Did the US government recognize the annexation of Austria (by Germany) in 1938?
I’m wondering if Austria was accorded some special treatment because it was never acknowledged to be a part of the 3rd Reich?
I know that the Russians insisted on a rather long occupation, and Austria had to be a neutral nation after the war.
See wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Commission_for_Austria#Austria
Also, as to the first part of your question, wiki says:
Also, according to this, Newsweek at the time said that the US had basically recognized Anscluss, but it appears that the government was deliberately vague in its statements, although they eventually acknowledged the reality of the result.
The Allies – and this includes the Soviets – decided (I think at Yalta) that Austria would be treated as an early victim of Nazi aggression, not as a participant, and this of course suited the Austrians extremely well in the post-war years. Austria, like Germany, was divided into four occupation zones, as was Vienna. There was, however, a multiparty Austrian government, established effectively by the Soviets (who got there first) and later recognised by the Western Allies. The Austrian government declared an annulment of the Anschluss and claimed to govern under the pre-Anschluss Austrian constitution, but subject to the four-power military occupation. This government concluded a treaty with the Allies in 1955 which ended the occupation and completed the restoration of Austrian independence.
As to whether the US “recognised” the annexation in 1938, diplomatic recognition is mostly not so much a question of pontificating about what ought to have happened as of discerned what has actually happened. The Anschluss was a practical reality and the international community, including the US, acknowledged it as such. The US did not, for example, attempt to continue to send ambassadors to Vienna, or instruct its consular staff in Berlin not to afford consular services to Americans in the former Austrian territory.
The film The Third Man shows how Vienna was divided up between the four Allied powers. There is one shot showing a Jeep with American, British, French and Soviet military policemen riding round the town together.
They could take Austria’s self-determination but they could never take her zithers!
Thanks for the replies. I was wondering, because the US government never recognized the annexation of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia (by the USSR).
But I never heard of an Austrain ambassador still in Washington, in 1944.