On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, we would like to share some photographs that document the arrival of British troops in Carinthia and celebrate the liberation of Austria from Nazi rule.
Eighty years ago, on the afternoon of May 7, 1945, the first advance unit of British troops entered Carinthia from Italy and was recorded in an encounter with local Austrian civilians in the town of Kötschach-Mauthen, west of Villach. After months of bitter fighting in northern Italy, British forces had finally defeated the German armies along the banks of the River Po and were racing to reach Trieste and Klagenfurt ahead of Yugoslav troops.
In the case of Trieste, they were not successful, and Yugoslav forces occupied the city and the region the day before the arrival of British troops. But British units did manage to reach Klagenfurt on the morning of May 8, VE Day, only hours before the arrival of Yugoslav forces. The photo below shows British officers in discussion with members of the self-proclaimed government of Carinthia on Heiligengeistplatz in Klagenfurt.
Once established in Klagenfurt, in what was an extremely tense situation due not only to the presence of Yugoslav troops, British units immediately continued their advance north and east into the rest of Carinthia and on to Styria (subject to the subsequent withdrawal of Soviet forces). Here you see an armoured column proceeding north along St. Veiter Straße in Klagenfurt.
Throughout their interactions with their Yugoslav allies, British troops were concerned to demonstrate overwhelming strength and resolve, but avoid any kind of open dispute if possible. A military parade on Neuer Platz on May 8 was a clear demonstration of British military prowess and was designed to send a clear message to Yugoslav forces who were acting as if Klagenfurt and southern Carinthia were part of Yugoslavia.
One of the main tasks of British Troops Austria, or B.T.A. – besides dealing with extreme food shortages, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, and disarming and repatriating foreign soldiers – was to secure the Austrian border to Yugoslavia, including the road connection via the Loibl Pass. The pass was re-opened to the public in 1950; the Loibl Tunnel, built by inmates of the Loibl concentration camp, including French and Polish prisoners of war, was opened to traffic only in 1967.
The photograph below is usually captioned “British soldiers patrol Wörthersee in a commandeered motorboat”. The scene is, however, also very suggestive of the kind of life British troops were able to enjoy once the really hard jobs had been taken care of. Not without reason did Army newspapers occasionally have to remind soldiers they were part of an occupation force, not on holiday.
The initially very strict British military ban on fraternization between British military personnel and Austrian civilians quickly began to crumble in the face of opposition among the troops and a general desire for a gradual normalization of relations. At the same time, the number of applications for permission to marry Austrians, mainly from servicemen, increased dramatically, as part of the process of normalization, which included the official termination of the state of war between Britian and Austria on September 16, 1947.
The bottom line of the British military presence in Carinthia (and neighbouring Styria) after World War II is that the British may have arrived in May 1945 in Austria as victors, but they left ten years later as the best of friends.
Photo credits: In all cases, Kärntner Landesarchiv.
by Paul Brazell
May 2025 (first published in the Club newsletter)