Conquered Europe Rebuilds in Troubled Ruins

There is still a lot of truth in the post World War I saying: "The situation in Austria is desperate but not serious, while the situation in Germany is serious but not desperate."

Austria's problem today is primarily economic. After seven years of partnership with Hitler when its production was unnaturally linked with Germany, Austria finds her old trade links with Eastern Europe broken and without prospects of immediate resumption. This dilemma is presently glossed over by American aid notably food. Apparently nonconcurred that the dilemma still exists the Austrians have done little planning for the day when American aid stops.

Vienna is the best example of the country's unplanned future. Almost one-third of Austria's people live in the capital. Unlike Paris on London, however, the city is unproductive. Its men of substance are doctors, lawyers, scholars, shopkeepers, or government personnel, but not manufactures or industrialists. Its former marketing and trading revenue is virtually non-existent. The rest of the country cannot support it either in food or function.

Yet rather than attempting to unload some of its population into more productive work elsewhere, the Occupation and the Austrian government are reconstructing its old magnificence for what can only be a minor role in the future. The thousands of refugees who field the city and the Russians in 1945 have returned from the Western zones.

Damage in Vienna

Viema has little beauty today, though the vestiges are there. the Germans made their last stand against the Russians on the Danube so that the East bank of the River and the central part of the city are terribly battered. Pock marks of the Russian chase cover the walls of buildings even in the Western outskirts. The Viennese hold everyone else responsible for the wreck. They do not yearn for another Anschluss and have no love for the Germans. But they loathe the Russians with a combined intolerance for Slavism, vengeance, and a culture less developed than their own. A Viennese girl said to me, "the Germans were bad, but at least they didn't tear out telephones and shash bath-tubs."

Today Russian soldiers are no curiosity in the city of the Hapsburgs. Four power patrols drive through streets unmarked by zone borders. Only occasionally do you see a sign announcing: "You are now entering the American sector." But you never see an Austrian talking with Soviet soldier. The Russian troops are pariahs in a hostile culture, seldom even asked for streetcar fare by the conductor.

Without the sobering sight of Vienna, a tourist attending the Salzburg Festival would tend to overlook the dilemma of Austria, for there he would hear one of the world's finest orchestras, some of the best singers, and see good theater in a city which lost only its railway station in the war. Openly buying at the blackmarket exchange rate, he might not notice that lemons are unobtainable because the legal rate of 10 schillings to the dollar is prohibitive to Italian exporters. He would not realize that Austria is a thoughfare for refugees from Eastern Europe. He would not know that hired man working sixty hours a week can spend a month's salary on a pair of shoes. And so he would be surprised that the catch-all, semi-Nazi Party captured 300,000 votes in last week's election.

Politics, like education, in Austria is a profession of old men. Today there is no room for the young, nor are young intellectuals interested in it. University people frown on non-scholarly work and no field more than politics. A few are sincerely concerned. A young editor of the Catholic weekly in Vienna told me, "I am glad I had the Nazi experience, for I feel that only the people who knew it can understand its evil and tell others." But the tendency of the upper class youth is to shake their heads and ask, "What can I do? I'am not a socialist nor a Catholic, and they are in power."

On top of all this sit a few key men in the Occupation. Everyone wonders when they are going to leave. The Austrians don't want them, yet fear the Russians if the Americans depart. They wonder if American food with them. But Austria has found ways before, so perhaps the situation is not so serious as it seems.