Can anyone recommend a book about Germany in the post WW2 period? Also, I understand that Yugoslavia wanted a piece in the occupation of Germany with the claim that it was the only country to drive the German army out without assistance from the USSR, the US or Great Britain. If so, this seems like a valid claim.
Was Austria and specifically Vienna divided as was Germany and Berlin? If not, why not?
Also I heard that consideration was given to establishing a separate nation of Bavaria. Anything to that?
The expulsion of ethnic Germans from countries in eastern Europe after the war numbered 12 million per wiki. I can’t cite figures but the estimated number of deaths that resulted as these refugees made their way to Germany, Austria, and other countries in western Europe range from 500k to 2 million.
and also the relevant chapters of Tony Judt’s “Postwar”.
Don’t know about the Yugoslav claim, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had tried to renew claims to parts of Carinthia bordering Slovenia, which had been in dispute when Yugoslavia was set up after WW1.
Yes, in exactly the same way until the peace treaty of 1955 (although Austrian politicians were quick to get themselves established as Hitler’s first victims).
See, if nothing else, the movie The Third Man!
There were various proposals to dismember and deindustrialise Germany, but the “interim” zonal occupation arrangement very soon got caught up in cold war suspicions and divisions. It quickly became clear that the USSR was going to Sovietise its zone, and that maintaining economic boundaries between the western zones was hindering economic recovery and political resistance to the Russians. So the west German politicians were encouraged to get on with creating the Federal Republic, which makes some nominal recognition of a special status for Bavaria.
The Yugoslavs occupied parts of Carinthia (in Southern Austria) for a short time in Mai 1945, but they were driven out by the British (with the cooperation of the Soviets).
Austria, like Germany, was divided into 4 zones of occupation by the USA, the UK, France and the USSR (the capital Vienna was occupied by all 4 powers, like Berlin).
Interesting piece of trivia: The last American service member to be executed by the U. S. military (in 1961) was sentenced for the rape of an Austrian girl in the American occupation zone of Austria in 1954 [1].