In the history of the Cold War and détente, reference is seldom made to the international relations of the small states. This volume undertakes the task of reassessing comparatively, on the basis of newly declassified sources from Western and formerly Eastern archives, the preconditions and various developments of bilateral relations across the Iron Curtain, between the USSR, Eastern Europe, and neutral but capitalist Austria. While the Soviet attitude saw neutrality as a valuable model for Western Europe and Austria as a showcase for the “peaceful coexistence” between East and West, this small country and its communist neighbors developed their own kind of Ostpolitik long before the bigger political actors had ushered in European détente.

With chapters by: Peter Bachmaier, Klaus Bachmann, Friedrich Bauer, Thomas Fischer, Michael Gehler, Andreas Gémes, David Holloway, Mikolaj Kunicki, Victor McFarland, Wolfgang Mueller, Norman M. Naimark, Hanspeter Neuhold, Anton Pelinka, Michael Portmann, Oliver Rathkolb, Erwin A. Schmidl, David Schriffl, Dieter Stiefel, Günther Stocker, Arnold Suppan, and Paul Ullmann.