1945: Founding of the 2nd Republic

On 27 April 1945, the provisional state government, composed of the SPÖ (Socialist Party of Austria), ÖVP (Austrian People's Party), and the KPÖ (Communist Party of Austria) passed its first government agreement, the “Declaration of the Leaders of the Antifascist Parties of Austria”. Thus, at least in Lower Austria, Burgenland, and Vienna, the reestablishment of the small state of Austria with its borders from 1937 was carried out only 14 days after the liberation of Vienna from National Socialism and before the end of the Second World War with the approval of the Soviet army administration. The document was mostly designed by the SPÖ State Chancellor, Karl Renner. Article 1 defines Austria as a democratic republic and names the constitution of 1920 as the standard for its reestablishment.

An additional essential point in this declaration was Austrian society's denial of any political responsibility for National Socialism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. The victim myth of the Second Republic was thus established here. But at least some sort of “retributive law” was proposed, a kind of exceptional law against those former members of the Nazi Party and the SS, “who out of contempt for democracy and democratic freedom built and maintained a regime of violence, espionage, persecution, and oppression over our people" and "who plunged the country into this risky war and exposed it to devastation”.

On 19 October, following two provincial conferences, the western states as well as the US, Great Britain, and France acknowledged the now expanded state government of Renner. One of its tasks was to prepare for the first National Council elections, set to take place on 25 November 1945.