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389 Austro-Czechoslovak฀Relations฀and฀ the฀Expulsion฀of฀the฀Germans ◆฀฀฀Emilia฀Hrabovec฀฀฀◆ Czechoslovakia was the first and until 1946 the only country in which the newly restored Austrian Republic mantained at least a de facto diplomatic mission. This relationship however could not conceal the considerable tension between the two partners that continues to influence bi-lateral relations to this day. Much of that tension can be traced to the traumatic Munich Crisis, the decline of the Czechoslovak state perceived by the Czechs as the Czech national state, and six years of Nazi occupation. These experences gave rise to a broadly shared political consensus in the Czech society that stability and security of the renewed Czechoslovakia required the creation of a homogeneous nation-state cleansed of its German minority considered disloyal and responsible for the fall of the first republic. To a certain extent the Allies shared this view, for which reason their own planners and policy makers had begun considering a population transfer as early as 1940/1942.1 With the end of war and the restoration of the Czechoslovak republic in its pre-Munich borders in May 1945, the Czech leadership herded its German citizens into camps, coerced them into forced labor, placed their property under national administration and, wherever possible, drove them to the nearest German or Austrian border for immediate expulsion.2 The first round of deportations from southern Bohemia and Moravia involved sending about 150,000 people over the nearby Austrian frontier. The Soviet-backed provisional government of Karl Renner that had been established on 27 April 1945 acted with surprising pragmatism. In order to hasten the end of Allied occupation and the restoration of full sovereignty, the new regime in Vienna readily embraced the notion that Austria had been the “first victim” of Hitler’s Germany. The return to the Kleinösterreich option would effectively dissociate Austria from Germany, both historically and legally, including any responsibility for Czechoslovakia’s large Sudeten German minority. The Austrian government’s Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, Karl Gruber, officially declared that their future disposition was now a mat- 390 ◆ EMILIA HRABOVEC ter for Czechoslovakia to handle, either as a domestic issue or in conjunction with Germany and the Allies.3 As early as 12 June 1945, Leopold Figl had informed the Cabinet Council that “since all German speakers in Czechoslovakia have opted for Germany, they should all go to Germany and not to Austria.”4 Austrian pragmatism toward the expulsion also stemmed from the hard political and economic realities that the country faced under military occupation. Not only was the country divided, with a provisional government that was not even recognized by the Western Allies until October 1945, but it lacked sufficient economic resources to secure basic food supplies for its own population. Hence the top priority that the Renner government gave to ending its diplomatic isolation as a defeated belligerent and restoring full state sovereignty.5 Toward this end, Vienna worked assiduously to maintain correct relations with its neighbors, especially with a Czechoslovak state that was considered politically and economically superior. Clearly, the key to achieving this goal was to collaborate with the Prague regime in resolving any problems stemming from the ongoing expulsions. As Hugo Hantsch from the State Office of the Interior put it: “We are a small, weak state. We shall need Czechoslovakia more than it will need us and we cannot provoke its enmity by forceful measures.”6 Of decisive significance was the awareness of Austria’s dependence on Czechoslovakia for essential coal and food supplies. The future Austrian Ambassador in Prague, Rudolf Seemann—at that time responsible for economic affairs in the State Office for Foreign Affairs—argued against any confrontation with Czechoslovakia “particularly with regard to negotiations about coal deliveries.”7 Karl Renner was less diplomatic and more to the point, explaining to Czechoslovak Prime Minister Zdeněk Fierlinger, “Coal is friendship, no coal is tension!”8 There were also political reasons for avoiding any deterioration in diplomatic relations. Czechoslovakia was the only state that de facto recognized an Austrian diplomatic mission, thereby strengthening the position of the internationally isolated Renner government whose range of action did not otherwise extended beyond the Soviet zone of occupation. Moreover, the Soviet military forces wished good relations between Vienna and Prague and fostered the idea of a population exchange involving Sudeten Germans of “Austrian origin” in exchange for the Czechs from Vienna.9 Yet another factor...

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