Controlled Freedom

Allied Cultural Policy in Vienna, 1945-1955

edited by Oliver Rathkolb and Agnes Meisinger, translated by John Heath

Book cover: Controlled Freedom

Extent: 235 pages

Publisher: V&R unipress

Subjects: Art & Art History, Cultural Studies, Social Sciences 

Series: Zeitgeschichte im Kontext

Series volume number: 23

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(April 2025)

ISBN: 9783847118527

6.3 x 9.33 inches

Price: $44.00

In stock

Following liberation in April 1945, Vienna was characterized by destruction, cold, hunger, and an acute housing shortage. Yet cultural life soon returned: as early as 27 April, Soviet officers ordered its revival. It was not long until the other Allies – France, Britain, and the USA – launched their own cultural campaigns. The many cultural activities under Allied occupation were intended not only to underpin economic and political rebuilding, but also to promote an Austrian national consciousness – a separate self-image independent from Germany. This volume is the first to show the impact of Allied cultural policy in the fields of fine art, film, literature and libraries, music and theatre, press photography, print media, radio, and sport, thereby documenting an achievement that can still be felt today: the creation of a democratic Austrian identity.


This book presents the first comprehensive reconstruction of the cultural influence of the four Allies on the development of art and media in Vienna after 1945. Never before had the population of Vienna been confronted with international cultural influences so intensively and in such a short space of time as after liberation in 1945. Controlled Freedom: Allied Cultural Policy in Vienna 1945-1955 shines a light on the impact of Allied cultural policy on the visual arts, film, literature and libraries, music and theatre, press photography, print media, radio, and sport. Young artists had their first contact with the international, critical modernism that had been banned under National Socialism. The political aims of the Allied cultural offensive ranged from denazification and constructing a non-German identity to the fight for Austria’s ideological stance in the Cold War.

  • Edited by Agnes Meisinger
  • Edited by Oliver Rathkolb
  • Translated by John Heath