1945: The Allies' Claims on Assets in Austria

The Second World War and Nazi rule in Austria were ended by the Allies. Austria was able to declare itself independent in April 1945 when the Second Republic was founded. However, it was not clear how so-called German assets should be handled, namely, what would happen with those assets that the Allies in Austria (especially the Soviet Union) claimed as a kind of spoils of war and as reparations for their own war damages? As a result of Nazi economic policy, many armaments factories and basic industries were created in Austria; the infrastructure that remained undamaged after the war was valuable. The US feared that Austria’s economy could be rendered instable as a result of these claims, which could, in turn, enable a Communist takeover.

In April 1955, an Austrian delegation in Moscow reached an agreement that helped pave the road to the Austrian State Treaty. The assets that were taken over by the Soviet Union were recorded in the State Treaty itself. The possessions of the British or US and Western oil companies were, however, regulated in a separate memorandum, as were the French assets. The values involved are estimated by current historical research at 1.9 billion schillings in the case of the Soviet Union and at 400 million shillings for all the Western Allies together.