Between Scylla and Charybdis: Austria's First Test Case of Neutrality during the Hungarian Crisis, 1956–57

Abstract

Although the Hungarian revolution of 1956 ultimately shaped Austria's new identity as a uniquely neutral – yet not ‘spineless’ – country that could now help other countries in need, it also unravelled the earlier Austrian rapprochement with Hungary and the USSR that had facilitated the signing of the Austrian State Treaty on 15 May 1955. The uprising and subsequent Soviet crackdown revived Austrians' fears and memories of their own occupation by the Soviet Union and three Western Allies, stymied diplomats in Budapest, and gave communist authorities an excuse to accuse Austria of violating its oath of neutrality, stressing the issues of espionage and anti-communist propaganda. The crisis arguably gave the Khrushchev leadership second thoughts about the wisdom of withdrawing Soviet troops from eastern Austria. To pass its first test of neutrality, the Austrian government conducted its foreign policy discreetly, striving neither to coddle nor to offend the communist world and the ‘free world’.