Vienna 1955
BY NORMAN ST. JOHN-STEVAS IN 1945 Dr. Karl Renner, then President of the Republic, described Austria as a light skiff occupied by four elephants, unwelcome but apparently permanent guests. Today the elephants have gone and the skiff is on the high seas, but the course is still undetermined since it is only a few weeks since the last elephant—the red one—left the capital to the accompaniment of Russian speeches, folk dancing and the discreet applause of the citizens. Today Vienna retains no mark of the Russian occupation save for the gigantic monu- ment of a Russian soldier in the Schwarzenbcrgplatz (at present Stalinplatz) holding aloft a burnished shield which the Viennese maintain contains 40,000 of their stolen watches.
In Austria as a whole the end of the occupation has been greeted with mixed feelings. Natural gratification at the recovery of independence has been tempered by knowledge of the pressing economic problems that must now be solved. In Salzburg province alone the withdrawal of the American troops has meant an annual loss of 680 million schillings, and the story is similar in other parts of the country. In Vienna, however, the end of the occupation has hardly been noticed, since the zones, unlike those in Berlin, were never rigidly separated, while the old city, the cultural and historic centre within the Ringstrasse, was internationalised. The only prac- tical difference from last year is the increased number of prostitutes in the Graben who, to the chagrin of their Viennese sisters, have migrated from Salzburg, where the withdrawal of the American forces deprived them of their livelihood. Vienna is to Austria what Paris is to France, partly because of the lack of any independent provincial cultural life and partly because nearly one-third of the entire population is concentrated in the city. Since 1945 Vienna has made an astonishing recovery which still surprises its own inhabitants, who refer to it as the 'Austrian Miracle.' The scars of war can still be seen, but they are less noticeable than in London, and it is difficult to conjure up the picture of ten years ago with the streets piled high with rubble, the Opera and the Stephans' dom ablaze, no electricity, no transport, and famine just around the corner.
The charm and geniality, the getniitlichkeit, for which the Viennese have always been famous, is as marked as ever' and in no other European capital does one feel so swiftly at home. Even some of the gaiety associated with the names r)f, Lehar and Strauss remains, although narrowly circumscribed by the realities of post-war life. The Viennese go to vvorl' earlier and work harder than ever before, and as a result g° earlier to bed. In any case they have little money, and after ten o'clock the city closes down, even London being lively by comparison. Only at weekends is there any night life, when the citizens go out to Grinzing to drink the heurigen (new wine), .and even on Saturdays the last tram leaves just after midnight and carries the remaining drunken revellers back to their homes. A rival to Grinzing is Sievering, where Anton Karas plays the 'Harry Lime' theme on his zither—but not after ten, the deadline fixed by harassed local residents. Early rising has also meant the decline of caf6 society, 8 symptom of which has been the recent closing of Dobner's' once famous as the centre of Vienna's theatrical life. You can still linger over your coffee in any of the many coffee houses, reading your newspaper attached to its bamboo frame, bni, they are very often empty; while the new espresso bars, wit' quick service and no time for conversation, are nearly alviaYs full. The most popular cafd is the Old Vienna in the Karntnet' strasse, whose American juke boxes, Italian coffee machines,' and pin-tables, make its name a bad joke. On the other hand, Sacher's and Demel's are unchanged. At Sacher's you can have the best food in Vienna, including a Salzburger Nocke,6„ of unforgettable richness and lightness, and eat it in the gilt and red-brocade dining-room over which the portrait of the late Frau Sacher presides. At eighty-three, her sister still sits i at the cashier's desk at Demel's and supervises the serving coffee with schlag and the best pastries in Europe as she did in the far-off days of Imperial splendour when courtiers farric the neighbouring Hofburg dropped in with their ladies. The Viennese never seem to eat a full meal, and at the same time they never stop eating. In what other city would hot sausages be served in the principal banks at half-past ten in the morning; or sandwiches be placed on the counters of the departniee, stores? The results as recorded by the feminine figure ar however, unfortunate. Apart from snacks, the main Viennese relaxation is the cinema, of which there are over 200 in Vienna, most of them of great age and correspondingly appointed. A new tax is n°'; being levied to assist in the cost of modernisation, and Cinern..e Scope has just begun its inroads. Continuous performances are unknown—the Viennese cannot see the point of seeing a fi when it has run half through—and one result of advanc booking is a flourishing black market run by the Vienna Teddy 1.1 boys, who buy up all the tickets for popular films. Wil,bee Marlon Brando's film The Wild One was being shown, ' ot only tickets available were being sold outside the cinema double price. city Music, of course, flourishes, which is only fitting in a e renowned for its composers, and where Beethoven had 111°` houses than he wrote symphonies. The Opera House, which was given priority in the rebuilding programme, is to reopen on November 5 with a performance of Fidelio, and the com- pany will return from its exile in the Theater an der Wien. where it has been cramped for the past ten years. Theoretic- ally, tickets can be obtained for anything from fifty to 5,000 schillings, but in fact they were all sold out twelve months ago, mainly to those who inundated the box-office with blank cheques for the management to fill in. Fidelio will also be the first transmission of Austrian television, about the control of which the politicians are still wrangling. No one appears to consider it of importance that hardly anyone in Austria possesses a television set. Apart from such issues, the Viennese show no interest in politics, and this is not surprising, since the coalition of Catho- lics and Socialists has meant that all available political energy has gone into dividing the spoils of office—a game indulged in to the last degree of mathematical accuracy, and extending even to a division of the typists in the various ministries. The latest suggestion is that university appointments, which at present are made on a basis of friendly nepotism, should in future be made by a committee with members from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Education and the trade unions. The universities are not to be represented. As for anti-semitism, the dominating factor in pre-war Viennese politics, it exists no longer, for the best of. all reasons—the destruction of its object. A bearded rabbi can still occasionally be seen in the streets, but he arouses only curiosity, not hostility.
About the future the Viennese are mildly optimistic. The dreams of reviving the days of Imperial glory, either through a restoration of the Hapsburgs or union with Germany, have gone for ever. Vienna's galling experience as a provincial .city administered by Prussian nominees is vividly remembered; nor is it forgotten that their German brothers fired the city in 1945 as a parting benediction. Everyone talks gaily of Austria as a second Switzerland, but the only justification for this is the high prices of hotels and pensions which hoteliers, intoxi• cated by this year's influx of tourists, have sent rocketing skY. wards. Viennese schlamperei, the muddle-headedness which alone made the Hapsburg despotism tolerable, has little ill common with Swiss clockwork efficiency. Besides, Vienna has too much grandeur, too much history, too much culture, .10 make such an object either worthy or attainable. A parallel with Venice would be more exact. That Vienna will attract an ever increasing number of tourists no one can doubt. What' ever the realities, it is still for foreigners a city of romance. and despite the peeling façades, the deserted cafés and the early nights, the sway of the past is too seductive to resist. Nor can anyone who has listened to the Vienna Symphoniker playing 'Roses of the South' on a summer evening in the Arkadenhof, with Eduard Strauss conducting, believe that the past has gone for ever, or resist for long the exhilarating illusion that Vienna is a city where all one's dreams will be fulfilled.
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