THE AUSTRIAN ARMS INDUSTRY IN THE INTER-WAR PERIOD
THE AUSTRIAN ARMS INDUSTRY IN THE INTER-WAR PERIOD

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the development of the Austrian arms industry after World War I, particularly in the 1930s, with an emphasis on the factors that influenced this development. These included primarily the loss of industrial areas resulting from the demise of Austria-Hungary, restrictions and prohibitions arising from the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, signed in 1919, and the economic recession and domestic and international politics in the 1930s. The selected examples outline the methods by which arms production was carried out in individual companies – by transfer of production to factories abroad, for example – despite the stated restrictions stipulated for Austria after the war. It can be said that in spite of all the mentioned circumstances, Austrian arms manufacturers successfully returned to the internal market in the 1930s and won a major position in it. After the Anschluss of Austria (the annexation of Austria into Germany in 1938), Germany took advantage of the relatively developed arms industry of Austria and built the largest arms centre in the area of Upper Austria.

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