British de-nazification in Austria 1945–1948

Siegfried Beer

The most important tasks facing the British occupation in Austria included the dissolution of all Nazi organisations and the comprehensive excision of National Socialist ideas. They had planned this jointly with the Americans. They went to their task pretty breezily as early as the summer of 1945 in their own zone, and pretty much single-handedly before February 1946. It was not until after the relevant Renner Laws had been recognised that de-nazification was largely left to Austrian agencies, albeit under stringent British control.

From the middle of 1948 onwards London backed off from the process of administrative de-nazification – with a few exceptions – above all due to the political constraints of the Cold War in Austria.

It is significant that the “how” of their own involvement was internally controversial from the very beginning, as the British forces of occupation were riven by considerable disagreement about how to practically implement a policy of de-nazification, as is shown in several case studies.