Review of Legacy of the Cold War

Review of Erbe des Kalten Krieges (Legacy of the Cold War) by Bernd Greiner, Tim B. Muller, and Klaas Voß

Review of EU Foreign Policy and the Europeanization of Neutral States: Comparing Irish and Austrian Foreign Policy.

Review of EU Foreign Policy and the Europeanization of Neutral States: Comparing Irish and Austrian Foreign Policy by Nicole Alecu de Flers

The Advent of Neo-Revisionism?

Five distinguished scholars offer separate commentaries on the article by Michael Cox and Caroline Kennedy-Pipe. All of the commentators reject the broad interpretation and many of the specific arguments put forth by Cox and Kennedy-Pipe. They point out several crucial issues that are omitted from the article and raise questions about the authors’ sources, use of evidence, and selective invocation of secondary literature. They regret that Cox and Kennedy-Pipe seem to dwell on a large number of the same matters that preoccupied radical revisionist historians in the 1960s. They argue that although Cox and Kennedy-Pipe offer a more sophisticated version of revisionism, their article suffers from many of the same shortcomings. Most of the commentators believe that the Marshall Plan merely rejected a division of Europe that was already well under way rather than being the precipitating cause. In that sense, the debate on the origins of the Cold War needs to go well beyond the issues raised by Cox and Kennedy-Pipe

Review of Russlandheimkehrer: Die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen Im Gedächtnis Der Deutschen.

Review of Russlandheimkehrer: Die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen im Gedächtnis der Deutschen by Elke Scherstjano

The Schüssel Era in Austria

Wolfgang Schüssel was a dominating actor in the Austrian political arena over a period of twenty years. He served as minister of economics (1989-1995), and vice chancellor and foreign minister (1995-2000) in ÖVP/SPÖ grand coalition governments. As chairman of the ÖVP (1995-2007), he brought his conservative party out of the political wilderness of opposition and playing junior partner in coalitions with the SPÖ. He dominated Austrian politics as chancellor (2000-2007) in a small coalition with Jörg Haider’s controversial aggressively nationalist FPÖ. Schüssel tried to domesticate the Freedomites by holding them on a tight leash in his coalition government. He needed the FPÖ to accomplish his neoliberal economic and social reform agenda, while at the same time the FPÖ undermined Schüssel’s EU policies. The essays in this volume argue that Schüssel’s political record and legacy are ambiguous. With a confrontational style of governance he unleashed big reforms such as trimming the hidebound pension system and giving more autonomy to higher education. In the process he undermined Austria’s consensual social partnership. His record of supporting the European Union agenda is ambivalent. Austrian public opinion in support of the EU declined precipitously. He was a superb tactician and negotiator yet failed to achieve broad popular acceptance for his ambitious reforms. His imprint on Austrian history is so significant that many of the authors of the essays in this volume call it “the Schüssel era.

Die Außenpolitik gegenüber den Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada

Die österreichische Außenpolitik gegenüber den Vereinigten Staaten ist gekennzeichnet durch das Verhältnis eines Kleinstaates zur hegemonialen Supermacht. Das Verhältnis zur Mittelmacht Kanada fndet hingegen eher auf Augenhöhe statt. Zwar sind die Beziehungen zu den USA durchwegs gut, jedoch hat die Relevanz Österreichs für die USA stetig abgenommen. In den Beziehungen zu Kanada gibt es wichtige Schnittmengen, vor allem im Bereich des Engagements in internationalen Institutionen, jedoch ebenfalls Spannungspunkt

Additive value of [18F]PI-2620 perfusion imaging in progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal syndrome

Purpose: Early after [18F]PI-2620 PET tracer administration, perfusion imaging has potential for regional assessment of neuronal injury in neurodegenerative diseases. This is while standard late-phase [18F]PI-2620 tau-PET is able to discriminate the 4-repeat tauopathies progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal syndrome (4RTs) from disease controls and healthy controls. Here, we investigated whether early-phase [18F]PI-2620 PET has an additive value for biomarker based evaluation of 4RTs. Methods: Seventy-eight patients with 4RTs (71 ± 7 years, 39 female), 79 patients with other neurodegenerative diseases (67 ± 12 years, 35 female) and twelve age-matched controls (69 ± 8 years, 8 female) underwent dynamic (0-60 min) [18F]PI-2620 PET imaging. Regional perfusion (0.5-2.5 min p.i.) and tau load (20-40 min p.i.) were measured in 246 predefined brain regions [standardized-uptake-value ratios (SUVr), cerebellar reference]. Regional SUVr were compared between 4RTs and controls by an ANOVA including false-discovery-rate (FDR, p < 0.01) correction. Hypoperfusion in resulting 4RT target regions was evaluated at the patient level in all patients (mean value - 2SD threshold). Additionally, perfusion and tau pattern expression levels were explored regarding their potential discriminatory value of 4RTs against other neurodegenerative disorders, including validation in an independent external dataset (n = 37), and correlated with clinical severity in 4RTs (PSP rating scale, MoCA, activities of daily living). Results: Patients with 4RTs had significant hypoperfusion in 21/246 brain regions, most dominant in thalamus, caudate nucleus, and anterior cingulate cortex, fitting to the topology of the 4RT disease spectrum. However, single region hypoperfusion was not specific regarding the discrimination of patients with 4RTs against patients with other neurodegenerative diseases. In contrast, perfusion pattern expression showed promise for discrimination of patients with 4RTs from other neurodegenerative diseases (AUC: 0.850). Discrimination by the combined perfusion-tau pattern expression (AUC: 0.903) exceeded that of the sole tau pattern expression (AUC: 0.864) and the discriminatory power of the combined perfusion-tau pattern expression was replicated in the external dataset (AUC: 0.917). Perfusion but not tau pattern expression was associated with PSP rating scale (R = 0.402; p = 0.0012) and activities of daily living (R = - 0.431; p = 0.0005). Conclusion: [18F]PI-2620 perfusion imaging mirrors known topology of regional hypoperfusion in 4RTs. Single region hypoperfusion is not specific for 4RTs, but perfusion pattern expression may provide an additive value for the discrimination of 4RTs from other neurodegenerative diseases and correlates closer with clinical severity than tau pattern expression

Between Responsibility and Rehabilitation: Austria in International Politics, 1940-1950

Cold War scholarship has frequently treated Austria as a Germany sub-problem in the critical early post-war era. Located in a crucial Central European geopolitical position, however, Austria became one of the early test cases for containing the Soviet Union. In fact, Austrian post-war history attests to an Anglo-Soviet cold war in 1945 preceding the better-known U.S.-Soviet Cold War that erupted on the world stage of history in 1946/47. Much of previous scholarship has focused on interpreting the prolonged Austrian occupation exclusively through the prism of superpower tensions. Based on much new American, British, French, and Austrian archival evidence, this study demonstrates that the Western powers were plagued by disagreements in their policies towards Austria, particularly in 1945. Moreover, Austria herself played an increasingly important role, utilizing the East-West rift to fight for her own agenda. Based on the myth of Austrian innocence during World War II, the post-war Austrian governments strove to realize a quick Austrian treaty to end the occupation. In the upheavals of the Cold War, Austria, a weak and small country, indeed found room to maneuver diplomatically. Young Karl Gruber, the pugnacious but inexperienced Foreign Minister, led many of these battles on the international scene. After the extended fight for the recognition of the provisional Renner regime, which the British suspected was a Soviet puppet, the Austrians elected a government in 1945. A shocking defeat by the Communists induced the Soviets to put heavy economic pressure on the new Socialist/Conservative coalition government. In 1945, the Red Army had removed German industries in Austria as war booty . Based on the Potsdam agreements, the Soviets seized the German external assets in their Austrian zone and squeezed an exceedingly high price in reparations out of current production from these sequestered properties. This economic exploitation alerted the Western powers and precipitated the Cold War in Austria early in 1946. The U.S. government started to pour massive amounts of economic aid into Austria to save Austria\u27s economic unity, stabilize the political system, and stop Communist expansion. The Western powers feared that after the coups in Budapest and Prague, Austria might be next on the list of Communist takeovers. In 1948/49, Austria got caught in the maelstrom of growing East-West tensions. The Americans and the French preferred to maintain the status quo and were reluctant to sign an Austrian treaty before the country was sufficiently rearmed. By the end of the 1940s, only the British were prepared to take the risk of concluding an Austrian treaty. The Soviets, however, opted for continuing their economic exploitation of Austria. It was mainly Soviet intransigence, and to a lesser degree Western military concerns, which made the Austrian occupation last until 1955