Soviet Vienna

Soviet soldiers inspect the aftermath of a group suicide in Vienna in 1945. The Red Army captured the heavily damaged city from the Nazis that spring. (Photo by Yevgeny Khaldei/TASS)

Soviet leader Josef Stalin's portrait being wheeled through central Vienna in 1952. From the end of World War II up until mid-1955, Vienna was divided into zones of occupation by the victorious Allies.

A Soviet soldier strolling central Vienna with a friend in 1946. Vienna's western suburbs were split into British, American, and French sections, while the Soviet Union held Vienna's east.

A sign in Russian and German marking the end of the Soviet zone. The center of Vienna was shared collectively by the occupying forces, a bizarre arrangement made famous by a scene in the 1949 film The Third Man, which was written by Graham Greene.

A Soviet soldier clinks flutes with a date during a party inside the Hofburg, the former imperial palace of the Habsburgs.

The Austrian flag flutters alongside the hammer-and-sickle on a tram crossing a newly repaired bridge in central Vienna in 1946.

Theodor Koerner, the mayor of Vienna and soon-to-be president of Austria, at the unveiling of a memorial to Soviet soldiers killed during the capture of Vienna.

An Orthodox priest outblinged by a group of Soviet generals.

The Soviet star hangs in the entrance to a Vienna apartment seized by the Soviets around 1946.

Uzbek musicians perform inside the Musikverein, the home of today’s Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

A Soviet information officer waltzing with a young woman.

Portraits of Lenin and Stalin, and the Soviet red star on the Palais Epstein in 1947. The building served as the Soviet headquarters during the occupation.

A Soviet work crew tucking into a meal during a break inside a factory in Vienna.

The military occupation was deeply unpopular in Austria, and eastern Vienna lost some 11 percent of its population as people fled the Soviet zone.

A bear called Smoky being unloaded by workers from the Russian state circus in Vienna in 1958, after the Allies had withdrawn following some deft Austrian diplomacy. One condition for the Soviet departure was for Austria to vow it would never join NATO, a pledge the country has honored.