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ARTICLE 7

The Austrian Government is free to establish diplomatic and consular relations with the Governments of the United Nations. The establishment of diplomatic and consular relations with other Governments shall be subject to the prior approval of the Allied Council. Diplomatic Missions in Vienna shall have the right to communicate directly with the Allied Council. Military Missions accredited to the Allied Council shall be withdrawn as soon as their respective Governments establish diplomatic relations with the Austrian Government, and in any case within two months of the signature of this agreement.

ARTICLE 8

(a) A further agreement between the Four Powers shall be drawn up and communicated to the Austrian Government as soon as possible, and within three months of this day's date defining the immunities of the members of the Allied Commission and of the forces in Austria of the Four Powers and the rights they shall enjoy to ensure their security and protection and the fulfilment of their military needs.

(b) Pending the conclusion of the further agreement required by Article 8 (a) the existing rights and immunities of members of the Allied Commission and of the forces in Austria of the Four Powers, deriving either from the Declaration on the Defeat of Germany or from the powers of a Commander-in-Chief in the field, shall remain unimpaired.

ARTICLE 9

(a) Members of the Allied Council, the Executive Committee and other staffs appointed by each of the Four Powers as part of the Allied Commission may be either civilian or military.

(b) Each of the Four Powers may appoint as its High Commissioner either the Commander-in-Chief of its forces in Austria or its diplomatic or political representative in Austria or such other official as it may care to nominate.

(c) Each High Commissioner may appoint a deputy to act for him in his absence.

(d) A High Commissioner may be assisted in the Allied Council by a political adviser and/or a military adviser who may be respectively the diplomatic or political representative of his Government in Vienna or the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Austria of his Government.

(e) The Allied Council shall meet at least twice in each month or at the request of any member.

ARTICLE 10

(a) Members of the Executive Committee shall, when necessary, attend meetings of the Allied Council;

(b) The Executive Committee shall act on behalf of the Allied Council in matters delegated to it by the Council;

(c) The Executive Committee shall ensure that the decisions of the Allied Council and its own decisions are carried out;

(d) The Executive Committee shall coordinate the activities of the Staffs of the Allied Commission.

ARTICLE 11

(a) The staffs of the Allied Commission in Vienna shall be organized in Divisions matching one or more of the Austrian Ministries or Departments with the addition of certain Divisions not corresponding to any Austrian Ministry or Department. The List of Divisions is given in Annex I to this Agreement; this organization may be changed at any time by the Allied Council;

(b) The Divisions shall maintain contact with the appropriate Departments of the Austrian Government and shall take such action and issue such directions as are within the policy approved by the Allied Council or the Executive Committee;

(c) The Divisions shall report as necessary to the Executive Committee;

(d) At the Head of each Division there shall be four Directors, one from each of the Four Powers, to be collectively known as the Directorate of that Division. Directors of Divisions or their representatives may attend meetings of the Allied Council or of the Executive Committee in which matters affecting the work of their Divisions are being discussed. The four officials acting as the head of each Division may appoint such temporary subcommittees as they deem desirable.

ARTICLE 12

The decisions of the Allied Council, Executive Committee, and other constituted bodies of the Allied Commission shall be unanimous. The Chairmanship of the Allied Council, Executive Committee and Directorates shall be held in rotation.

ARTICLE 13

The existing Inter-Allied Command in Vienna, formerly known as the Kommendatura, shall continue to act as the instrument of the Allied Commission for affairs concerning Vienna as a whole until its functions in connection with civil administration can be handed over to the Vienna Municipality. These will be handed over progressively and as rapidly as possible. The form of supervision which will then be applied will be decided by the Allied Council. Meanwhile the Vienna Inter-Allied Command shall have the same relation to the Municipal Administration of Vienna as the Allied Commission has to the Austrian Government.

ARTICLE 14

The present Agreement shall come into operation as from this day's date and shall remain in force until it is revised or abrogated by agreement between the Four Powers. On the coming into effect of the present Agreement the Agreement signed in the European Advisory Commission on 4th July 1945, shall be abrogated. The Four Powers shall consult together not more than six months from this day's date with a view to its revision.

In witness whereof the present Agreement has been signed on behalf of each of the Four Powers by its High Commissioner in Austria.

Done this twenty-eighth day of June 1946 at Vienna in quadruplicate in English, in French and in Russian each text being equally authentic. A translation into German shall be agreed between the four High Commissioners and communicated by them as soon as possible to the Austrian Government.

For the Government of the United Kingdom:
Lieutenant General J. S. STEELE

For the Government of the United States of America:

General MARK W. CLARK

For the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Colonel General L. V. KAURASOV

For the Government of the French Republic:

General de Corps d'Armee M. E. BETHOUART

105. UNITED STATES POSITION ON STATUS OF AUSTRIA Department of State Press Release of October 28, 1946 1

The Department of State considers that the visit to the United States of Dr. Karl Gruber, Foreign Minister of the Austrian Federal Republic, represents an appropriate occasion to reaffirm United States policy with respect to the status of Austria.2

During the period following the first World War, the United States. Government steadily encouraged the development of a free and independent Austrian state based on democratic principles, and viewed with strong disapproval all Nazi attempts to force Austria into the German Reich. The attitude of the United States toward the military occupation of Austria by Germany and its formal incorporation in the German Reich in 1938 was guided by this consideration and by the well-established policy of the United States toward the acquisition of territory by force. While, as a practical matter, the United States was obliged in its effort to protect American interests to take certain administrative measures based upon the situation created by the Anschluss, this Government consistently avoided any step which might be considered to constitute de jure recognition of the annexation of Austria by Germany.

In his radio address on May 27, 1941 President Roosevelt referred repeatedly to the seizure of Austria, and described the Austrians as the first of a series of peoples enslaved by Hitler in his march of conquest.3 Secretary Hull stated at a press conference on July 27, 1942 that "this Government has never taken the position that Austria was legally absorbed into the German Reich". In various wartime administrative measures in the United States, such as the freezing of assets, Selective Service, and registration of aliens, Austrian nationals were included in a separate category from the Germans or were assimilated to the nationals of countries which Germany seized or occupied by force.

1 Department of State Bulletin, November 10, 1946, pp. 864-865.

Dr. Karl Gruber made a five-day informal visit to Washington from October 25 to 29, where he was received by President Truman at the White House and participated in a series of conferences with officials of the Department of State.

Department of State Bulletin, May 31, 1941, p. 648.
Department of State Bulletin, August 1, 1942, p. 660.

The United States has accordingly regarded Austria as a country liberated from forcible domination by Nazi Germany, and not as an ex-enemy state or a state at war with the United States during the second World War. The Department of State believes that this view has received diplomatic recognition through the Moscow Declaration on Austria and the Declaration issued at Algiers on November 16, 1943 by the French Committee of National Liberation concerning the independence of Austria. In accordance with the objectives set forth in the Moscow Declaration to see reestablished a free and independent Austria, an Austrian Government was formed after free elections were held on November 25, 1945. This Austrian Government was recognized by the four powers represented on the Allied Council, as announced simultaneously on January 7, 1946 in Vienna and the capitals of these states. In its meeting of April 25, 1946 the Allied Council, moreover, considered a statement of the United States Government's policy in Austria made by General Mark Clark, and expressed its general agreement with section I, "Status of Austria", in which the United States maintained that since Austria had been liberated from Nazi domination it should be treated as a liberated area.

In the opinion of the Department of State, the judgment of the International Military Tribunal rendered at Nürnberg on September 30-October 1, 1946 gave further international confirmation to this view of Austria's status. by defining the invasion of that country as an aggressive act-"a premeditated aggressive step in furthering the plan to wage aggressive wars against other countries". The Nurnberg judgment also states that "Austria was in fact seized by Germany in the month of March 1938".

In order to clarify the attitude of the United States Government in this matter, the United States Government recognizes Austria for all purposes, including legal and administrative, as a liberated country comparable in status to other liberated areas and entitled to the same treatment, subject only to the controls reserved to the occupying powers in the new agreement on control machinery in Austria of June 28, 1946. The United States Government believes that the international acts mentioned above are adequate reason for all members of the United Nations to regard Austria as a liberated country.

106. MOSCOW MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF FOREIGN MINISTERS, MARCH 10-APRIL 24, 1947: STATEMENTS BY SECRETARY MARSHALL

1

(a) German Assets in Austria, March 21, 1947 1

I circulated this morning among my colleagues an informal memorandum on the difficulties encountered in dealing with German assets under the Austrian treaty.

1 Statements made on March 21, 1947; Department of State Bulletin, March 30, 1947, p. 571. See also report on the Moscow Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers by Secretary Marshall, printed under II. Postwar Conferences.

I will not take time to read the whole memorandum here. The purpose of the memorandum is to point out that the failure of the deputies to agree on this subject was one of the principal obstacles in the way of further progress on the Austrian treaty.

The memorandum points out that the deputies have reached an impasse over the technical issue of legal title to these assets. The memorandum suggests that if our deputies could be instructed to put aside or pass this technical issue of legal title and to consider the other and, to my mind, more important questions which are raised by the German asset problem, progress might be made. If our deputies could discuss and reach agreement on these other questions, the technical issue of title would become less important and also less of a difficulty.

These other questions to which I have just referred that need to be worked out are:

1. A definition of German assets in Austria.

2. The status of German assets in Austria under Austrian law. 3. Arbitration machinery to deal with disputes as to the application of the agreed definition and status.

We are all agreed that we wish to recognize and carry out the Potsdam decisions on German assets in Austria. To do so and to avoid further controversy we should instruct our deputies to discuss and make every effort to agree upon the three questions which I have enumerated. I hope that my colleagues will agree that the deputies shall be so instructed.

(b) Position on Treaty for Reestablishment of Independent and Democratic Austria, April 23, 1947 1

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I should like to turn again to the matter of the Austrian treaty. I think we must decide now whether we can or cannot conclude the Austrian treaty here. As Mr. Molotov has several times made clear, the main outstanding issue is article 35, dealing with German assets in Austria. The British, French, and American Delegations have put forward various proposals in an effort to meet as far as possible the Soviet position. I refer particularly to the last proposal put forward by the United States Delegation last week and that put forward by the British Delegation yesterday. There is no substantial difference in the views of the British, French, and American Delegations on this subject.

The Soviet Delegation, according to my understanding, has not in any substantial way withdrawn from the proposal it made at the session of the Deputies in London last February. The views expressed by the Soviet Delegation have widened rather than narrowed our differences. The three other delegations have made clear that they cannot accept the Soviet proposal because it would oblige the Austrian Government to hand over not only bona fide German assets but property which the Germans had taken from Austrians and others by fraud and duress. We do not believe that the Soviet proposal on German assets in Austria is consistent with the pledge made at Potsdam that no reparations would be taken from Austria, and with the pledge made in article 1 of the Austrian treaty, to reestablish Austria as a sovereign, independent, and democratic state. The three other delegations have

Made on April 23, 1947, Department of State Bulletin, May 4, 1947, pp. 793-794.

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