Connection ban
When connecting ban the first time after is the First World War in the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain established in 1919 provision referred to a connection of Austria to the German Reich ruled out. Austria was therefore only allowed to give up its independence with the consent of the League of Nations and had to refrain from anything that could endanger this independence. The connection ban was reaffirmed with the Geneva Protocols of 1922 and the Lausanne Protocol of 1932.
After the " Anschluss " to the meanwhile National Socialist German Reich in 1938 was also enforced militarily and Austria had become part of the Greater German Reich by 1945 , an explicit ban on the Anschluss was recorded in the Austrian State Treaty , with which the country regained its sovereignty in 1955 .
Contracts 1919/1920
At the request of France, in the Treaty of Versailles , which came into force on January 10, 1920, Germany and Austria were refused an amalgamation with which they could have compensated for their territorial losses. Germany had to recognize Austria's independence. Article 80 of the contract reads:
- Germany recognizes Austria's independence within the boundaries to be fixed by treaty between this state and the main Allied and Associated Powers and undertakes to respect them unconditionally; it recognizes that this independence is immutable unless the Council of the League of Nations approves an amendment.
For Austria, the independence requirement was laid down in the State Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye , which came into force on July 16, 1920.
The connection ban was made clear to Austria by the British before the summer of 1919; the social democrat Otto Bauer , as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and deputy chairman of his party, Motor of Negotiations with Germany, resigned in July 1919. In response to the intervention of the victorious powers, the state government turned against votes on this subject that were held or planned in individual federal states. State Chancellor Karl Renner signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain on September 10, 1919 in the absence of suitable alternatives; With its ratification by the Constituent National Assembly on October 21, 1919, the state abandoned the state name German-Austria and henceforth referred to itself as the Republic of Austria in accordance with the treaty.
Article 88 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain reads:
- The independence of Austria cannot be changed unless the Council of the League of Nations approves an amendment. Austria therefore undertakes, with the exception of the consent of the intended council, to abstain from any act which, directly or indirectly, or by any means, namely - until its admission as a member of the League of Nations - by participating in the affairs of another power could endanger its independence.
Geneva Protocols 1922
The ban on affiliation was reaffirmed in the Geneva Protocols of October 4, 1922, signed by the Christian-social Austrian Federal Chancellor Ignaz Seipel - one of the conditions for the granting of bonds from the League of Nations in the amount of 650 million gold crowns to Austria. The Social Democrats vigorously polemicized against these agreements, but ultimately did not vote in the National Council against the constitution-amending treaties, which for some time made Austria's financial decisions subject to international control.
Attempt of the customs union in 1931
The customs union between Germany and Austria agreed on March 19, 1931 was prohibited by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the basis of the Treaties of Saint-Germain and Versailles . In the Lausanne Protocol of July 1932, the Austrian government once again confirmed that it would renounce efforts to unite with the German Reich.
Events from 1933
When Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the German Reich in 1933 , the Austrian Social Democrats revoked their wish to join. Hitler began to prepare for the “ Anschluss ” with destabilization actions against the dictatorial “corporate state” of Dollfuss and Schuschniggs established in 1934 . This was enforced from March 11th to 13th, 1938 in an action by Austrian National Socialists and the Wehrmacht .
Great Britain and France only sent protest notes (for details see connection with Austria's # international reactions ). In the autumn of 1938, in the Munich Agreement , they agreed to a further revision of the peace treaties 1919/1920 at the expense of Czechoslovakia .
Moscow Declaration 1943
Three of Austria's four later partners in the 1955 State Treaty, the USA , Great Britain and the Soviet Union , agreed in the Moscow Declaration in autumn 1943 that Austria should be re-established as an independent state with its victory in World War II , liberated from German rule . They declared the “Anschluss” of 1938 to be invalid. Anyone in Germany and Austria who dared to hear “ enemy broadcasts ” learned of this decision long before the end of the war. As Adolf Schärf reported, politicians of the First Republic who remained in Austria were of the opinion from around 1943 that Austria would no longer belong to Germany after the war.
State Treaty 1955
After the annulment of the "Anschluss" by the Austrian Declaration of Independence of April 27, 1945, with which Austria was restored as a state, the ban, now explicitly referred to as such, was included in Part 3 of the Austrian State Treaty of May 15, 1955:
- Article 3. Recognition of Austria's independence by Germany
- The Allied and Associated Powers will include provisions in the German peace treaty which ensure Germany's recognition of Austria's sovereignty and independence and Germany's renunciation of all territorial and political claims in relation to Austria and Austrian territory.
- Article 4. Prohibition of connection
- 1. The Allied and Associated Powers declare that political or economic unification between Austria and Germany is prohibited. Austria fully recognizes its responsibilities in this area and will not enter into any political or economic association with Germany.
- 2. In order to prevent such an unification, Austria will not enter into any agreement with Germany or take any action or take any measures that would directly or indirectly promote political or economic unification with Germany or its territorial integrity or political or economic independence affect. Austria also undertakes to prevent any action within its territory which would be suitable for promoting such an association, either directly or indirectly, and will ensure the existence, the revival and the activity of any organization which aims at political or economic union with Germany , as well as prevent large German propaganda in favor of unification with Germany.
Austria had no problem with these regulations in 1955, since the enthusiasm of many in the Second World War had completely disappeared with the duration of the war and the impending defeat. Article 4 of the State Treaty served the Soviet Union to prevent Austria from joining the EEC . The EU -Beitrittsantrag Austria was placed in world politics changed position until the 1989th
See also
literature
- Gerald Stourzh : On the genesis of the ban on affiliation in the treaties of Versailles, Saint-Germain and Trianon . In: 'Scientific Commission for Research into the History of the Republic of Austria' Volume 11: Saint-Germain 1919. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik Wien 1989.
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ Lutz Raphael : Imperial violence and mobilized nation. Europe 1914–1945 , CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62352-3 , p. 69.
- ↑ Art. 88; StGBl. No. 303/1920 (= p. 1052)
- ↑ On January 1, 1995, after swift accession negotiations, three states joined the EU, which until the end of the East-West confrontation were prevented by their strict neutrality policy: Austria, Sweden and Finland, see EU enlargement 1995 .
- ↑ See also www.geschichteinchronologie.ch ( Memento of November 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).