Austria in the Post-War World

After the end of WWII, the Nazi-German state was split apart. We already learned that Germany was partitioned into British, French, Soviet, and American sectors, as was its capital Berlin. But what is less known is that the same thing happened in Austria: the country as a whole and the capital of Vienna were divided among the same 4 allies.

When WWII ended, the Sudetenland (one of the first territories the Nazi's had taken) was returned to Czechoslovakia. Ethnic German citizens, like my grandmother and her parents, feared reprisals from other ethnic groups and fled to Austria. These refugees were distributed among different parts of Austria. My grandmother had family in the Austrian city of Bad Ischl, but the town had no more housing available for refugees, so they were forced to go to the nearby town of Bad Goisern (in the American sector of Austria). My grandmother was one year old at the time, and they were lucky to find housing in an apartment set aside for refugees.

However, other members of my family were less lucky. My great-grandmother's sister was living in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, and it wasn't until about 40 years later that they finally saw each other again. My grandmother wasn't able meet her own cousins until they were in their forties.

The Berlin Wall didn't come down until 1989, but there was one time when my grandma and grandpa were able to visit before while the partition was still in place. My mother and her siblings asked for a present (as all little kids do when their parents go on a trip), and my mom still remembers that all of the consumer goods (especially snack foods) were much poorer quality than what she had in non-Communist Austria. My mom's parents even brought her an East German, state-commissioned cassette about a boy named Alfons Zitterbacke. Just like other East German consumer products, it didn't live up to the standard of capitalist children's cassettes.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Austria

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Allied_occupation_in_Austria_%281945-1955%29.png