The Postwar Occupation of Austria: History Matters (Short Animated Documentary)

The Western occupation forces were highly favoured in Austria compared to the Soviets.

The allies had negotiated and defined the occupation borders in advance, and when the war ended, some areas happened to be under the wrong occupation force. My mother in law was a little girl back then, living in an area that was assigned to the British, but actually it was the Red army which drove the German army out of this region. So initially "die Russen" (the Russians) were in charge and until today I hear stories about their bad behaviour and crimes, despite this period being very short (some weeks?). They looted, often for alcohol to get drunk again, and harrassed women. One time my mother in law had to flee in the middle of the night, because some soldiers were approaching their farm suspiciously searching for women and her mother feared the worst and ran away with her daughter to hide in a covert hut for the rest of the night.

On the day the Britsh army was to take over the grandmother of my wife made a bouquet of flowers, gave it to her daughter, sent her to the street where the incoming British military convoy was expected, and instructed her to give the flowers to a British soldier. Many more people were waiting there to welcome the British army, and when the convoy arrived my mother in law held her bouquet high in the air and a soldier on a passing by vehicle took it.

I never heard bad stories about the occupation forces in the British zone or in the French zone where my parents grew up back then.

Hmmmmmm I would have bet the Soviets would be like Nyet.😸😸😸

Others believe he is screaming loony who thinks Donald Trump is a fine fellow

West and East: You guys should be very nationalistic.
Austria: Are you sure that's a good idea again?

Austria is the only county banned from nato

Cold War Joke: How do Austrians get their shopping done? Play the Hungarian National Anthem any check out while Hungarians stand at attention.

Austria seriously got screwed by losing South Tyrol to Italy. It was never theirs to begin with!

One of the consequences of Austria being located between so many Communist and non-Communist countries and being neutral was that Vienna soon became known as the city of spies.

Figl is pronounced feegl, not faigl.

Idk why but this video is quite humorous

Wish Austria stayed divided.

Home boy buss that AK on a civilian was funny as hell

G'day mate, so where does Paul Hogan come into this? Kidding, I'm kidding.

Really can’t believe we gave half of Europe to communism.

Austria welcomed the Nazis with open arms.

😮

Thus leading to the classic joke: never ask a woman her age, a man the size of his bank account or an Austrian what they were doing between 1938 and 1945.

It was Stalin who wanted Austria to be neutral

DEUTSCHE MUTANTS = AUSTRIANS ................🙂

Technically speaking, as they are both in the eu did they not connect into one?

I m From Austria

TWO interesting movies: The Third Man (obviously) but a really well done Brit film ALSO with Trevor Howard but ADD David Niven & other Brit actors about DP camps (Displaced Persons) and the drama involved in determining just WHO the people were and if they needed repatriation, or moving on to Israel, Europe , or the USA. Can't remember the films name ; black and white film late forties???

Your three minute video covers this periode better than the Austrian public education system, in mir detail too. Austria has this thing where they for a long time did not want to be seen as responsible for the many warcrimes we commited, in my grandma's time they only covered the period up to the first world war, with it barely beeing better today

"De-Nazification!" LMFAO! Tell that to Kurt Waldheim!

Austria is literally Germany

"Thoroughly anschlüssed" is the best description of Austria in the world war zwei

Even though we don't want to become part of Germany or the NATO, in 2018 the Austrian supreme court ruled, that the "Anschlussverbot" and "Neutralitätsgesetz" (Neutrality-law). Would end in 2045, because 100 years after a treaty was made, either a new treaty has to be made or it is over.

i just wanna add that Figl isnt pronounced f-ai-gl but more like Feegl which i think is very funny

Ulbricht would have been pleased with an Austrian People's Republic.

That explains somewhat why modern Austria was never really called to account for its role in the horror of Nazism.

Wait, if Austria and Germany are allowed to “never, literally never” unite with each other, than what happens if the EU became one country? Aren’t Austria and Germany technically uniting?

I still don’t get why Khrushchev didn’t try dividing it into East and West like Germany. Vienna is only like 50km from Bratislava or Hungary.

Another fun fact, about the Austrian State Treaty: until the fall of the Wall in 1989, the Soviet Zone in Austria was the only Soviet-occupied area to be peacefully de-occupied.

In Austria we say "Grüzi, darauf erstmal oa Ricola." However... great to see this channel spread some facts about our country not many people know.

Is that walter white in your thumbnail 😂

South Tirol still belongs to Austria

It's SPÖ, not SDP

Austria belonged, up to Versailles, OFFICIALLY TO THE GERMAN EMPIRE!!!The first Republic of Austria was proclaimed at the insistence of Germany's wartime opponents.While German Wehrmacht units were marching into Austria, Austrian troops were marching into Germany!You Americans have absolutely NO KNOWLEDGE about history!Not from European and also not from your own...

Austria was loyal and devoted part of 3rd reich which should been punished way more after war. Austrians have been the worst SS-man units and many Austrians were guards in concentration camps. Their denacification was a big joke. Calling Austria victim of nazzis is insult to all real victims. Im Czech and this in personal to me, because in Austria and by Austrians was founded concentration camp Matthausen where was, by Austrian guards, killed many Czech members of ressistance and other innocent civilians.

Hvala Hvala lepa iz Gradec Štajerska Avstrija ampak jaz sem u pola švabo i imam češki I slovenski krv.

Austrija je slovenski

Italy as first European aggressive part of WW2, has no right to detain South Tirol.

Me as an Austrian knows we dont even feel like one with the germans. I'm glad over the fact we cant come together as one again.

If you would speak even faster, you could save 15 seconds

I'm austrian and it's so strange that a lot of people never even knew we were split like germany for a time. I guess it's because we were for a much shorter time period. One thing you might have forgotten about or just not mentioned is that the death of Stalin actually contributed a lot to austrian independence, as right when he died the austrians starting to put more pressure on getting their treaty to have all foreign soldiers out of the country

Well austria was not the first victim of nazi aggression. This is called victim theory.

I find this video too brief and done at a too hectic pace, which is a shame due to all the viewers engaging with it. Would stretching it to 6 min be so bad?

“The first victim” my butt. Austrians massively wanted to become part of Germany and welcomed Hitler in Vienna like a liberator. We all know what happened at Heldenplatz.
Half of the nazis were Austrians, a majority of the commandos of the concentration camps on the occupied Polish territories were Austrians.
And then in order to avoid international responsibility they declared themselves the first victim of the nazis. How handy.
The denial of responsibility has been for years a deeply hidden guilty conscience of this nation and a topic of a rather ardent public debate after artists like Thomas Bernhard, Elfride Jelinek and a number of others couldn’t take it anymore and publicly opposed this nation-wide amnesia.

Still, in 2022 I have a strong feeling most of Austrians keep denying their substantial role in the II WW and in massive extermination of Jews and nations of central Europe.