Austrian chancellor recalls Nehru’s legacy. How Indian PM helped Vienna regain sovereignty after WW2

Austria, which had been annexed by Nazi Germany, was occupied by Allied Powers after WW2. Austrian foreign minister Karl Gruber appealed to Nehru to mediate in negotiations with USSR.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with Austrian Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer during his visit to the Federal Chanceller | ANI

New Delhi: Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer Wednesday spoke of India’s role in helping the European country regain its sovereignty after World War 2, putting the focus on Jawaharlal Nehru’s abiding foreign policy legacy. 

In a joint statement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Austria over the last two days, Nehammer said: “The situation was difficult, it was difficult to make progress. It was (Austrian) Foreign Minister (Karl) Gruber, who contacted Prime Minister Nehru, asking for support in the negotiations to bring them to a positive conclusion. This is what happened. India helped Austria and the negotiations came to a positive conclusion with the Austrian State Treaty.”

Modi’s visit to Austria is the first by an Indian prime minister in 41 years, since Indira Gandhi’s in 1983. Gandhi had made two visits to the European country, in 1971 and 1983.

The Austrian chancellor’s comments highlighted Nehru’s enduring foreign policy legacy across the globe. Nehru, according to historical sources, played a part in helping Austria regain its sovereignty and also mentored some of its leaders. 

Adolf Hitler had annexed Austria, the country of his birth, to the German Reich in 1938 — the event known as Anschluss. 

In July 1945, the four victorious Allied Powers of World War 2 — France, the UK, the USA and the USSR — agreed to create zones of occupation in Austria as its boundaries were on 31 December, 1937.

Austria was divided into four zones, while the capital, Vienna, was similarly divided among the four occupying powers. The North-East Zone of Austria was occupied by the Soviet Union, the North-West Zone by the US, the Western Zone by France and the Southern Zone by the UK. 

Within the next few years, the unity of the Allied Powers broke down as the Iron Curtain descended across Europe and the Cold War began. 

Germany was similarly divided by the Allied Powers in 1949 — the areas occupied by the US, the UK and France became the Federal Republic of Germany, while the Soviet-occupied zone became the the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The two countries remained divided till the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification on 3 October 1990. 

Austria, however, was able to declare its sovereignty in 1955, without any such division. 

The Bürgenstock Initiative 

Bürgenstock, the mountain resort in Switzerland, has been in the news in the past few weeks for playing host to the Global Peace Summit organised by the Swiss government to find a solution to the Russia-Ukraine war. 

In June 1953, however, the resort played host to another initiative — one that saw India play a bridging role between the East and the West. 

On 3 June 1953, a day after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the then Austrian foreign minister, Karl Gruber met with Nehru in London. The Indian prime minister had been invited to the coronation. 

Nehru asked Gruber to come to Bürgenstock, where according to Austrian academic Hans Köchler, the prime minister was meeting Indian diplomatic representatives. 

The then US acting high commissioner to Austria, Walter C. Dowling, noted Nehru’s invitation to Gruber for a meeting at Bürgenstock, in a telegram (6336) to the Department of State on 3 June 1953. 

In another cable on 25 June 1953, Dowling described the meeting: 

“Purpose of visit, Gruber said, was to explain Austrian position once again to Nehru, with hope Indians might be willing to sound out Soviets true intentions on state treaty. Conversation, in which Indian Ambassador Moscow and Minister to Austria participated, dwelt at length on Austrian-Federal Republic relations, with Gruber surmising from questions that Soviets had already voiced their suspicions this subject to Indians.” 

Dowling added, “(Gruber) pointed out some carefully-worded declaration against military alliances by Parliament would be most Austrians could accept, and this only if essential for Soviet consent to treaty.” 

Nehru, according to Dowling’s recollection of his conversation with Gruber, was fully in support of Austria’s views regarding neutrality. Gruber’s visit to Nehru had, however, raised suspicions at the British Foreign Office as the Austrian foreign minister had failed to inform them of it. 

The meeting between Gruber and Nehru came after a consistent call by Austrians for sovereignty at the United Nations. India in 1952 endorsed an appeal from Vienna to the United Nations General Assembly regarding its international status, writes Köchler.  

“The word of India was of major importance to us,” Gruber said at the time, according to Köchler. 

Austrian State Treaty and neutrality 

Nehru took on the role of a diplomatic mediator in support of Austria’s negotiations with the USSR in its goal to regain sovereignty. However, within the Soviet Union at the time, the winds of political change were also blowing. 

On 5 March 1953, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union for over three decades, died after a stroke at the age of 74. This led to the eventual rise of Nikita Khrushchev as the leader of the country, after an internal power struggle within the Communist Party. 

The change of guard also allowed for a different approach to the status of Austria. Gruber’s offer of neutrality to Nehru and the subsequent negotiations eventually led to Vienna in 1954 making a promise of joining no military alliances and to permit no military bases on its territory. 

This promise in 1954 was followed by negotiations between Vienna and Moscow, and the 15 April 1955 memorandum between Austria and the USSR. In the memorandum, the Soviet Union took note of Austria’s promises of a Switzerland-like policy of neutrality and agreed to sign the Austrian State Treaty “without delay”. 

A month later, on 15 May 1955, the four Allied powers signed the Austrian State Treaty in Vienna, declaring the re-establishment of Austria as a free and independent state. A month later, Nehru was the first international leader to visit newly independent Austria for a state visit in June 1955. 

On 26 October 1955, a day after the last Allied troops left the country, the Austrian National Council (lower House of Parliament), passed the Constitutional Law of Neutrality of the country —an idea that was discussed two years earlier between Gruber and Nehru. 

(Edited by Tikli Basu)