A cold war army of occupation? : the U.S. army in Vienna, 1945-1948

This dissertation acknowledges that although from an international perspective the relationship between the Americans and Soviets in Vienna was relatively trouble-free, at the ground-level American-Soviet contact not only failed to escape the chill of the Cold War but at times could be the setting for deadly conflict. Despite an initial brief period of harmony and later outward appearances to the contrary, American-Soviet relations in Vienna rapidly declined after World War II and, by 1948, had degenerated into the beginnings of a covert struggle which saw the Americans reacting to Soviet authorities kidnapping people off the streets of the city. The scholarly research which relates to this topic can be divided into two main areas of research. The first area generally concerns Austria under American occupation, focusing upon topics such as the American role in revitalizing Austrian political life, organizational histories of the American military government in Austria, and the relaxation of American control over the Austrians due to the pressures of the Cold War. The second area concerns the Austrian question on the international level. Here scholars intensively study the problems and successes of the Allied mission in Austria and its relationship to the Cold War. This work fills a significant gap in the work on Austria under Allied occupation since heretofore there has been no study done from the viewpoint of the soldiers at the ground-level. It is not the argument of this dissertation that these incidents alone caused the Cold War conflict, but rather that they were part of a complex reciprocal process in which local tensions and outside pressure together weakened and finally destroyed the original alliance between the Americans and the Soviets. Certainly, the Americans initially viewed the Red Army in Vienna as an allied force and the Austrians as a defeated enemy. Sustained American contact with both peoples comes to reverse this view. Most significantly, these conflicts in Vienna illustrated the different political and cultural backgrounds of American and Soviet military men and the practical difficulties facing any attempt to continue the wartime Grand Alliance.