The Foreign Service Journal, November 2019

48 NOVEMBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL What Would Austria Do? Robert F. Cekuta Vienna, Austria T he U.S. embassy in Vienna in 1989 was a key post for monitoring the changes that were underway in the Warsaw Pact. In the economic section where I worked, prime concerns included East-West trade—i.e., the levels, the composition and the actors in trade and investment between the West and communist countries—as well as the control of exports of Western dual-use and other sensitive goods and technologies. We frequently met with Austrian bankers and others doing business in the East for their view of the economic situations in those countries, as well as to get insights into the reform pro- cesses and how the West might support an economic and political transformation. Austria’s media, building on traditional ties and the country’s post-1955 neutrality, were useful sources; Austrian journalists in Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Moscow and elsewhere reported daily in detail on the political dynamics and democratic aspirations in each capital. We also monitored the public’s hope and confusion over how events in the East were unfolding. The relative relaxation of Hungary’s border controls had brought influxes of Hungarians and, later, East Germans into Austria. East Germans tended to drive through toWest Germany, while Hungarians and others came for weekend shopping along Vienna’s Maria- hilfer Strasse, buying appliances, house- wares and other Western goods that were in short supply at home. The Austrians welcomed the Eastern Europeans, seeing their visits as positive signs of a relaxation of communist totalitarian controls and of a possible return to a prewar Central Europe. It was a shock that Friday night when we found out the Berlin Wall had fallen, and questions about what it all meant fol- lowed. My wife and I heard the news from a German friend whose brother lived in West Berlin. Though unclear about what exactly was going on, his excitement matched the mood in Vienna that weekend. Younger Austrians were euphoric. Viennese of all ages lit candles and said prayers of thanks- giving in the city’s numerous churches. The end had come peacefully, bringing hope for the people in the communist East and a sense that this opening in Berlin would assure them all a better future. The opening of the wall and the sudden ability of East Berliners to travel to the West was a strong sign for the public that Mitteleu- ropa , the Central Europe that Austrians looked on as a lost cultural and economic entity, could now become a reality again. Certainly many Austrian bankers and business people saw great potential for investment and economic expansion. However, at the same time, memories of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 led to caution and concern that the Sovi- ets might again clamp down hard. Also, in early November 1989, there was no certainty that Prague, Sofia, Bucharest or Tirana would tolerate democratic reforms. In Vienna, initial jubilation evolved into a cautious optimism tempered by years of dealing with the Soviets and the region’s other communist states. As the permanence of the opening and changes in the East became apparent, the number of American businesspeople com- ing through Vienna grewmarkedly, and Austria’s government and business community sought to remake Vienna as the center for economic activity in the Danube Basin. With the understanding in the East that democracy and prosperity were connected, Cold War Europe. PETERI/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM