SOe agents in Austria

Persecution, Post-War integration and Memory

Abstract

During World War ii, the British wartime secret service Special Operations Executive (SOE) undertook secret operations to foster resistance in Austria. This article explores the social and political reintegration of Austrian SOe agents and the culture of memory after 1945. The focus lies on three groups of agents who either died during their missions or survived and stayed in Austria after the war: socialist exiles, Wehr- macht deserters and, as a single case, British SOE officer Alfgar Hesketh-Prichard who had closely collaborated with the Carinthian Slovene Partisans. The article is based on extensive re- search in archives, as well as the evaluation of ego-documents and biographical interviews.