Following the transformations and conflicts of the first half of the twentieth century, Austria’s emergence as an independent democracy heralded a new era of stability and prosperity for the nation. Among the new developments was mass tourism to the nation’s cities, spa towns, and wilderness areas, a phenomenon that would prove immensely influential on the development of a postwar identity. Revisiting Austria incorporates films, marketing materials, literature, and first-person accounts to explore the ways in which tourism has shaped both international and domestic perceptions of Austrian identity even as it has failed to confront the nation’s often violent and troubled history.

Austria’s recession had limited effects on unemployment. Investment declined sharply but consumption helped cushion the recession, supported by tax cuts and various labor market measures together with large increases in real wages. Austria’s fiscal position has weakened significantly in recent years, although to a lesser extent than the euro area average. The authorities’ plan to embark on a decisive fiscal consolidation path is welcomed. They recognized, however, that reducing the share of foreign exchange loans, while providing continued financing to central and southeastern Europe, will be challenging.

The specific role of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the later nation of Austria within the formation of regional art histories in East Central Europe has received little attention in art historical research so far. Taking into account the era of the Dual Monarchy as well as the period after 1989, the contributions analyze and critically scrutinize the imperial legacies, transnational transfer processes and cultural hierarchies in art historiographies, artistic practices and institutional histories. Consisting of 17 texts, with new commissions and one reprint, case studies, monographic essays and interviews grouped thematically into two sections, the anthology proposes a pluriversal narrative on regional, cultural and political contexts.

This book examines three exhibitions of contemporary art held at the Vienna Künstlerhaus during the period of National Socialist rule and shows how each attempted to culturally erase elements anathema to Nazi ideology: the City, the Jewess and fin-de-siècle Vienna. Each of the exhibits was large scale and ambitious, part of a broader attempt to situate Vienna as the cultural capital of the Reich, and each aimed to reshape cultural memory and rewrite history. Applying illuminating theories on memory studies, collective and public memory, and notions of "memoricide," this is the first book in English to focus on visual culture in the period when Austria was erased as a nation and incorporated into the Third Reich as "Ostmark." The organization, content and publications surrounding these three exhibits are explored in depth and set against the larger political changes and dangerous ideologies they reflect. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, museum studies, cultural history, memory studies, art and politics and Holocaust studies.

This study is about the real Austrian Trapp family until 1939. Using scores of contemporaneous sources, this fully referenced book for the first time presents Maria Trapp's own family: the Kutscheras, the Reiners, and her foster family, the Kramers. Moreover, the first chapter critically analyzes Maria's tales about her childhood and youth up to her wedding with Georg (von) Trapp. The second chapter covers Georg, his family, his activities in war and business, as well as the family choir started in 1934. Several misconceptions, from Georg having been a baron to his alleged anti-fascism, get corrected here, too. The third chapter overturns the central myth of the Trapp family story: there is no evidence that the Trapps ever received offers by the Nazis or resisted them; on the contrary, Georg unsuccessfully tried to solicit business in Germany. Nor were the Trapps in danger of persecution, or fled from Austria. Filled with details as well as context, this book is different from everything you have ever seen, heard, or read about the Trapp family. But please note that this book is not about the adaptations of the family's stories, such as "The Sound of Music", nor does it contain illustrations.

Today, humanitarianism, as a moral imperative to help, is prevalent, especially in the so-called Western world. The public reacts to natural disasters, war, or medical emergencies with a desire to alleviate suffering. But in recent decades historians have begun to critically assess this moral perspective and examine humanitarian organizations, politics, and the motives of humanitarian actors. They highlight how helping people relieve their suffering is just one side to every humanitarian story. Humanitarian actors themselves have their own reasons for helping. Humanitarian aid evolves in a tense dialectic between people in need and the individual agendas of the 'benevolent saviors.' This special issue approaches humanitarianism and humanitarian aid from the perspective of such 'benevolent saviors' and their agendas and covers different moments in history and geographical regions in the 20th century. The papers analyze humanitarianism as a reconstruction mission according to civilizing desires, as an enabling factor for individual professionalization, as a power struggle, and as a tool for domestic and international policymaking.

During the 1970s todays Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung, BMBWF) supported the founding of the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and the Austrian Chair at Stanford University in California. These foundings were the initial incentives for the worldwide `spreading' of similar institutions; currently, nine Centers for Austrian and Central European Studies exist in seven countries on three continents. The funding of the Ministry enables to connect senior scholars with young scholars, to help young PhD students, to participate in and to benefit from the scientific connection of experienced researchers, and to get in touch with the national scientific community by `sniffing scientific air', as the Austrians like to say. Furthermore, it aims to avoid prejudices, and to spread a better understanding and knowledge about Austria and Central Europe by promoting scientific exchange.

As a Slavic-speaking religious and ethnic “Other” living just a stone’s throw from the symbolic heart of the continent, the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina have long occupied a liminal space in the European imagination. To a significant degree, the wider representations and perceptions of this population can be traced to the reports of Central European—and especially Habsburg—diplomats, scholars, journalists, tourists, and other observers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This volume assembles contributions from historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and literary scholars to examine the political, social, and discursive dimensions of Bosnian Muslims’ encounters with the West since the nineteenth century.

The Vienna Gestapo headquarters was the largest of its kind in the German Reich and the most important instrument of Nazi terror in Austria, responsible for the persecution of Jews, suppression of resistance and policing of forced labourers. Of the more than fifty thousand people arrested by the Vienna Gestapo, many were subjected to torturous interrogation before being either sent to concentration camps or handed over to the Nazi judiciary for prosecution. This comprehensive survey by three expert historians focuses on these victims of repression and persecution as well as the structure of the Vienna Gestapo and the perpetrators of its crimes.

Across eighteenth-century Europe, political power resided overwhelmingly with absolute monarchs, with notable exceptions including the much-studied British Parliament as well as the frequently overlooked Hungarian Diet, which placed serious constraints on royal power and broadened opportunities for political participation. Estates and Constitution provides a rich account of Hungarian politics during this period, restoring the Diet to its rightful place as one of the era’s major innovations in government. István M. Szijártó traces the religious, economic, and partisan forces that shaped the Diet, putting its historical significance in international perspective.