10 Mind-Blowing Misconceptions About The Berlin Wall

4. Berlin Was The Only City Partitioned After World War II

Although Germany and Berlin are rightly remembered most prominently for being partitioned in the aftermath of World War II, Austria was also subject to Allied occupation. Austria was treated slightly differently to Germany due the fact the Allies viewed it as a €œvictim€ of Nazi aggression, rather than a perpetrator, yet its strategic importance and cultural relationship with Germany ensured it was still watched over closely. Four zones €“ run by Britain, France, the US and the USSR individually €“ were established in Austria, as they were in Germany straight after the Second World War, while Vienna was also subdivided. Five districts €“ four run individually by a different ally and a central district that would be jointly-administered by the Allied Control Commission €“ existed in the former imperial Austrian capital between 1945 and 1955, when Austria was finally given full independence. The partition of Berlin and Germany lasted 35 years longer, and was a source of far greater tension between the Western Powers and the USSR, but Austria€™s importance in international relations is forgotten all too easily.