On a roll in Vienna
TUESDAY, October 26, is Austria Day. From Innsbruck to Vienna, and from Salzburg to Passau, Austrians will celebrate their country’s emergence as a sovereign, independent state after World War II.
The Austrians will remember and rejoice in two pieces of serendipity that blessed their country in the aftermath of the war. First, the country was seen as victim of the war, and not as a participant in hostilities. Germans have been known to complain that the greatest trick Austria played on the world was to persuade everyone that Hitler was German and not Austrian and that Mozart was Austrian and not German.
That could be regarded as a bit of a shaky pronouncement, and probably one you don’t want to go bandying about in a Viennese coffee shop.
What is clear is the good luck Austrians enjoyed after the war. Compared to the fate of neighbouring countries Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Austria did well.
It wasn’t absorbed into the Eastern Bloc — avoiding this by the skin of its teeth.
Austria remained part of the West, and the city that had dominated middle Europe for centuries declared itself neutral. Today it is an offence to give the Nazi single arm salute in the country — and you don’t even need to put your finger under your nose, just the salute will land you with a hefty fine.
CULTURE, music and its academic heritage tentatively began to be rebuilt in the 1950s. As historian Simon Sebag Montefiore puts it, ‘The imperial city of Vienna became the capital of ideas... from Klimt’s exploration of our sexuality to Freud’s voyage into our minds, to the angry young artists who hated them both — Vienna shaped the modern world, for good and for evil.’
Austria is blessed in having many Instagram-grade towns and villages, and in Vienna and Salzburg it can lay claim to two of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Mozart was born in Salzburg, so the German claim that he’s not Austrian rests on very thin ice in this city that looks out towards the Eastern Alps. Granted, Salzburg was part of ‘the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’, but all the same.
Whatever his nationality, the city has been celebrating its most famous son these last two centuries. Two museums are dedicated to the composer, with his birthplace, the Gerburtshaus, the oldest and perhaps the most evocative. The Mozart Residence on the other side of the River Salzach is the more comprehensive.
Salzburg boasts several outdoor and indoor markets, the most famous being the Christkindlmarkt (Christmas Market) in Domplatz. Yes, it’s Christmas already. It comes round every October, as regular as the clockwork wooden toys that adorn the market — along with traditional decorations, biscuits, cream cakes, apple strudels, sausages, chocolates and Glühwein.
If it snows you’ll find it hard to believe you haven’t stumbled into a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale; but a very well fed one.
Now, the music in the background? No, not Mozart, and not ‘Doh! A deer...’, The Sound of Music being Austria’s other claim to musical posterity.
We’re back in Vienna and it’s the theme from The Third Man. You know the one: ‘Ding de ding, di ding di ding...’
Vienna’s geographical location after the war, further east than most of Eastern Germany and just below Czechoslovakia — yet part of the West — made it the perfect setting for Euro-noir spy thrillers.
The Third Man, featuring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton, is set in the post-war, very edgy Viennese era. The Third Man Museum (Der Dritte Mann Museum) on Pressgasse (special-vienna.com) has posters, photos, film clips and all kinds of memorabilia relating to the movie. It boasts a collection of the theme music being played by everyone from the Beatles to Nana Mouskouri. There might even be a Jedward version in there too. Tours are open for business.
The whole enterprise is run by Gerhard Strassgschwandtner — crazy name, not-so-crazy guy – somehow he now owns the zither on which the theme music was played by Anton Karas.
Gerhard’s tour includes all the key locations, even down into the Vienna sewers — one of the oldest sewage systems in the world. This is where the famous chase scene took place. Just mind your back. And also where you step.