The occupation 1945 – 1955

After the war the Allies implemented measures they had been planning to eradicate national socialism: the Nazi party was dissolved, Nazi symbols abolished, National Socialist laws were repealed and especially active Nazis interned. The constitution of May 1955 had no mention of any shared responsibility on the part of Austrians for the crimes of the Third Reich. The theory of victimhood, in which Austria and its population were just victims of Hitler's Germany, had already been promoted as state doctrine. Linz street names that evoked Nazi rule were abolished in 1945. But continuity in personnel – in officialdom, for example – outlasted the year 1945. Linz was a divided city until 1955. The city housed 40,000 refugees from 25 countries . The priorities of the city administration under Mayor Ernst Koref were provisioning, clearing war damage, rebuilding the city infrastructure as well as addressing the need for housing.