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The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna Under Hitler
When Adolf Hitler seized Vienna in the Anschluss of 1938, he called the city "a pearl to which he would give a proper setting." But the setting he left behind seven years later was one of ruin and destruction--a physical, spiritual, and intellectual wasteland.
Here is a grippingly narrated and heartbreaking account of the debasement of one of Europe's great cities. Thomas Weyr shows how Hitler turned Vienna from a vibrant metropolis that was the cradle of modernism into a drab provincial town. In this riveting narrative, we meet Austrian traitors like Arthur Seyss-Inquart and mass murderers like Odilo Globocnik; proconsuls like Joseph Buerckel, who hacked Austria into seven pieces, and Baldur von Schirach, who dreamed of making Vienna into a Nazi capital on the Danube--and failed miserably. More painfully, Weyr chronicles the swift destruction of a rich Jewish culture and the removal of the city's 200,000 Jews through murder, exile, and deportation. Vienna never regained the global role the city had once played. Today, Weyr concludes, only the monuments remain--beautiful but lifeless.
This is not only the story of Nazi leaders but of how the Viennese themselves lived and those who embraced Hitler, those who resisted, and the many who merely, in the local phrase, "ran after the rabbit." The author draws on his own experiences as a child in Vienna under Nazi rule in 1938, and those of his parents and friends, plus extensive documentary research, to craft a vivid historical narrative that chillingly captures how a once-great city lost its soul under Hitler.
Here is a grippingly narrated and heartbreaking account of the debasement of one of Europe's great cities. Thomas Weyr shows how Hitler turned Vienna from a vibrant metropolis that was the cradle of modernism into a drab provincial town. In this riveting narrative, we meet Austrian traitors like Arthur Seyss-Inquart and mass murderers like Odilo Globocnik; proconsuls like Joseph Buerckel, who hacked Austria into seven pieces, and Baldur von Schirach, who dreamed of making Vienna into a Nazi capital on the Danube--and failed miserably. More painfully, Weyr chronicles the swift destruction of a rich Jewish culture and the removal of the city's 200,000 Jews through murder, exile, and deportation. Vienna never regained the global role the city had once played. Today, Weyr concludes, only the monuments remain--beautiful but lifeless.
This is not only the story of Nazi leaders but of how the Viennese themselves lived and those who embraced Hitler, those who resisted, and the many who merely, in the local phrase, "ran after the rabbit." The author draws on his own experiences as a child in Vienna under Nazi rule in 1938, and those of his parents and friends, plus extensive documentary research, to craft a vivid historical narrative that chillingly captures how a once-great city lost its soul under Hitler.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published February 3, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 21, 2021
Pedantic. Overly detailed where it didn't matter. Exceptionally easy to get lost in names and titles and I speak German. Also an exceptional over-attention, some might say fixation, on the arts in Vienna under Hitler. I mean, who gives an effing rat's patootie about who's in charge of which opera/theater/orchestra? Seriously, pages upon pages upon pages of this crap and what was shown/performed and who the conductor and performers were. Well, apparently the Viennese care. I don't. This was tiresome and a lengthy plod. Honestly didn't get better until the last 50 pages and 30 of those were about post-war Vienna. Unless you're a scholar, this isn't worth your time.
October 28, 2018
I found this book a thorough explanation of the political situation in Vienna. I didn't find as much social information as I might have liked, though the author sprinkled each chapter with first-hand accounts of the events he described. Still, as source material on the city of Vienna, I found it authoritative and full of information that was new to me.
December 28, 2016
The author of this book comes from a family whose paternal ancestors quite literally saved Vienna during Ottoman siege. Yet he fled Vienna and still feels excluded today because his mother's ancestors were central European Jews. In addition to telling the story of "Vienna Under Hitler," this book does the important work of having the conversation about antisemitism in Europe, especially the powdered-sugar variety practiced in Vienna. Although it is not as rotten on the outside, perhaps, it is just as vile to its core, and just as persistent in its viral ability to survive and reinfect.
Weyr starts with a day-by-day, almost minute-by-minute account of the Anschluss, largely taken from synthesizing pre-existings works of popular or academic history. From there Weyr takes a step back in history in an effort to determine why Austrians would voluntarily align themselves with Hitler's Germany--even granting that the referendum was polluted with Goebbels' propaganda and German troops massed at the border. Weyr covers the waning days of the Hapsburgs, Austria's defeat in the Great War, and the interwar years when Austria was quite literally "the Country nobody wanted," including the Austrians.
The two chapters actually covering Vienna under National Socialism are fairly long and lagged where they lapsed into too much recitation of governmental archive or newspaper material. They were strongest (and were in fact quite strong) where they stuck to diaries, interview, stories of actual people, and reportage of how Viennese culture was used and abused by the Prussians.
Finally, the chapter on post-war Vienna has an axe to grind, but it is probably one that needs grinding. Weyr idealizes the socialist interwar governments and would find any government who believes in markets and business to be "right wing," even if markets were (and are) demonstrably better at lifting whole nations out of poverty and empowering people with true liberty.
One should not forget that Weyr is a refugee who lost a Vienna that probably only existed in his parents' imagination. That Vienna will never rise again, because it was only partially realized in the golden past. While Weyr is correct that persistent and mostly latent antisemitism (and Islamophobia) still exists in Viennese politics, socialist Vienna was not heaven on earth, and conservatism without racism is not the tenth circle of hell. Read with a grain a salt and understand the author's experience and point of view.
There as here, we must be clear-eyed about our populist strong men.
Weyr starts with a day-by-day, almost minute-by-minute account of the Anschluss, largely taken from synthesizing pre-existings works of popular or academic history. From there Weyr takes a step back in history in an effort to determine why Austrians would voluntarily align themselves with Hitler's Germany--even granting that the referendum was polluted with Goebbels' propaganda and German troops massed at the border. Weyr covers the waning days of the Hapsburgs, Austria's defeat in the Great War, and the interwar years when Austria was quite literally "the Country nobody wanted," including the Austrians.
The two chapters actually covering Vienna under National Socialism are fairly long and lagged where they lapsed into too much recitation of governmental archive or newspaper material. They were strongest (and were in fact quite strong) where they stuck to diaries, interview, stories of actual people, and reportage of how Viennese culture was used and abused by the Prussians.
Finally, the chapter on post-war Vienna has an axe to grind, but it is probably one that needs grinding. Weyr idealizes the socialist interwar governments and would find any government who believes in markets and business to be "right wing," even if markets were (and are) demonstrably better at lifting whole nations out of poverty and empowering people with true liberty.
One should not forget that Weyr is a refugee who lost a Vienna that probably only existed in his parents' imagination. That Vienna will never rise again, because it was only partially realized in the golden past. While Weyr is correct that persistent and mostly latent antisemitism (and Islamophobia) still exists in Viennese politics, socialist Vienna was not heaven on earth, and conservatism without racism is not the tenth circle of hell. Read with a grain a salt and understand the author's experience and point of view.
There as here, we must be clear-eyed about our populist strong men.
April 1, 2010
In-depth history of Vienna, Austria from the establishment of the Dual Monarchy in 1866 to the present. The book focuses on the Second World War, and the author argues that the Nazis are largely responsible for Vienna's fall from a first-rate city of culture to a large city that is mainly focused on its past.
The author makes a compelling argument, and fills the book with details about Vienna past and present that provide a cultural context for the political events that he describes. He does a good job of showing how extreme left and right political parties led to an unstable situation in which the Nazis were welcomed. The author gives the Austrian resistance their due, while explaining why Austria in general, and Vienna in particular, have had a hard time coming to terms with their role in World War II.
The organization of the book could be better. I think the author should have told the story in chronological order, rather than talking about the pre-World War II period in "flashbacks" in between chapters about Vienna under the Nazis. The first chapter is the weakest part of the book, largely because it includes a lot of detailed information about Austrian politicians who are likely to be unfamiliar to the average reader. He also concentrates exclusively on Vienna as an avant-garde city that was a producer of modern art prior to World War II, and he ignores the deeply conservative currents in Viennese art that were also on display during this period.
The author makes a compelling argument, and fills the book with details about Vienna past and present that provide a cultural context for the political events that he describes. He does a good job of showing how extreme left and right political parties led to an unstable situation in which the Nazis were welcomed. The author gives the Austrian resistance their due, while explaining why Austria in general, and Vienna in particular, have had a hard time coming to terms with their role in World War II.
The organization of the book could be better. I think the author should have told the story in chronological order, rather than talking about the pre-World War II period in "flashbacks" in between chapters about Vienna under the Nazis. The first chapter is the weakest part of the book, largely because it includes a lot of detailed information about Austrian politicians who are likely to be unfamiliar to the average reader. He also concentrates exclusively on Vienna as an avant-garde city that was a producer of modern art prior to World War II, and he ignores the deeply conservative currents in Viennese art that were also on display during this period.
May 6, 2012
This would have been much better had Weyr stuck to history and avoided his contentious music and art criticism. But it's good on the basics of the history and especially the war period and Viennese antisemitism.
His denigration of Vienna's artistic culture post-war (to which the last part of the book is devoted) is more than a little odd. Is it an artistic world city in the way that Paris, London, New York or Berlin are? Of course not. Nor was there any real chance that it could have remained one for any considerable length of time after falling from the capitol of an empire of 55 million to that of a small country of 6 million. The inter-war period was certainly a time of great creativity in Vienna, and the destruction of its Jewish community ended that era, but over time other factors would have ended it in any event, although far less horribly and brutally. Weyr complains of the nostalgic bent of the Viennese, but he (who lived there until he was 10) falls victim to the same tendency.
His denigration of Vienna's artistic culture post-war (to which the last part of the book is devoted) is more than a little odd. Is it an artistic world city in the way that Paris, London, New York or Berlin are? Of course not. Nor was there any real chance that it could have remained one for any considerable length of time after falling from the capitol of an empire of 55 million to that of a small country of 6 million. The inter-war period was certainly a time of great creativity in Vienna, and the destruction of its Jewish community ended that era, but over time other factors would have ended it in any event, although far less horribly and brutally. Weyr complains of the nostalgic bent of the Viennese, but he (who lived there until he was 10) falls victim to the same tendency.
January 21, 2008
This book does a good job of demonstrating the recent trend of historians to focus extremely locally. Weyr, a Vienna native who became a part of the Viennese diaspora, writes clearly about the fall of Vienna from a world class city of culture to a provincial trade town. He is exacting about the permutations of politics, and without at least some background and history of the region and the second world war, it is easy to start floundering in the Viennese names. Overall, I would say that it is a good look at a facet of the second world war that is usually neglected.
July 31, 2015
The author is in a unique position to document the rise and fall of Hitler and the Third Reich in Austria, since he was born and raised there, fleeing with his mother as a child. This is a bittersweet commentary of how what once was a cultural and artistic Mecca was stripped of former glory, unlikely to ever be the same. Well-researched and meticulously edited. My rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews