1955: The Colonel Clause

In Article 12, Clause 3 of the Austrian State Treaty of Vienna, May 15, 1955, it was stipulated that Austrians who had served as a colonel or in a higher military rank in the German Wehrmacht between March 13, 1938 and May, 8, 1945, could not be admitted to the new Austrian Armed Forces. Since the army, which was in a state of construction, did not want to forgo the knowledge and skills of those who had largely begun their careers in the army of the First Republic, it sought a way to bypass the “Colonel Clause”. Starting in 1956, a total of five people who had been promoted to colonel as of May 1, 1945, were indeed taken on as officers in the Austrian army. The justification for this action, which contradicted the regulations of the State Treaty, was that the “Anschluss” (“annexation”) of 1938 was deemed as null and void on the basis of Austria’s Declaration of Independence from April 27, 1945 and, thus, these men were no longer considered as having been members of the Wehrmacht. As a consequence, their promotion in rank had not actually come into effect. Beyond this small group of people, however, numerous other former military personnel who had served as colonels or in a higher rank in the army of the German Reich, were taken on as civil servants with the approval of the Austrian government and played a significant role in the reconstruction of the Austrian Armed Forces.