Fine Dining & Driving – The Austrian Way (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77c)

Fine dining, like most of the other finer things in life, is not very useful to me. Give me a dive restaurant with strange characters hanging around the fringes and I come alive. Give me table settings, seating arrangements, waiters pouring glasses of water for me, and I become a bundle of nerves. This probably has something to do with the fact that I never learned to tuck my shirt in, tie a tie, or figure out why anyone would need a special fork to eat a salad. My idea of a good meal is to be brought a sizable portion of tasty food, then left alone to dine while I read a book or newspaper. I find anything that gets in the way of me devouring food and information at the same time extremely irritating. My own mother once told me to stop being anti-social. I took this motherly advice as a compliment.

So, you can imagine my anxiety when I endured fine dining at the guesthouse in Gallbrunn where I was staying the night. The waiter turned out to be the same young man who had shown me to my room. He was attired in a perfectly pressed pair of pants and a shirt so white that it could have acted as a source of illumination. There was not a hair on his head out of place. His manners were exquisite. This was all a bit too much for me. I needed a bottle of Xanax to get me through his meal. Instead, I got a glass of water so sparkling that it glittered like diamonds. The menu was one of those sizably elegant tableaus that screamed sophistication. I found the entire guesthouse dining experience to be nerve wracking in the extreme. I was not looking for a meal fit for a king, I was just looking for something to eat.

Dining in – At the Guesthouse in Gallbrunn

Elegance & Expense – Less Than Great
I am always amazed at how the Austrians can take a normal experience and transform into something of the utmost elegance. In this case, that was not for the better. The food was good, the atmosphere was not. The bill was alarmingly high for what amounted to an above average dining experience. I wondered how anyone could afford to dine out or endure the high cost of living in Austria. I once met a Brit on a flight who was teaching in Sweden. I asked him how anyone could ever afford to live in a place where the taxes were high and consumer prices even higher. He said the taxes were tolerable because they paid for social benefits. Swedes also knew how to cut costs, such as avoiding restaurants because they were too expensive. I imagine Austrians do the same thing. The locals can choose to dine in, rather than out. Fleecing foreigners and those on business trips is a sure money maker.

I could stomach my meal’s cost because this was a vacation, but I still could not help but wonder why I needed to pay a premium for food presentation, not so sizable portions, and impeccably mannered staff. It was all a bit too much. That pretty much sums up my opinion of Austria. A place where only the best will do. The guest pays the price for a nation full of perfectionists. Even if the food was not five-star quality, the restaurant did everything to make it seem that way. The meal would have tasted a whole lot better if not for what I had already been facing back in my room. The internet was still not working. That drove me to distraction. It made the guesthouse seem less than great in my eyes.

Fine dining – At the guesthouse in Gallbrunn

The Austrian Way – Top Of The Line
No matter how hard the guesthouse staff tried at check-in and dinner, I kept coming back to the Wi-Fi malfunctioning. I could easily survive a night without going online, but that was not really the issue. I was obsessing over the fact that Austrians ran this guesthouse, and they should be held to a higher standard. In my mind, they were all perfectionists. I could not imagine why they allowed such a glaring deficiency in customer service. There was no excuse for the internet outage other than it was Sunday. That meant Herr fix-it was probably not available. That would be fine except for what the waiter told me when I mentioned the Wi-fi not working. “Yes. That has been happening.” All I could then think of was how they had let this issue linger. Why didn’t they get it fixed? I was acting neurotic about a minor problem. Perhaps I had spent too much time in Austria. Imperfections, let alone malfunctions, are not the Austrian way.

The internet problems would persist and there would be no quick fix for them during my one-night stay. I went back to my room for an unmemorable evening that mercifully ended in a good night’s sleep. The next morning after check-out, an airport transfer arranged by the guesthouse whisked me away to Vienna International Airport. The fifteen-minute drive cost over half what the guesthouse room did. The driver was a middle aged, barrel chested, talkative Austrian, driving a very nice Mercedes. The car looked like it was almost new, just like everything else in Austria. The driver not only offered airport transfers, but also tours of the countryside. Wherever anyone wanted to go he was willing to take them for a price. Judging by the cost of my short ride to the airport, I could only imagine the exorbitant – or extortionate – rate he charged. No wonder he was driving such a top-of-the-line car. The work must be nice. if you can get it.

The way home – Vienna International Airport (Credit: C Stadler/BWAG)

Revealing Results – Too Good To Be True
As for me, I was ready to leave Austria. I would like to say the country is overpriced, but it enjoys such an outstanding reputation that many visitors will gladly pay those high prices while on holiday. Austria has done a great job of managing its reputation. Despite my misgivings, I must admit that it really does have a lot to offer visitors. This includes world class art museums, soaring Alps, splendid classical music, Habsburg history and evocative castles. Austria often lives up to its reputation. When it does not, the results can be revealing. Austria sounds too good to be true. In my opinion it is.

Click here for: Situational Awareness – Bullet Holes In Budapest (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #78)

One Night Stay – Visiting Gallbrunn (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77b)

The more I visited Austria, the more it reminded me of the Twilight Zone. Vienna, at first sensational and then deeply disconcerting. The alps, an ideal landscape so remote as to be unattainable. Fairy tale castles, so neat and clean that they render history impotent. As soon as I set foot in Austria, I passed into a world between the real and the unreal without realizing it. Everything that at first glance seemed so amazing, eventually became disconcerting. A tension permeates the place. It is felt rather than seen. Never more so than in Gallbrunn, the town into which I traveled and stayed for a single night before fleeing from fantasy land the next morning.

Made to order -Aerial view of Gallbrunn (Credit: Mark Slusarczyk)

Another Planet – A Rage For Perfection
If my Uber journey into Gallbrunn had been an episode of the Twilight Zone, the shooting script would have said, “sleek, black sedan enters a tidy Austrian village that looks deserted. There are no humans in sight. Everyone in Gallbrunn is either inside their homes or dead. Perhaps both. Behind the drawn curtains of brightly painted pastel homes, someone or something stirs.” That description pretty much sums up Gallbrunn on the afternoon I entered it. While the village is only a fifteen-minute drive from Vienna’s airport and a thirty-minute drive from the city center, I might as well have landed on another planet. Gallbrunn looked like it was waiting for people to arrive. Locals, rather than tourists. The town should have had a sign that said, “Vacancy.”

I noticed that every house in the village looked like it had just received a fresh coat of paint prior to my arrival. The Austrian rage for perfection glowed radiant in the afternoon light. I imagined that Gallbrunn was the ideal of what a village in Lower Austria should look like. Nothing would ever go out of style if it was constantly refurbished. I had never seen a small town so well-kept. The amount of effort to keep up the pristine appearance of Gallbrunn had to be considerable. I am sure the locals would say this is normal. I could not find anyone outside their homes to ask. Perhaps the town was deserted because it was a Sunday afternoon. Either that or all the locals were recovering from sweeping the sidewalks and streets for the past six days.

Striving for perfection – Church in Galbrunn (Credit: Waerfalu)

Interior Design – Order, Organization & Obsession
Judging by the cleanliness in Gallbrunn, the town must spend an inordinate amount of money on sanitation. What would have been community pride in most places, looked like neurosis to me. There was something both charming and creepy about the village. The charm came from its quaintness and look of simple prosperity. The creepiness from sterility. The guest house where I stayed suffered from this same kind of aesthetic. Its lemon-yellow exterior was an uplifting confection. While on the inside, everything had been polished to perfection. There was not a single item out of place. Order and organization to the point of obsession ruled. The staff and furnishings were exactly where they were supposed to be.  I found it impressive to the point of bizarre. There was nothing ad hoc about it. I began to feel uptight. Even the small talk was measured.  The idea of spontaneity did not exist here.
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Though Austria is far from my favorite place, I must say that Austrians in general have always been helpful, if reserved towards me. They are intelligent, well-mannered, and insanely organized. The moment I stepped into the guesthouse lobby everything was ready for my arrival. Like clockwork, the front desk clerk had everything laid out. All they needed was a passport and signature. Then a smartly dressed young man showed me to my room. The guest house had all the right boxes checked for optimal customer service. Nothing was left to chance. Everything was done with such efficiency that it made me feel uneasy. Formality was the guesthouse’s strong suit. If there is one trait that distinguishes Americans from Austrians, I would say it is informality. I found it kind of creepy to get the white glove treatment in a place where I was paying a hundred euros to spend one night. The guesthouse was the equivalent of a Hampton Inn rather than the Hilton.

Picture of perfection – Building in Gallbrunn (Credit: Waerfelu)

Into Oblivion – An Afternoon Stroll
After checking in I took a stroll around Galbrunn to get a feel for the town. What I saw confirmed my suspicions that Gallbrunn was lacking in life. That place was as sterile as a surgical unit. The only thing happening on this day in Gallbrunn was nothing. No one felt the need to step outside their home though the weather was fine. Perhaps they were enjoying quieter pursuits such as polishing floors, furniture, and anything else that threatened to collect dust. Galbrunn was a great place to enjoy silence. While walking around, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Finding a single person beyond the guesthouse staff was impossible. There are missing persons searches and any person searches. Gellbrunn fell into the latter. I could not imagine what people in Gellbrun do for fun. Maybe that is what Vienna is for. A reminder that there is life after all.

The strangeness continued back at the guesthouse with the Wi-Fi not working. This meant I would not be able to distract myself with a cyber journey into oblivion. This forced me to focus on my surroundings. So instead of surfing the internet for historical information on Gallbrunn, I was forced to search for something of interest among its modern iteration. I have never been one for staring at whitewashed hotel room walls or obsessively fluffing pillows. I am more apt to walk the guesthouse’s halls and loiter in the lobby while searching for anything or anyone of interest. That plan failed after a few minutes. The thought of another walk around the deserted town felt hopeless. I kept asking myself why I had left Vienna. It was also unreal, but with more fascinating amusements for tourists to distract themselves. The only thing I could look forward to was dinner in the guesthouse dining room. That too would be utterly forgettable in a most memorable way.

Click here for: Fine Dining & Driving – The Austrian Way (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77c)

The Netherworld – An Austrian Disturbance (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77a)

I find Austria to be a worrisome place. There is something about it that does not seem quite real to me. Anytime I am in Austria, I have the stinging suspicion it is a Germanic Disneyland. Rather than Mickey and Minnie, there is the Von Trapp family. Vienna is a super-sized version of the Magic Kingdom. The Habsburgs are the Wonderful World of Disney and Mozart has a female doppelganger by the name of Julie Andrews twirling in an alpine meadow. Austria has everything a tourist could want other than the seaside and as recently as the early 20th century, they even had that. Schnitzels and Sachertortes, the Hofberg and Hofbraus, Teutonic charm never felt so good. Come to think of it, Disneyland has nothing on Austria. The neatness, cleanliness, and efficiency of Austria, makes Disneyland look like a B movie. Vienna is the world’s largest amusement park, and the rest of Austria is not far behind. Perfection is a terrible thing because there is nowhere else to go but down. You know what they say if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Startling splendor – Sculpture in front of the Austrian Parliament

Acting With Restraint – A Level of Anxiety
Have you ever met one of those people who cannot relax unless everything is perfect? If so, then you know what Austria is like. It is the kind of place where if someone told the people to have fun, they would try to manufacture it. Elegance is happiness and wealth acts as a form of contentment. Austria is so refined that it has honed down all the rough edges to the point of extinction. Intensity and boredom usually do not go together, but I detected both during my travels in Austria. If good is the enemy of great, then modern Austria has the market cornered on it. The good life looks rather staid. Sipping wine to lower the level of anxiety is a way of life. I imagine that falling down drunk would be scandalous. Acting with anything other than restraint would risk upsetting the fragile equilibrium of Austrian life.

I often wonder how Vienna could produce Klimt and Freud. That is until I realize that any counterculture which emanated from such an imperial place must have been a reaction to the buttoned up, stuffy world of high society Vienna. The rigid court protocol which plagued the empire’s upper echelons filtered down to its subjects. No wonder debauchery and decadence were rampant in early 20^th century Vienna. These things can happen when a society does not know how to have fun. Anyone trying to obey the tenets of such a society would have been suicidal without some sort of release. I figure that any historical indiscretions committed by Austrians have their basis in neurosis. I did not learn this from the time I spent in Vienna, instead I observed it in a small, prosperous town in the rural netherworld that exists just beyond the city’s outskirts.

This was not what I expected. I would not have been surprised to find problems on the edge of Vienna. Every prosperous European city seems to relegate its lower classes to the fringes. The town I went to did not have any of the usual suspects affiliated with delinquency. There were no unemployed young men standing on the sidewalks, there was no drinking or drug usage in public, the streets had been swept clean so many times that I wondered if a speck of grime had ever graced the surfaces. Less than an hour from the center of Vienna was an astonishingly unreal world. One that I found baffling and disturbing.    

Without restraint – Gustav Klimt at his finest

Ground Disturbances – Between The Real & The Unreal
This was not what I expected. I would not have been surprised to find problems on the edge of Vienna. Every prosperous European city seems to relegate its lower classes to the fringes. The town I went to did not have any of the usual suspects affiliated with delinquency. There were no unemployed young men standing on the sidewalks, there was no drinking or drug usage in public, the streets had been swept clean so many times that I wondered if a speck of grime had ever graced the surfaces. Less than an hour from the center of Vienna was an astonishing world, one that I found baffling and disturbing.    

Remember the Twilight Zone? How could anyone forget the television show that twisted the familiar world into unforgettably weird ones. The Twilight Zone owes much of its uniqueness to how everything seems normal until the viewer suddenly realizes that something is not quite right. Whatever that is tends to be terrifyingly real. The Twilight Zone worked better than most horror or science fiction films because it was so believable. The situations that the show’s characters would find themselves in were not beyond a normal person’s everyday experience. I have not watched the Twilight Zone in years, but I felt that same unsettling sense of abnormality when I spent the night in a town not far from Vienna Airport (Flughafen Wien). I thought a night in the village would be more affordable and relaxing than one in Vienna.

I had spent enough time in Vienna on multiple trips to realize that it was not for me. I thought Vienna was the problem due to its refinement, snootiness, and air of condescension. Vienna turned out to be a symptom of the overall problem which was Austria. Not that long ago, a colleague told me they were going to Vienna. They had glitter in their eyes, and warmth in their voice. They talked of Vienna, and by extension Austria, as though Mozart played on every street corner. I did not have the inclination to tell them that I thought the city, as well as the rest of Austria, tried way too hard. If you have ever been around someone trying hard to impress you, then you will know what Vienna is like. What you see is more than what you will get? That is as true in Austria’s villages as it is in the cities. At least it was in Gallbrunn where I spent a single night in the Twilight Zone.

Unsettling symmetry – Corridor in Vienna

On The Verge – Going To Gallbrunn
Gallbrunn can be reached via Vienna’s public transport system, just not very often on the weekend. The old saying that a broken clock is right twice a day came to mind when I contemplated trying to get from the Austrian Military Museum to Gallbrunn. The best option turned out to be Uber. The taxi driver was an ethnic Turk who informed me that Austrians were racist and the Turkish strongman, currently leading his homeland, was misunderstood by the west and good for Turkey. He also had no intention of leaving Austria or returning to Turkey. Judging by the vehicle he was driving, the money he made must have been pretty good. No one in Austria drives a shabby vehicle. To do such a thing would be tantamount to heresy. The national tourism association should try a new tag line, “Austria, where even the taxis are pristine.”  The fare to Gallbrunn reinforced that opinion. Little did I know that I was getting ready to enter an Austrian version of the Twilight Zone.

Click here for: One Night Stay – Visiting Gallbrunn (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77b)

Guilt By Association – Hitler & Braunau Am Inn (Part Three)

Anyone visiting Braunau am Inn will almost certainly find their way to the building where Adolf Hitler was born. The town’s notoriety comes almost entirely from being the birthplace of Hitler. Every piece of literature I have read on Braunau am Inn mentions it. The town is too small for Hitler’s birthplace to be hidden away. The former guesthouse which will soon become part of a police station raises a much more interesting question about the town as it relates to Hitler. Exactly what kind of town was the birthplace for the 20^th century’s preeminent demagogue? On one level, that question is absurd. Branau Am Inn had nothing to do with the person Hitler would eventually become. He was a mere toddler during his time there. It is doubtful he had any memory of the town at all. That still does not change the fact that the town, through no fault of its own, suffers from guilt by association.

Guilt by association – Birthplace of Adolf Hitler in Braunau am Inn (Credit: Thomas Ledl)

Sense of Normality – An Ordinary Town
There is no ambiguity or mystery concerning where Hitler was born. Braunau Am Inn is stuck with that fact forever. The town will never be able to erase one of the most unfortunate details of history. Because of the crimes associated with Hitler and the fact that he was born there, it is not hard to imagine Braunau am Inn as a creepy place where people peek out the window from behind curtains and eye outsiders with suspicion. This is the kind of behavior often seen in Hollywood horror movies. I can hear a voiceover saying, “a small Austrian town hides a very dark secret. The most sinister form of humanity once stalked its quiet streets.” That is not Braunau am Inn. It is a regular town in Upper Austria with plenty of intriguing history that has nothing to do with Hitler. From everything I have read and seen while researching the town, it looks to be charming and prosperous.  

Like small towns across Austria, Braunau am Inn is neat, clean, and pleasant. The kind of place where Austrians in their spare time sit outside at cafes enjoying desert and coffee or schnitzel and beers. In other words, Braunau am Inn is totally normal and that makes its unwanted association with Hitler more unsettling. I suspect that between 1889 – 1892 (when the Hitler’s were tenants at the guest house) the town was much the same, except for being less wealthy and lacking the creature comforts of 21^st century life. Instead of Wi-Fi there were newspapers, instead of cars there were railways, and instead of staring at smartphones, people spent most of their time with one another. The pace of life has sped up dramatically since the late 19^th century, but Braunau am Inn is still a relaxed environment. There was nothing radical happening in the town during the late 19^th century, just as there is nothing radical happening in the town today.

A detail of history – Birth certificate of Adolf Hitler

Sleepy & Unremarkable – Random Acts
The ideologies, political ructions, and social trends which would inform Hitler’s beliefs took place in Vienna and to a lesser extent other cities in the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Imperial authority was still obeyed, but social democracy had begun its rise. World War I was still twenty-five years into the future. Austria was undergoing a period of greater industrialization. Railways were remaking transportation routes and the places around them. Even the venerable Habsburg Empire had been forced to change in order to survive. It had become the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867. As for Braunau Am Inn, change came, but much slower than elsewhere. Life was slowly improving with advancements in technology. Still, the town was sleepy and unremarkable. Certainly not the kind of place from which demagogues arise.

An ordinary town and a forgettable flat that was the very beginning of Hitler. His rise to pure evil from such mediocre origins is difficult to grasp. We rarely associate evil with pastel painted houses, clean swept streets, and medieval churches. That was and still is Braunau Am Inn. Hitler’s birth was a random and anonymous event. A place where his parents just happened to be at the time. His father’s career took them there and three years later took them away to his dreamland across the Danube in Passau, Germany. Anyone looking to understand the young Hitler might want to go there, but they will more likely end up in Braunau am Inn. It is not where his extremism started, but it is where his life started. Starting points have their own strange allure. No matter how someone’s life turns out, the beginning will always matter. 

Bold statement – Braunau am Inn (Credit: Stadtamt Braunau am Inn)

In The Shadows – Covering Up The Crime
It is often said that Hitler was a product of his environment. That is true when it comes to his formative experiences in Vienna and the trenches of the Western Front. The same cannot be said for the first few years of his life spent in Braunau am Inn. It is largely a blank space in his biography and will likely remain so. The town will always be the place where Hitler was born. Escaping his monstrous shadow is impossible, no matter how much the Austrian authorities restructure the birthplace building as part of a police station. The more something of the magnitude of Hitler’s birthplace is willfully ignored, the likelier that people will seek it out. This will be done for no other reasons that altering the building makes people believe that the Austrian authorities have something to hide. In this context, the cover-up is worse than the crime. The truth will not go away. Instead, it is likely to grow more apparent.

To be clear, if Adolf Hitler had not been born in Braunau am Inn, I and thousands of others would almost certainly have no idea that it exists. It is curiosity rather than some sort of morbid affinity that draws people to the town. There is very little of Hitler to see in the town, but that has not stopped people from visiting. Austrians would sooner forget about Hitler and his Nazi regime which many of their forebears supported and brought the nation so much misery. It is understandable that Austrians want Hitler to go away. The problem is that he never will.

Click here for: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up – Preserving Hitler’s Birthplace in Braunau am Inn (Part Four)

Nothing Lasts Forever – A Bridge, A Border & Malbork (Northern Poland & Berlin #31b)

I am both enthralled and disturbed by any place that does not advertise its own history. For as long as I can remember, this thought comes to me when I find a place where its history is not made explicit. I am enthralled because this offers an opportunity for discovery. Disturbed because the past is being dismissed by indifference or irrelevance. The overwhelming majority of history vanishes long before we lay our eyes upon it. The past is obliterated by development, neglect, and loss of memory. Everyone that existed and everything that happened will eventually be forgotten. History is the willful act of trying to slow that process. An attempt to ensure all traces of our existence are not obliterated. A little bit of historical knowledge can go a long way to resurrecting the past. The key is finding it. This often requires a deeper dig into archives. It can also happen when we stumble upon a part of the past by chance. This is what happened a month and a half after I visited Malbork Castle in northern Poland.

Invisible history – Footbridge over the Nogat River

Source of Illumination – Bridge Over The Nogat River
History is all around us even if we cannot see or touch it. In such cases, discovering the past is akin to a magic act. It requires making the invisible visible. Luck can play a large role in this process. I discovered this while doing research on Malbork Castle. I happened to stumble upon a tantalizing bit of history that proved particularly illuminating. When my travel companion and I visited the castle, we parked our rental car in a lot just west of the Nogat River. Getting to the castle meant walking across a bridge that crossed the river. The walk across the bridge was pleasant with plenty of picture taking opportunities. The castle, with all its majestic force, loomed before us. The river partially reflected its walls and towers. This made the castle look as though it was floating upon a sky below.

Nature and man had conspired to create the perfect picture taking opportunity from our vantage point. We stopped and availed ourselves of photos, capturing images of the castle. There was nothing else on the bridge to distract from the magnificence of this setting. The bridge was a conduit and an afterthought, its only use as a platform for our viewing pleasure. I was too distracted by the castle to give the bridge much thought. That was until I returned home and began reading more about the history of Malbork Castle. I soon came across information that made me see the bridge in an entirely new light. During the interwar years (1920 – 1939), the Nogat River acted as both a natural and administrative border, but not between Poland and Germany. Instead, the Nogat acted as the border between the Free City of Danzig and Germany, specifically its province of East Prussia. Both entities were dominated by ethnic Germans and yet they were divided by a river and a treaty.

Today, Germany’s border has shifted far to the west, the Free City of Danzig has vanished with few traces left of it except at a museum in the city of Gdansk. Both sides of the Nogat are now part of Poland. This is the kind of head spinning history that seems unimaginable until you realize this had always been the norm in Europe, as it has for the entire world. Borders only last as long as the next war or treaty. They are artificial creations even when laid over natural features such as the Nogat River.

Shifting border – Nogat River at Malbork Castle

Border Control – Seeing Is Imagining
Visitors making their way across the bridge to Malbork Castle are unlikely to give the former border between the Free City of Danzig and Germany a second thought. Very few will be aware that it vanished or ever existed. There is nothing on the bridge or either of the riverbanks to note the former border. I even doubt the footbridge which we walked across was the same one that stood prior to the war. A nasty battle was fought at Malbork between the Wehrmacht and Red Army in the final months of the war. Half of the castle was either destroyed or badly damaged. The bridge would not stand a chance of survival under such conditions. Nevertheless, there was once a bridge over this part of the Nogat with passport controls. World War II does not make that any less true. History like this is a case of seeing is imagining.

The invasion of Poland by German forces on September 1, 1939, put an end to the border. Less than six years later, the Red Army and post-World War II peace put an end to the presence of Germans in the area. This became Polish territory, as it still is today. From one perspective, the vanished border can be viewed as meaningless. A failed administrative apparatus concocted at the Paris Peace Conference. One that would inevitably end in failure. Then again, all borders eventually end in failure. This is the rule, rather than the exception.

Just as every empire in world history has collapsed, so too has every border vanished. The borders which circumscribe our world are constantly shifting. We do not notice this until they are gone. Even then, they are soon lost to memory. The only difference between the border shared by the Free City of Danzig and Germany, is that it did not last as long as many others. Nevertheless, border which have lasted longer all end up in the same place. The dustbin of history is filled with lines on maps that a stroke of the pen rendered obsolete.  

Looking up – Malbork Castle looking over the Nogat River (Credit: Topory)

Teutonic Shifts – A Distant Memory
I came to Malbork Castle looking to learn more about the Teutonic Knights, the castle’s rich architectural history, and avail myself of innumerable photo opportunities. Two months removed from that memorable day; my greatest takeaway has nothing to do with the castle. My enduring memory is of that footbridge over the Nogat River. It provided me with a belated lesson on the transience of borders. They shift and eventually history vanishes. The borders we perceive today as inviolate are only temporary. Sooner or later, they will shift again. Treaties and border controls are an attempt to stem the tide of transience with the illusion of permanence. Sooner or later, a tide surges beyond the border and washes it all away. Nothing remains, except a distant memory or a few words in a history book to remind us that nothing lasts forever.

Click here for: A New Normal – Praise for Poland (Northern Poland & Berlin #32)

Tales Of A Ticket Inspector- Constant Departures: An Austrian Railways State Of Mind (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #52)

Riding on trains is one thing, working on them quite another. I learned this while traveling by train through Austria on my way from Ljubljana to Gyor. This trip required making multiple connections, one of which was on an Austrian Federal Railways train that I boarded in Villach on my way to Vienna. After a couple of hours, the train arrived in Graz, where a new ticket inspector entered the car. He was a middle-aged man with a pleasant demeanor who went about his work in the efficiently productive manner that Austrians are often noted for. While checking my ticket, he asked if I was an American. I replied in the affirmative. He then followed that question up by asking where I was from. At the time I was living in South Dakota. Just in case he had never heard of it – my experience was that most Europeans had not – I added that South Dakota was located on the Great Plains of the United States. This piqued his interest. To my surprise he mentioned that he had visited middle America, specifically Oklahoma. That was the only place he had been in the United States. He said that we should talk and that he would be back shortly. In less half an hour he returned. A conversation began between the two of us that would last all the way to the outskirts of Vienna.

A Dreamy Wonder World –  Clouded Vision
His name was Hermann Wagner and he was an employee of the Austrian State Railways. I immediately began peppering him with questions about what life working the railways was really like. To an American such as myself, European railways are an endless source of fascination. It is hard not to romanticize them. Austria is certainly part of that dreamy wonder world. Traveling by train through its alpine landscapes, elegant cities and super cute villages is like gaining entry to an alternate version of heaven. But what is working on the train  in Austria really like? Herr Wagner told me it was not as nearly as wonderful as I imagined. There were dangers. Passengers without tickets were supposed to be put off the train, but when it was one ticket inspector against several less than savory individuals some things were best overlooked. He had colleagues who had been stabbed or hit before.

In my opinion, one of the great joys of rail travel is that no one ever quite knows who will be getting on at the next stop. Listening to Herr Wagner talk about some of the problems of working as a ticket inspector shifted my perspective.  I suddenly put myself in his uniform and tried to imagine what it would be like trying to deal with miscreants or rule breakers who get on the train and refuse to get off it. A conductor could always call in the police, but that still meant riding the train with less than desirable passengers for a prolonged period of time. The situation seemed to place a fair bit of pressure and a massive load of responsibility on the ticket inspector. The same might also be said for bus drivers, but only a group of determined lunatics would be crazy enough to attack a bus driver. This because the driver could do as much or more damage to the offending party if an inadvertent crash occurred. Conversely, a ticket inspector was at best one on one with an adversary, but in some cases a deficit of as much as one against four was possible. Such potentialities began to cloud my dream vision of a ticket inspector’s job.

Austrian Federal Railways – Constantly on the move (Credit: Herbert Ortner)

A Life On The Move – In Pursuit Of Abandonment
Despite what I had learned, I still felt an admiration for this man. It came from watching someone do what I have so often dreamed of. Working on a train would mean a life spent mostly on the move, a career of constant departures. Meeting new people and then saying goodbye to them all in a matter of hours. The regular passengers who would become fleeting friends, the satisfied passengers who would be safely delivered to their destination, the disgruntled passengers who I would soon be relieved of. The women I could have fallen in and out of love within a matter of hours. Life as a conductor would be like earning a living with one daydream after another. This appealed to me for reasons that would only become apparent the more I traveled in foreign surroundings.

At some point I would come to realize that my father leaving our family when I was six had made me spend much of my life in the pursuit of abandonment. Travel, and not just train travel, was all about abandonment. Leaving one life for a temporary one. Strangely enough my newfound friend was just as interested in America as I was about life as an Austrian Federal Railways ticket inspector. Oklahoma seemed an odd choice for a first visit to the United States for an Austrian who was from a village near Graz. There was a reason for this. It turned out that he and his wife had gone there to see their daughter who was playing college golf on a scholarship. He was fascinated with the landscapes and the people whose friendliness had impressed him. He wanted to go back, just as much as I wanted to stay in this train car forever meeting people like him.

A Fleeting Familiarity – Along For The Ride
The ticket inspector’s eyes literally glowed when he began to talk about his daughter’s golfing skill. He told me how she spent hours practicing with a determination and focus that he spoke of with immense pride. The daughter worked ultra-hard to maximize her talent. I was not nearly as surprised as he may have thought when he told me this. I saw intensity and focus everywhere I looked in Austria. It was a country based on well-ordered organization, a nation of people obsessed with efficiency, productivity and precision. I imagined this man’s daughter hitting balls until her hands bled. Spending thousands of hours in a quest for perfection. There was a reason Austria was such a successful nation, in this man’s words and his daughter’s actions I could sense it. Several years later, I was not surprised to learn that Herr Wagner’s daughter was playing on the European Ladies Professional Golf Tour. Success was the Austrian way. Its wealth was an offshoot of this attribute.

When I exited the train in Vienna, Herr Wagner exchanged social media addresses with me. I had made a friend for a few hours and an acquaintance for life. The dream of what my life might have been like if I had become a ticket inspector had materialized before me in just a few hours. It was everything I imagined and more. Sadly, I had to abandon it. Abandonment was a recurring theme in my travels, just as it was in my life, to grasp greatness for a few moments and then have to let it all go. I woke up from this dream the moment I stepped off the train into Vienna’s Central Station. Herr Wagner was now a memory, one both fleeting and familiar, much like life.

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Monumental Understanding – Jews of Vienna: Piecing Together The Past (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #47)

At the Albertina Platz in the heart of Vienna I came across the Memorial against war and fascism. One part of the monument made me really stop and think. It was a sculpture of a bearded Jewish man scrubbing cobblestones. This was what Viennese Jews were forced to do in a public spectacle after the Anschluss when Nazi Germany took over Austria. This part of the monument was extremely controversial when it was first put on public display. The Austrian sculptor, Alfred Hrdlicka, wanted Viennese going about their daily business to never forget the mistreatment of Jews. The sculpture was a powerful indictment of Nazism and the role many in Austria played in it.

While that may have been the memorial’s intention, it was inadvertently desecrated after being placed on public display in 1988 by kids climbing upon it, tourists sitting atop it and dogs urinating on it. An outcry followed from the city’s Jewish community and many local leaders. The sculpture stayed, with one telling addition, iron barbed wire was placed on the man’s back. Signage also helped interpret the monument for those unaware of its meaning. To my mind, the monument served its purpose by making me realize that among all the urban beauty and architectural wonder of Vienna, ghosts from the city’s Nazi past still lurked. This was truly a case where a monumental work left no stone unturned to ensure that the recent past would not so easily be forgotten.

The kneeling Jew – Memorial Against War & Violence in Vienna (Credit: Haeferl)

Deeper Roots – Unearthing A Tragic Past
On this same trip around Vienna, I found myself visiting one of the city’s lesser known museums. While I will not begrudge those that visit the Hofburg Palace or one of several famous art museums, the City Museum of Vienna was more to my liking. It gave a sweeping overview of the city’s history with different artifacts representing certain ages, themes, trends, and people. One artifact literally pieced together the past, recreating one of the darkest moments in a city that has had many of them. This revealed to me the much deeper and tragic roots of Jewish history in Vienna.

My understanding of antisemitism is limited to it as a tragic phenomenon of the modern age which culminated in the Holocaust. When I think of Jewish Vienna two things come to mind. The first is its rich intellectual life during the half century leading up to World War I. In 1867, Austria-Hungary granted its Jewish inhabitants equality under the law. From that point up until 1914, Jews achieved a string of successes in almost every profession. Such names as Wittgenstein and Freud, among many others, have become enshrined in the European intellectual pantheon as thinkers of outstanding genius. The second image is of the Nazi takeover of the city and oppression of its Jewish citizenry, which for many eventually led to concentration camps. I never really gave much thought to Jews in Vienna prior to the 19^th century.

Piecing together the past – Floor tiles from Vienna Women’s Synagogue destroyed in 1421

Vienna Gesera – Exile & Execution
A set of floor tiles in the city museum irreparably changed my historical frame of reference regarding Jewish Vienna. The floor tiles were from the Vienna Women’s Synagogue (Frauenchuel). which ceased to exist in 1421. The year before that, Jewish life in medieval Vienna took a decided turn for the worse as a campaign of persecution began. It took place after Duke Albert demanded Jews convert to Christianity. Their refusal resulted in everything from exile to execution. In one case, 152 Jews, 120 of whom were women, got burned alive. The persecution became known as the Vienna Gesera. Its impetus was twofold. First, there were rumors that Jews were supporting the heretical Hussites, who were the mortal enemies of the Habsburgs. Secondly, jealousy of the wealth many Jews had attained may have stimulated the persecution. Then, in a medieval version of fake news, word spread that Jews had in their possession communion wafers which they had desecrated.

The upshot was a ferocious backlash. Jews in Vienna resisted the best they could, but when they learned all children under the age of 15 would be taken from them conversion to Christianity, tensions boiled over. The culmination of the persecution was a three day siege at the women’s synagogue which ended with it being destroyed along with the defenders. Chronicles from the time state that the latter committed mass suicide. The rest of the Jews were rounded up and burnt atop a funeral pyre on March 12^th, outside the city. After their lives had been extinguished, looting of their possessions continued until nothing was left. Their property was turned over to avaricious citizens. In effect, this was the end of Jews in Vienna for the next couple of hundred years. They would only begin to regain their foothold in the city during the 17^th century.

Persecution – Jews being forced to scrub streets in Vienna by Nazis (Credit: National Archives and Records Administration College Park)

Obstacles & Oppression – Jewish History in Vienna
The eradication of Jews in medieval Vienna was just a footnote in history compared to the overwhelming tragedy of the Holocaust, but it showed just how deep the historical roots of antisemitism went in the city. History would repeat itself five hundred years later with dire results for Viennese Jews. The city embraced and later rejected them. The acceptance Jews have received in the city has always turned out to be ephemeral. While they added an incredible amount to the city’s intellectual and cultural life, the Viennese were ambivalent about their presence. For long stretches of the city’s history, Veinna’s Jews have been treated with either grudging acceptance, willful indifference or sheer venality. A combination of those three had tragic consequences in 1421 and 1938.

The City Museum taught me that the past usually has precedents, but only exists if we are aware of it. The tiles on display were well worth a look because they offered tangible evidence of the Jewish presence in Vienna during the late Middle Ages. Artifacts are only as powerful as the stories they tell. In this case, the tiles told an important and overlooked, if not entirely unknown story. One that shows the obstacles and oppression that Jews have faced throughout their history in Vienna. Recognizing that history not only enriches our understanding of the past, it also serves as a warning for the future. Only time will tell if tolerance can triumph over prejudice. The history of Vienna’s lost Jewish communities does not evoke optimism.

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Reaching The Point of No Return – Schloss Esterhazy & Haydnsaal (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #41)

Certain places in Eastern Europe haunt my imagination long after I have left them. That is because though I have left those places, they never leave me. On some random Tuesday, years after a visit, a place resurfaces inside of me. Suddenly it becomes so real that I feel an unbearable urge to return. This is followed by the stark realization that I have probably made my only one and only visit there. A depressing thought, but understandable. I was lucky to ever travel so far and wide across a region that captured my curiosity. I should be grateful for all those opportunities to visit. And yet I want more, too much of Eastern Europe was never going to be enough. Greed sometimes gets the better of me in these moments.

I want to go back, so I can feel the way I did on that first visit. This is a fool’s game that I love to play. Even though deep down inside I realize that romanticizing my own past travels is little more than self-seduction. Thus, I try to put thoughts of a return trip out of my mind. I resign myself to the fact that returning to places I have never left, at least mentally, would only lead to a letdown. These places are what I call the neverlands. Places that it pains me to know I will never return to again. Places that have passed my own personal point of no return. Strangely enough, a place I rarely thought about after visiting, has now come back to remind me that there are places deep within me that I will only return to mentally.

Fantasyland – Schloss Esterhazy

Provincial Glamor – A Candy-Coated Confection
For reasons likely to always remain unknown to me, I keep having recurring thoughts of Schloss Esterhazy in Eisenstadt, Austria. This is not entirely unexpected because the palace is one of the more memorable attractions I have experienced. A visit to this candy-coated confection covered in an eyepopping coat of cream is not to be missed if you find yourself in the Burgenland. This Austrian province is one of the least visited in the country. Located in the far eastern part of the country, in many respects it is un-Austrian. Rather than towering alpine peaks, there is rich cropland, rolling hills, and low mountains. Though Vienna is never more than an hour or two away at most, the rural nature of the Burgenland provides a compelling counterpoint to the sophistication and high culture of the Austrian capital. Eisenstadt is the closest thing to an urban oasis in the Burgenland with plenty of elegant buildings, immaculately swept streets, and industrious Austrians uber focused on the business at hand.

The Schloss Esterhazy is Eisenstadt’s gleaming set piece. There is no way anyone passing through Eisenstadt could miss the palace. The Schloss is glamorous to the point of glitzy, a Baroque attraction on steroids. That it is found in the Burgenland, makes its shock value that much more sensational. The exterior is the apotheosis of aristocratic architectural sensibilities. The interior is not too bad either. The experience of Esterhazy Palace is like having your cake and eating it too, in the most aesthetic sense of those words. The exterior and interior match one another in exquisiteness.

For me, one specific room in the Schloss keeps coming to mind, the Haydnsaal. This ornate piece of architectural fantasia was used for banquets and festivals. The room takes its name from Joseph Haydn, the Esterhazy court composer whose works of musical brilliance were often debuted in what is still today a perfect acoustical environment. The ceiling of the Haydnsaal is covered in a swirl of beautiful frescoes portraying scenes taken from classical works. To think of the moment, I stood in the Haydnsaal brings me the greatest of pleasure. To realize that I am unlikely to ever stand there again, fills me with an equal amount of sadness.

In the Burgenland – Village near Eisenstadt (Credit: C Stadler/Bwag)

Fantasyland – Wanderer’s World
I have searched my mind as much as I have searched Eastern Europe for the reasons why certain places occur and reoccur in my memory. One of the conclusions I have come to is that those places most vivid to me are the ones for which I cannot or will not ever return. This is a sobering thought. A few years ago, I had a chance of returning to Eisenstadt, revisiting the Schloss Esterhazy, and standing once again in the Haydnsaal, but did not take it. The reason for not taking this opportunity now escapes me. The memory of that failure does not. I now see this as part of my destiny and the future of my travels in the region. The no return policy that plagues me is for a very good reason.

Forgive me for stating the obvious about my Eastern European obsession, but there is so much to see and so little time. It is one thing to say this and quite another to realize it. Lately, I have come to the understanding that I have been running out of time in my Eastern European travels from the day I first set foot on the tarmac at the airport in Sofia, Bulgaria over a decade ago. Back then my head was spinning so much from sensory overload that I could not conceive that I was already running out of time. For an obsessive, there can never be enough time to pursue their passion to the most extreme lengths. Eastern Europe offered me a sprawling canvas with so much history, travel and culture that I could conceivably go on forever. That was not realistic. Then again, realism is unromantic. Fantasyland was where I found myself. The Haydnsaal was one iteration of that fantastical world in which I wandered.

Ornate perfection – The Haydnsaal at Schloss Esterhazy

Numbers Games – Watching The Clock
My passion for places such as the Schloss Esterhazy showed just how little reality meant to me. That was until one day I came to a stunning realization. I was closer to the end of my travels than to the beginning of them. I hope that this would turn out to be an unfounded fear. A manifestation of too many close calls with mortality. This is the type of thought that I assume many have while growing older and becoming aware of their limitations. The thought of twenty more trips to Eastern Europe is as impossible to imagine as the first twenty were to complete. Obsessive travelers would tell me that this is not a numbers game.

My retort would be that age is a numbers game, the price of flight tickets is a numbers game, the time taken to travel is a numbers game, life expectancy is a numbers game. Why should my travel life expectancy be any different? The problem is that my Eastern European travels used to be guided by intuition. Now they are being foreshowed by a premonition. Perhaps it is an overstatement to say that this is an intimation of mortality, more like a confrontation with reality. All I ever really wanted was an enhanced version of reality, one like Schloss Esterhazy and the Haydnsaal. The memory of which is now inseparable from the thought that I have reached my point of return.

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Old & New Frontiers – The Heathen’s Gate: Roman Austria (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #26)

Once a frontier, always a frontier. That was my thought as a friend and myself crossed the Austria-Slovakia-Hungary frontier. This frontier was ancient history for us since it existed during the Roman Empire. Presently the area is where the tips of east-central Austria, southwestern Slovakia, and northwestern Hungary touch. While we were within 15 minutes of Bratislava and half an hour from Vienna, the area was not overly developed except for the crisscrossing of motorways. With border controls abolished between the three countries after Hungary and Slovakia acceded to the European Union in 2004, it was hard to know which nation we were in if not for the language used on road signs.

The actual point at which all three borders met was in an anonymous field between Rajka, Hungary and Deutsch Jahrndorf, Austria. Gazing at the map, this border seemed almost arbitrary. Of course, I knew better. The post-World War I peace treaties had demarcated dividing lines that were still in effect today. Any place where frontiers meet in Eastern Europe (especially regarding Hungary) was once a point of contention, but another World War and then a Cold War had proved decisive. No one really argued about these borders anymore, economic prosperity in the form of EU membership had largely ameliorated extreme nationalism, at least along what was fast becoming an invisible frontier.

Emerging triumphant – The Heidentor just before sunset in eastern Austria

Carnuntum – The Imperial Centuries
Two thousand years ago, this area was also a frontier. One where the Danube Limes of the Roman Empire abutted the Germanic barbarian tribes. To the north was the Danube River which acted as a dividing line between the Roman and Barbarian worlds for over four hundred years. My friend and I were both ancient history buffs, so we spent an afternoon exploring this borderland. We first stopped in the Slovak town of Rusovce and visited Ancient Gerulata, the remains of a Roman military camp. The military had a formidable presence on the border, as well as a formidable task in fighting back barbarian incursions. From Rusovce we traveled by car just south of the Danube. venturing further west and crossing the Austrian border as we made our way to the spa town of Bad Deutsch-Altenburg and the Museum Carnuntinum.

Unfortunately, it was already getting late in the afternoon. When we discovered that the museum would be closing in 30 minutes, we headed another kilometer down the road to Petronell-Carnuntum, which had open air Roman sites. We were lucky enough to grab a map and guide at the Romisches Stadtviertel, a reconstructed quarter of the civilian city that grew up beyond the Roman legionary fortress that made Carnuntum one of the most powerful places on the frontier. The open air museum had some impressive ruins of the civilian city. This was only a sample of what once stood here. The population of the entire complex was upwards of 50,000. That would put it as the 10^th biggest city in Austria today. Carnuntum may have been on the frontier, but it was it at the center of historic events on several occasions. During Emperor Trajan’s reign, at the height of the empire in the early 2^nd century AD, Carnuntum became the capital of the province of Pannonia Superior, which sprawled across parts of what are now five separate countries.

Several different Roman legions were stationed in the military fortress for over four hundred years. No less a historical personage than Emperor Marcus Aurelius spent three years at Carnuntum where he wrote part of his seminal work, Meditations. Carnuntum was also where the historic meeting brokered by Diocletian between the Four Tetrachs (Junior/Senior Emperors of the Western/Eastern halves of the empire) took place in 308 AD. The fortress and civilian city also helped facilitate trade. When the Romans were not fighting barbarian tribes, they were trading with them for amber. The Amber Road crossed the Danube at Carnuntum. Another import into the empire, the barbarians, eventually took Carnuntum in 430 AD. Much of the former fortress and civilian city fell into ruin. In many cases, the materials from abandoned structures were used by new settlers to the area for use in building their own homes. In a few cases, the ruins were preserved by a combination of neglect and reverence. The latter explains the most striking artifact that me and my friend would visit, the Heiden tor or Heathen’s Gate.

At the Point of Collapse – The Heidentor in the early 19th century (Credit: Jakab Alt)

Emerging Triumphant – Portal to the Ancient World
It was getting late. The day was moving slowly, but inexorably toward dusk. The sun had begun to sink lower in the sky. At best, there was half an hour of daylight left. We had just stopped to visit a reconstructed gladiator school. It was located on the same spot as the original. We also were able to visit the civilian city’s amphitheater which at one time would have seated up to 8,000 people. Now there was just stone and silence. For an area that had seen all too much war, in both ancient and modern times, the serene and peaceful state of the place as night closed in was a welcome respite. The serene setting had a calming influence on us, but I knew we had one last place to visit before we headed back across the border to Hungary. The map led us up a side road not far from the amphitheater. In a couple of minutes, we were pulling up in our car to a freestanding arch, standing alone and austere in a field. We had come to the Heidentor or Heathen’s Gate. It had been given the name many centuries after Carnuntum’s demise. Locals believed it was the remnants of a pagan leader’s tomb. That was far from the historical truth.

This arched monolith was the ultimate outlier, standing solidly in the earth and flanked by nothingness. It was a strange sight to behold, lacking any other similar structures to place it in the proper context. The Heidentor was the remnant of a four sided triumphal arch, that had been constructed in the mid-4^th century to honor Emperor Constantius II (337 -361 AD). There was a plinth where a statue of the emperor would have likely stood. After parking the car, my friend and I approached the arch with a hint of trepidation. This feeling was mixed with a magnetic curiosity. It felt like we were approaching a sleeping giant, one whose presence had to be respected. The arch had stood up too much greater human and natural forces over the centuries. Its survival had been a freak of preservation, an improbable act that defied all threats to its existence. The actions of modern man had little effect upon it.

Ghost Scaffolding – The Heidentor Present & Past (Credit: Gryffindor)

Passing Through – An Almost Religious Kind of Reverence
I reached out and touched the arch’s stone surface to make sure my eyes did not deceive me. The arch glowed in the waning light. Here was an ancient piece of the past that had somehow survived all the way to the present day. A spectacular, stand alone artifact of an ancient frontier city. Everything around the arch had disappeared, except the frontier on which it still stands today. And so, we passed through the Heathen’s Gate with an almost religious kind of reverence. Such was the homage we paid to its past and our present.

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Forced Separation – German West Hungary & The Burgenland: Austria vs. Hungary (Part Two)

It is a strange thing to be in a region that was considered more or less part of Hungary for the better part a millennium and then to realize this same region bears very few overt traces of its Hungarian past. Anyone traveling through the tidy towns and quaint villages of the Burgenland region of eastern Austria today, would be hard pressed to notice much of anything identifying it with the Kingdom of Hungary. The transformation was radically subtle and had a great deal to do with the border alterations that occurred in the region after World War I. In retrospect, the new lines that were drawn turned out to make a great deal of sense since they followed ethnic demography. Nonetheless, there were winners and losers. The nation of Hungary was certainly one of them.

After the First World War ended, Hungary endured the dismemberment of its kingdom by the hands of peacemakers who poured over maps in Paris. They relied on experts to advise them on the best course of action. Such courses were fraught with danger. The decisions that were made, especially in regard to the Kingdom of Hungary, created a sense of grievance that endures to this very day. Oddly, that sense of grievance is largely absent in the Burgenland even though Hungary lost land to its former ally, Austria. In the postwar peace process, Hungary could not win, even against the losers.

Fertile Fields – Looking east towards Hungary from the Burgenland (Credit: Jacquesverlaeken)

An Agricultural Lifeline – The Food Network
Creating Austria was not easy. Many disparate provincial pieces had to be brought together, one of the most important of which, the Burgenland, is largely overlooked today. To understand the Burgenland’s importance, consider how geographically different it is from the rest of Austria. While the mountains of Austria might be beautiful, the words alpine and agriculture are not synonymous. Some 60% of Austria is mountainous, while only 17% of the land is arable. Trying to grow crops at high altitudes is a non-starter, especially for populations that were rapidly growing as industrialization and urbanization proceeded apace. The far western region of the Kingdom of Hungary, known as German West Hungary (Deutsch-Westungarn), offered a pastoral lifeline for a newly forming nation that suffered from a paucity of decent agricultural land. The land just happened to be located east of the River Leitha, a symbolic dividing line and in this case an administrative border between what had been the Austrian (Cisleithania) and Hungarian (Transleithania) ruled regions of the former empire.

This region included portions of the pre-war Hungarian counties of Vas, Moson and Sopron. It offered choice ground for cultivation. The land was an extension of Transdanubia, a region of fertile fields west of the Danube in Hungary that yields excellent crops. It was unlike any other region that would help form Austria. It was also badly needed. Areas where Austria used to get its food supply, such as Moravia, were now going to be part of the newly constituted nation of Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, Hungary was in no mood to deliver food to their former allies. In 1919, it was every nation for itself. Austria and Hungary were no longer allies, that meant everything was up for grabs, including land that had been administered by Hungary before the war. Borders could be changed at the stroke of a pen, as soon they would be.

Stamp of Approval – Lajtabansag 100 korona stamp

Forget Me Not – From Trianon To St. German-en-Laye
To be fair, Austria might be getting a piece of territory at Hungary’s expense, but it was losing plenty of its old imperial holdings. Today, Hungarians are never shy about reminding people how they lost two-thirds of their territory due to Trianon, but you would be hard pressed to find an Austrian who would remind you that they lost 60% of their territory due to the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye. This included Bohemia and Moravia whose German population would become a huge point of contention in the lead up to the Second World War. They were also losing south Tyrol to the Italians. Getting German West Hungary would not compensate for all those losses, but it would ameliorate them to a certain extent. The Austrians had demographics on their side in the tussle for control. In the 1910 census, the last one taken prior to World War I, ethnic Germans made up 74% of the population in the region.

Strangely enough, though the region was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, ethnic Hungarians were not even the second largest ethnic group in the region. This status was reserved for ethnic Croats at 15%. Ethnic Hungarians came in at only 9%. This demographic breakdown was nothing new and went all the way back to when Hungarians first gained control of the area during the Middle Ages. A Germanic majority existed at the time. This was the frontier or Marchland as it was then known on the Kingdom of Hungary’s western border. The Hungarians who settled there were border guards. The Croats had come in much later, during a fifty year period in the mid-16^th century when their lands in Slavonia had been laid waste by the Ottoman Turks. Hungary had nominally retained control of the area throughout much of the past 900 years. This was something of an historical anomaly since so few of the residents were ethnic Hungarians. Thus, it made sense to attach the region to Austria, but logic is one thing, passion quite another.

A Land Apart – The Burgenland (Credit: ariva.io)

An Afterthought – The Course of History
Dispassion and reason were not exactly hallmarks of the postwar peace process. Demographic evidence certainly did not make the loss any easier for Hungarians to stomach. After all, it had lost a massive amount of territory due to the Treaty of Trianon. Losing German West Hungary only served to add insult to injury. Interestingly, the Hungarians did not give up German West Hungary without a fight and it would pay off in at least one instance. On August 19, 1921, the handover to Austria of German West Hungary region was due to occur. This resulted in an armed uprising led by ultra nationalist Hungarian forces. They succeeded, albeit only briefly, in carving out their own state, the Lajtabansag (Banat of Leitha) which lasted little more than a month during the autumn. The “state” managed to issue some stamps and implement custom duties.

This “state” did not enjoy support from the Hungarian government which was susceptible to pressure from the Allies. It did not take long for Lajtabansag to disintegrate. One offshoot of the uprising was that the city of Sopron held a plebiscite to see whether it would go to Austria or Hungary. Sopron and three of the surrounding villages voted to stay in Hungary, while five villages voted to stay in Austria. Due to the size of Sopron and the weight of its vote all eight villages would remain in Hungary. Meanwhile, German West Hungary became the Burgenland. The Austrians had gained a valuable new territory, the only one of its nine provinces which had never really been part of Austria proper. It would now and remains part of Austria today. As for the Hungarians, they focused their irredentist energies on Transylvania and southern Slovakia. The Burgenland became what it continues to be for them, an afterthought.

Click here for: Conceived in Chaos – The Burgenland & Trianon: Austria vs. Hungary (Part One)