Im Widerspruch zwischen Inklusion und Exklusion. Überlegungen zur tschechoslowakischen Migration nach Österreich zwischen Antikommunismus und antiosteuropäischem Rassismus

Abstract

The article investigates the migration of Czechoslovaks to Austria from 1968 to 1989, focusing on the period following the Warsaw Pact invasion. Drawing on Austrian and Czech archival as well as oral history sources, it examines administrative and social processes that shaped the reception of over 162,000 Czechoslovak migrants within the Traiskirchen camp, as well as over examples. The study analyses how Austria’s migration policies and the experiences of migrants were influenced by anti-communist sentiment and persistent antiEastern European stereotypes. While dislike of communism prompted Austrian authorities to welcome Czechoslovak citizens as “political refugees,” long-standing regional prejudices often led to selective inclusion. Migrants from Czechoslovakia were at times selectively granted “white” privileges, enabling them to integrate into Austrian society when it served Austria's political agenda. Situating these developments within broader societal debates, the article traces how shifting solidarity and exclusion shaped the realities of Czechoslovak migrants. The analysis shows Austria’s migration regime was less a reflection of humanitarian ideals than an outcome of Cold War instrumentalization, where political motives and racial hierarchies intersected to influence the integration and marginalization of Eastern European refugees. The article reconstructs the institutional, discursive frameworks and contradictory nature of Cold War migration policies where political ideologies intersected with racial hierarchies, influencing the experiences of Eastern European migrants in Austria.