 3 seats.
Solving the popular famine was one of the most serious problems facing the new government. The agricultural districts of the former dynasties were concentrated in the countries created after the division of the empire. They all began to impose a blockade on the newly formed Austria. Only by accepting high loans was Austria able to survive the first years of famine. The high level of loans became a terrible burden on the state budget. Important progress was made in the social sphere. The Provisional and Constitutional National Assembly decided to introduce an eight-hour maximum working day, a law on business councils, unemployment subsidies, paid vacations for employees, and a reform of the health service. 1919 was a disappointing year for Austria as a result of the Paris Peace Conference. Austria lost South Tyrol. Cairn Vine only retained the vast majority of its area thanks to a popular vote. German-speaking western Hungary, with the exception of Jordenburg, was later transferred to Austria. The name of the country had to be changed from German-speaking Austria to Austria, and with it the prohibition of the alliance with the Weimar ****Peace State, adopted in 1918. The young ****peace state consistently called the St. Germain treaty a state treaty, since the Austrian ****peace state had never fought a war and therefore could not conclude a peace treaty.The federal constitution adopted in 1920, with its additions of 1925 and 1929, is still in force today, but it is the result of a compromise: both the parties and the federal states put forward their own points of view and responsible for the theoretical foundations of the law and the conceptual system was later the internationally recognized jurist Hans Kelsen. Kelsen. After the end of the First World War, Austria's diplomatic space was at first extremely limited. Considering the realities of the situation, the development of Austria's relations with various new neighbors was very fruitful. A treaty of friendship and trade was concluded with Hungary; Czechoslovakia*** and the State re-supplied Austria with raw materials, and in 1921 an extremely important loan was guaranteed. Italy fully developed - first of all after the Fascists came to power - into an Austrian protectorate, with the exception of the South Tyrol question, which was not allowed to be mentioned. The relations with the Weimar*** and the State were blameless and happy, and the State Office left the question of the unhappy alliance in the hands of the civil promoters' organizations. In the face of catastrophic inflation, the longer-term reconstruction of Austria economically could only be realized by means of loans from the League of Nations. Loans of up to 6.5 billion gold coins stood in the way of the collapse of the Austrian state. The announcement of these loans led to an immediate improvement in the currency exchange rate.
The years of relative stability
After the catastrophe of the Great War, the political forces in the country were initially able to work closely together, and a series of the most important decisions were adopted in the coalition government of the Social Democrats and the Christian Socialists, but the fundamental ideological antagonisms led inevitably to the centrifugal separation of the forces. In June 1920, the coalition government broke down because of an insignificant cause in Parliament. Strangely enough, both parties were satisfied with this, and the Social Democrats decided to stay out of power, a move that ultimately had a negative effect on the country's political climate. Later, the Christian Socialists elected their head of government on the condition that they would accept, or rather form a coalition government with, the German National Party. The new strongman of the Christian Socialist Party was Ignaz? Seppel, who, except for a brief interruption, served as head of government until 1929. During this period there was a short period of domestic political and economic stabilization. in 1925 the schilling became the new Austrian currency and the strict supervision of the League of Nations was abolished. The intractable problems were the situation in the labor market and the overcrowded mass of officials. The parties felt obliged to make their views more explicit in the new party statutes, of which the "Linz Statute" of the Social Democrats gave rise to many misunderstandings and distortions because of its radical expression. In addition, the paramilitary organizations that had existed since 1918 created a worrying rivalry between the orthodox mass parties: the Home Guard on the right, and the **** and the National Defense League on the left, both of which saw themselves as the more authoritative representatives of their respective ideological points of view. For the Austrian **** and State, the growing fireworks of daily life became a process towards destruction.
Events in July 1927 showed how dangerously the situation had escalated. In January of the same year, Burgenland's party army held one of its usual marches, during which the far-right militia shot a crippled soldier and a child. However, the three shooters were acquitted in a criminal trial. Most of the Social Democratic Party's followers expressed great anger, while the party leadership took a wait-and-see attitude. As a result, the spontaneous and mass demonstrations went up in smoke without achieving any political result. Angry mass violence was answered by police shootings. The tragic result: 89 people died and hundreds were injured. The Social Democrats called for a general strike, yet almost no one responded. It is clear that throughout the country the balance of power is increasingly tipped in favor of the right-wing parties. All bridges to political opponents were cut off, and the representatives of those parties with superhuman intellects-Ignatz Seipel for the Christian Socialists and Otto Bauer for the Social Democrats-were irreconcilably hostile to each other. To the detriment of the **** and the State, the followers of the parties unreservedly accepted this situation of hardened hostility, and in 1930 the Home Guard issued an anti-Marxist program with a distinctly fascist character in the form of the "Kronenberg Oath." Much to the displeasure of the Christian Socialist Party, the Home Guard ran as a political party in the following elections. The cabinet of police president Johannes Sauber, who took office as a contingency, unanimously agreed to complete the constitutional reforms and to obtain at The Hague the abolition of the "General Pledges" imposed in connection with the loans made by the League of Nations in those years. Unfortunately, as foreign minister in the Ende cabinet, Schauber initiated the German-Austrian Customs Union project, which had to be abandoned due to Austria's embarrassing withdrawal. Equally misguided was the Cabinet's decision to force the Kreditanstalt to take over the Landeskreditanstalt, which was already on the verge of collapse. This led to the bankruptcy of the Kreditanstalt, which Austria survived thanks to a new round of loans from the League of Nations.The 1930s brought Austria into an extreme situation, both politically and economically. In 1932 the Greater German Party, a long-standing partner in the coalition government, left the government. The remaining members of this gentlemen's party were no more than party cadres, and their followers had long since turned to the radical National Socialist party. the federal parliamentary elections of April 1932 had left the Christian Socialists dumbfounded at the way the situation had developed, and when the government was formed in May 1932, a fresh hand became the head of the cabinet: the hitherto Minister of Agriculture, Engelbert Dollfuss. Relying on the Home Guard and the Agricultural League, a trade party, he formed his own government, which passed the resolution for an International League loan in Parliament by a slim majority of only one vote. The immediate consequences of this loan are not visible, but 600,000 or so unemployed is too great a price to pay.
Departure from democracy
So, unsurprisingly, like in other European countries, the associational social system and authoritarian forms of government were discussed here and every effort was made to root them in people's heads as solutions. A crisis of parliamentary proceedings, which would have been said to have been easily solved in more moderate years of crisis, now provided a pretext for dismantling parliament. The Dolphins government used an act enacted during the Great War and used hundreds of times in the 1920s - in accordance with legal procedure, of course. By means of the War Economy Authorization Act, the Government went on to issue a series of orders by which Parliament was accused of "disarming itself". The real violation of the Constitution, however, was the banning of the Constitutional Court. Diplomatically, Dollfuss was in a life-and-death alliance with Italy and was at the mercy of the fascist dictator Mussolini. Mussolini forced him to eradicate the Social Democratic Party from political life. As a result, Dollfuss dutifully pursued a strategy that continued to marginalize his political opponents. At the same time, the Italian-backed Home Guard grew in power. Sensing a multifaceted defense, Dollfuss, guided by a programmatic speech at the Catholic Congress in 1933, replaced all political parties to date with a so-called patriotic unity movement, the "Fatherland Front," and proceeded to establish a system of associations in Austria in accordance with the principles of the papal social cycle. The Social Democrats, who were forced into a desperate situation with little room for political activity, responded to one of the usual searches for weapons in Linz with an armed defense. Three days later, the ensuing clash was suppressed with extreme force and disproportionate force by the dominant executive body. As a result of the enactment of martial law, the government, despite international protests, announced nine executions, with heavy deaths on both sides. Many Social Democratic leaders and hundreds of their followers fled to Czechoslovakia, where they established organizations abroad. The chasm of this civil war divided the political parties for decades. Internationally, the government was greatly disgraced by the use of senseless force against a clearly inferior opponent. A few months later, the cabinet, which had gone further and further down the path of promulgating decrees, promulgated a new hierarchical state constitution. By signing the "Protocols of Rome" with Hungary and Italy, Dollfuss thought he had gained a backing against the National Socialists, who were posing a growing threat. Neither a severe crackdown on the National Socialists nor secret negotiations could stop their aggressiveness, and on July 25, 1934, they staged a coup d'état, which resulted in the murder of the Federal Chancellor Dollfuss. This coup first caused fighting in Kainten that lasted for many days and was finally suppressed as well. A military court sentenced the coup makers, the vast majority of whom were members of the army back then, and 13 of them were executed. Germany, already ruled by the National Socialist Party in the meantime, took the attitude of distancing itself from like-minded Austrians in order to seek international recognition, and it was only later that a policy of infiltration was illuminated, which was carried out by the new German ambassador in Vienna, Franz von Papen. He had only recently escaped execution in the "R?hm Affair".
Struggle for Survival
After thwarting the National Socialist coup d'état, Federal President Wilhelm Miklas appointed Kurt Schuschnigg, a Christian Socialist politician from Tyrol and hitherto Minister of Law, to form a cabinet. Schuschnigg insisted on the continuity of national politics, that is to say, continued to pursue the course that had been followed so far. In fact, he was trying to gain time against the invasion of the German Empire; in July 1934, Italy was still massing troops on the Austrian border, but by 1935 it had begun to fall on the side of National Socialist Germany, also as a result of adventurous actions in Ethiopia. Attempts to interest the Western powers in the fate of Austria ultimately failed because of the poor image of this autocracy. This was especially due to Britain's decision to pursue a set of appeasement policies that included tolerance for the expansion of the German Empire. As a result, Germany was able to occupy the Rhine without any international consequences, and the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin re-established Germany's reputation as an "ordinary" country. In view of these new developments, Ambassador von Papen called on Austria to conclude an agreement with the German Reich, which was finally signed in July 1936. This "gentleman's agreement" guaranteed Austria's independence, but formally recognized the right of the National Socialist Party of Austria to an unlimited sphere of political activity. Schuschnigg was in a dilemma, while the National Socialist Party reached a new climax in the country. It was again Ambassador von Papen who campaigned for a private meeting between Schuschnigg and Hitler on the Verkhnaya Salzburg. The result of this meeting was disastrous; Hitler put the Austrian under the heaviest pressure, and the compromise with the National Socialist Party led to a cabinet reshuffle on February 16, 1938, and for the first time the National Socialist Party had to participate in the government. Schuschnigg sought the support of the Social Democratic Party, which had been outlawed that year, but it was too late.
In the German Reich, in contrast to the policy of economic penetration, first the Minister for Armaments, Hermann G?ring, intensified the "annexation" policy. G?ring intensified his strategic plan to "annex" Austria. This was because the German Empire, which was strengthening its armaments, lacked both labor and foreign exchange. They wanted to solve these two problems in the fastest way possible by annexing Austria by force. No firm protest could be expected from either the Western European countries or from Italy. Schuschnigg's last-minute strategy of resistance, the plebiscite, accelerated the German invasion even faster, and in March 1938, Fascist Germany carried out the annexation through the use of forged documents and a great deal of propaganda, with no military action on the part of Austria, which felt morally and strategically too weak to respond. There was little international reaction, except for protests from Mexico, the Soviet Union, Chile and China. The transfer of power went smoothly, thanks to the power of the Austrian National Socialist Party (NSDAP). The hitherto leading Austrian elite was imprisoned and sent to concentration camps. In the months that followed, Austrian Jews were subjected to unprecedented horrors, psychologically humiliated, physically brutalized, robbed of their property and deported. In order to give this whole atrocity a so-called legitimate legal basis, the Law of Integration was passed on March 3 at a hand-directed Council of Ministers, and on April 10 a plebiscite was held throughout Germany. Relying on lurid fanfare, the citizens' vote was abused, and an act of violence was thus legitimized.
Dark Years of Introspection
In Austria the rule of the National Socialist Party was soon established, and its system reached a perfection scarcely unusual even in the German Empire. The terrorist organizations established by the SS and the Security Service were enthusiastically supported by the home-grown, hitherto illegal National Socialist Party. The unprecedented persecution of the Jewish population, above all through the use of manipulated as well as limited acts of violence to rid the country of anti-government elements, reached an even greater extent than in the Third Reich. Austrian Jewry was deprived of any basis for survival; by the beginning of the war, 250 anti-Jewish decrees had been issued. Already on April 1, 1938, the Austrian political elite was sent to concentration camps with the so-called "Transportation of Eminent Persons Program". In the following months, some 130,000 Austrians left their country, mostly in search of a safe existence in exile in the West. As soon as they fell under the so-called "Nuremberg Decrees", almost all of their possessions were looted first. For Austria, the expulsion of these citizens meant a loss of spiritual wealth, with repercussions that lasted for decades. After the end of the Second World War, hardly any of the exiles wanted to return to the country that had driven them away. Soon after the "merger", there was a momentum of resistance across the political spectrum, with ****producers and royalists, the Social Democrats of the day and members of the Home Guard unwilling to accept the new government. However, a national resistance organization was never formed, so it was easy for the Nazis in power to expose and brutally persecute their opponents. Nor was it possible to produce an effective and accepted government-in-exile abroad because of the unbridgeable gulf between the various political factions. The various rebel groups all expressed different political ideas, some with almost utopian overtones. Since the Allies declared the re-establishment of a sovereign Austrian state as the aim of the war, it was the Moscow Declaration of 1943 that brought a definition of direction.
It was during the last months of the war, when resistance fighters could begin to pick up contact with U.S. communications units from the Tyrol, that a more effective resistance emerged. The Austrians could not receive military assistance, but could pass on the latest news of the war situation to the Allies, and in the fall of 1944 the "Provisional Austrian National Council" (POEN) was proclaimed, and for the first time factions of different political orientations were united. The Armed Resistance, which had escaped the disaster of being hunted down after the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, also kept in touch with these political factions. It was the representatives of the armed resistance who first connected with the advancing Soviet troops and provided them with plans for the German advance. Despite this, until April 13, 1945, the battle around Vienna was still in full swing. For Austria, the end of Nazi rule and the Second World War was very depressing: during this period, 2,700 Austrians were executed, 16,000 were brutally murdered in concentration camps, 16,000 died in prison, more than 67,000 Austrian Jews were sent to extermination camps, and barely 2,000 made it through to the end of the war. In addition, 247,000 Austrians serving in the Third Reich's army were either killed in action or disappeared, and 24,000 civilians died under bombs.
A Nation Regaining Independence
The basis of the Allies' plans for the post-war period was a full and complete victory over Hitler's Germany. Austria was occupied by four Allied armies and was divided into four occupation zones. In the capital, Vienna, the occupation zones were divided into urban areas, with the inner city being administered on a rotating basis. Still before the war officially ended, in May 1945, political parties were established in Austria, and they and the federal states were the initiators of the declaration of independence. The Soviets had installed a government in eastern Austria led by former Chancellor Karl? Rainer-led government, and the Western Allies, after a moment of hesitation dictated by the situation, also ?