ABSTRACT
The American elite journal Foreign Affairs termed the Marshall Plan “perhaps the most important foreign policy success of the postwar period.” In Austria the historical memory of the significance of the Marshall Plan for the country’s postwar economic reconstruction as a basis for broad prosperity seems largely ignored by the political class and forgotten among the younger generation. In a similar vein, the Americanization of Austrian business practices through American management training courses or by entrepreneurs visiting the US on inspection tours are important lacunae in Marshall Plan research. The Marshall Plan completed the division of Europe which the Soviets had started with building their security zone in East Central Europe. The Marshall Plan recipients were constantly reminded that the growing productivity of their economies and increasing prosperity of their citizens were direct results of American Marshall Plan largesse. In the spirit of the Marshall Plan he was a visionary of European-American academic exchanges and dialogue.
