When I started to cover Vienna, I had a lot to catch up on in terms of Austrian history and culture. I highlighted below some books that I’ve found especially enlightening and enjoyable. Reading any of these before a Vienna trip could make a visit all the more meaningful.
Concise History of Austria, by Steven Beller (2006): The book is exactly what its title claims – a brief history of Austria from the beginnings to the present day. How did Tirol, Styria, Carinthia become part of the crown land? When did the Habsburgs appear on the scene? How did the Spanish side differ from the Austrian side? What preceded the Nazi takeover (Anschluss) of 1938? What constitutes Austrian identity today? You can also read my interview with author and Habsburg expert Steven Beller.
Radetzky March, by Joseph Roth (1932): Joseph Roth’s brilliant historical novel poignantly illustrates the twilight years of Austria-Hungary. Through the rise and fall of the ennobled Trotta family, we learn about themes that contributed to the collapse of the empire: simmering national and social tensions; favoritism within the civil administration; nihilism of the officer corps; an aging and military-obsessed emperor. Of the many memorable scenes, my favorite is when Kaiser Franz Joseph visits his troops to inspect a military parade.
The World of Yesterday, by Stefan Zweig (1942): Calm wisdom emanates from the pages of Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), once a widely celebrated Austrian novelist. Zweig provides thoughtful commentary about life in pre-war Vienna, World War I, the strange post-war Austrian Republic, and the gradual Nazi takeover (which drove him and his wife to suicide in Brazilian exile). The short vignettes about his famous friends – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rainer Maria Rilke, James Joyce, Richard Strauss, Sigmund Freud – are treasures to be savored.
The Habsburgs, by Dorothy Gies McGuigan (1966): If you prefer juicy gossip to dry historical events, then you’ll enjoy this book about the family that ruled Austria for more than 600 years. How did Emperor Maximilian’s shrewd marriage policy bring half of Europe under Habsburg sway in the 15th century? Why couldn’t the lightweight Habsburg Leopold measure up to his French contemporary, Louis XIV? Who was Franz Joseph’s mysterious mistress? Why did Rudolf, the last heir to the throne, kill himself? And so much more!
Hitler’s Vienna, by Brigitte Hamann (1999): There’s the well-known saying that Austria made the world believe that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Viennese; historian Brigitte Hamann’s book is a reminder that Hitler, who grew up in Austria, spent his formative years in the Habsburg capital between 1909 and 1914. The book isn’t a typical biography – Hamann is interested in the political and social climate of Vienna and the toxic intellectual influences that shaped the young Hitler, including absurd race theories. Hamann also provides a window into Hitler’s everydays and his infamous rejection from the Art Academy.
Fin-de-siècle Vienna, by Carl E. Schorske (1979): This cultural history written by the late Princeton professor, Carl E. Schorske, has become an indispensable classic on Vienna’s art and politics around 1900. Schorske details the transition from the liberal democracy of the 1860s to the political nationalism and anti-semitism ushered in by Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Karl Lueger. The illuminating profiles of Theodor Herzl, Otto Wagner, and Gustav Klimt, and the essay on the Ringstrasse construction, are especially excellent.
The Vienna I Knew, by Joseph Wechsberg (1979): Joseph Wechsberg is one of my favorite writers. He grew up in a German-speaking Jewish family in Moravia, fled from the Nazis in 1939 to the United States, where he became a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine. In his adopted language, he wrote beautiful pieces about fine dining and classical music, but his heart always remained in Central Europe (he moved back in retirement). This book is as much a biography as a mournful ode to Vienna as he remembered it.
Old Masters, by Thomas Bernhard (1985): A grouchy Viennese music critic, Reger, rants about all things wrong in Austria in this dark and sharply funny novel by Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989). Reger is cynical, disillusioned, and world-weary, but his outrageous opinions contain an element of truth, like the part about Vienne’s public restrooms being shockingly unclean. No one is spared his venom: Austria’s anti-intellectual elites, the bigoted Habsburgs, the kitschy Gustav Klimt.
Vienna and the Jews, by Steven Beller (1989): As neighboring Budapest, Vienna had a big Jewish community that contributed massively to the city’s intellectual and artistic development – most Viennese doctors, lawyers, engineers, journalists, and writers were Jewish. Steven Beller’s book explains the reasons for this overrepresentation and describes the reactions of the Jewish community to the rising political anti-semitism of Austria in the 1870s, which, ironically, originated from the group that Jews had tried to emulate: the German-Austrian elites.
The Austrian Paradox, by Oliver Rathkolb (2021): Seeing the prosperity of present-day Austria, it’s easy to forget that not even that long ago it was a poor, war-ravaged country partly occupied by Soviet troops. This academic but informative book by University of Vienna historian Oliver Rathkolb explains the reasons behind the “Austrian miracle,” having to do with Nazi-era investments, favorable Cold War dynamics, and a few unusually skilled politicians. For a summary version, read my interview with Professor Rathkolb, who played a central role in the opening of the House of Austrian History (Haus der Geschichte Österreich), an excellent museum inside the Imperial Palace.