1945: Emigration from Austria after 1945

In the post-war period, Austria was a country of emigration. For a large portion of foreign forced labourers, former concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war who found themselves in Austria at the end of the war (about 1.4 million), as well as for the one million displaced persons (DPs), refugees and expellees from Eastern and Southeastern Europe who came to the country in the first years after the war, Austria was used as a stopover on the way to the US, Israel or other overseas countries. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, several thousand, mostly younger Austrian women and men also migrated temporarily or permanently to other European countries or overseas. The main motives were the desire for economic and political stability, which as a result of slow economic growth, high unemployment and political dependence, were not seen in Austria until 1955. There was a strong economic imbalance between the heavily destroyed eastern states under Soviet occupation and the barely destroyed West (US occupation zone). The economic disadvantage of Vienna, Lower Austria and the Burgenland (destroyed or dismantled industrial facilities, energy shortages, a collapsed transport industry, minimal support from the Marshall Plan) led to the emigration of mostly younger workers of both sexes.

Major destination countries overseas were the US, Canada, Australia and, in the 1960s, also Brazil and South Africa. Thus, until 1961, approx. 20,000 Austrians migrated to Australia, about 32,000 to Canada until the end of the 1960s and about 16,000 to South Africa until 1975. In Europe, the largest portion of labour migrants went to Germany and Switzerland; in the 1950s alone, about 50,000 people went there. Demand for labour remained high in both countries, which is why, at the beginning of the 1970s, about 45,000 Austrians were living in Switzerland and 180,000 in Germany. In small numbers, there were also migrations to the UK, Sweden, France and Italy in the post-war period. In the wake of Western Europe’s economic recovery, Austria clearly developed into a country of immigration in the 1960s; more people migrated into the country than out of it. Labour migrants (e.g. from Turkey and former Yugoslavia) were brought into the country or refugees (e.g. from Hungary in 1956 and former Czechoslovakia in 1968) were admitted into the country, large numbers of which then migrated to the US and Canada, however. If there were about 200,000 Austrian citizens who were living abroad in 1960, today there are around 570,000. The majority of Austrians living abroad (as of 2017) live in Germany (45%), Switzerland (11%), the US (6%), Australia (4%), the UK (4%) and Argentina (3%).

External Resources:

Auslandsösterreicher-Weltbund, http://www.weltbund.at/rot_weiss_rot_heft.asp

Bundesministerium Europa, Integration und Äußeres, https://www.bmeia.gv.at/reise-aufenthalt/leben-im-ausland/treffpunkt-auslandsoesterreicherinnen/

Flüchtlinge: https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Fl%C3%BCchtlinge

Literature:

Sylvia Hahn, Österreich, in: Klaus J. Bade et al. (Hrsg.), Enzyklopädie Migration in Europa. Vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Paderborn 2008, 2. Aufl., S. 171-188.

Traude Horvath, Gerda Neyer (Hrsg.), Auswanderungen aus Österreich. Von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart, Wien, Köln, Weimar 1996.