ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the personal and sexual relationships between Austrian women and soldiers of the Allied Occupation Forces which represented a significant phenomenon in postwar Austria. The connections between war, occupation, and sexuality are ambiguous and complex, and hence are frequently suppressed. Despite all the mentioned regulations, a manifold network of relationships proved constitutive for all some zones from the very beginning. Sexual encounters do very frequently have social consequences, also in a very immediate sense. The dark underside of the Allied occupation reality of Austria revealed itself most clearly in the acts of sexual violence committed by Soviet soldiers during the first weeks of occupation. In the postwar period, relationships between Austrian women and members of the occupation forces became a central topic. Women who were suspected of having a relationship with an occupation soldier could easily get “punished.” Women were removed from men’s sphere of control.
