Vienna Calling: A Personal View
Vienna calling! [1] An article about living in the world’s most livable city might seem an unexpected turn for this blog. Don’t worry: I have not taken up advertising or embarked on a fourth career as a tour guide.
And unsurprisingly, slogans like MAGA, regardless of which country it refers to, don’t resonate with me. It’s a matter of taste and of questionable wisdom.
In the 2024 Global Liveability Index, Vienna took first place for the third consecutive year [2]. Since I am the person some readers turn to with questions about Vienna, I wanted to offer a few observations—from a very personal perspective.
When Vienna regained the top spot in 2022, I also read a sharply critical account of the Viennese by an English student. Neither verdict seemed especially important to the people who live here. A book introduced by fellow blogger Kulturbowle reminded me of the familiar joke: an older couple sit over their newspapers. She announces that Vienna has been named the most livable city again. He suggests that things must simply be worse everywhere else. If you can enjoy that dry response, you are on your way to understanding the Viennese.
Viennese Humor
This kind of dry, sometimes barbed humour is part of what we call Wiener Schmäh. Even German neighbours who share our language can find it puzzling. A familiar quip captures the attitude: “The situation is hopeless, but not serious.” [3] I prefer to leave it as a joke, without furnishing it with generals or a bunker.
The films of Billy Wilder often remind me of that mixture of wit and darkness. The Vienna-born director Josef von Sternberg, who made The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich, is another connection between this city and the world of cinema.
Most Viennese do love their city, in their own way. I sometimes wonder how much we take for granted: the Vienna Woods close by, and spring water brought from the Alps to our taps [4]. Some of my foreign friends enjoy telling their families that they now flush their toilets with spring water.
Never Underestimate the Austrians
Austria is a small country, with roughly nine million people at the time of writing, about two million of them in Vienna. On my travels, I have met people who struggled to place us on the map—or confused us with the country that has kangaroos. Others knew The Sound of Music. A touching film, perhaps, but not much of a guide to the country’s character.
Yet I would not underestimate Austria’s capacity to surprise. Our history gives us little reason for uncomplicated national pride. My darker Viennese joke is that a small country has managed to play an alarmingly large part in European catastrophes. The joke is aimed at our self-image; the history itself is more complicated, and far less amusing.
How It All Came About
Vienna was once the centre of the Habsburg Monarchy. The familiar saying Tu felix Austria nube—“You, happy Austria, marry”—sums up the dynasty’s successful marriage policy [5]. Maria Theresa, who had sixteen children, also used dynastic marriages to further political aims. Organising aristocratic weddings may sound quieter than waging war, though Habsburg history involved plenty of both.
These centuries of the great Austrian Empire, later the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, are still evident today in many facets, especially in the street scene.
The First World War brought the end of Austria-Hungary in 1918. In 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany. After the Second World War, Austria and Vienna were divided into four Allied occupation zones. The imperial city had become the capital of a small country whose full sovereignty would not be restored until 1955 [6].
Diplomacy and the Heurigen Story
The familiar Austrian version of the story gives wine a starring role: our negotiators supposedly drank their Soviet counterparts under the table. It is a good Heurigen story, but diplomacy was doing the real work. The Moscow negotiations in April 1955 helped clear the way for the State Treaty, signed on 15 May by Austria and the four occupying powers. Parliament adopted the neutrality law on 26 October [6].
Photographs of later encounters, such as Nikita Khrushchev’s visit in 1960, helped sustain the image of diplomacy over a glass of wine. The picture below shows him with Leopold Figl. I would not mistake the convivial scene for the whole political relationship.
Vienna’s reputation as a meeting place also has a less innocent side: spies. If I were a fictional intelligence officer choosing a posting, I might prefer Vienna to many alternatives. And if we expelled every spy, I sometimes joke, the city might have to revise its economic forecasts. That is Viennese exaggeration, of course, rather than a statistic—or a claim that neutrality gives anyone a right to spy.
The Third Man
The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles as Harry Lime, remains one of the great images of post-war Vienna [7]. Its shadowy streets are part of the city’s international imagination, even when daily life is much more ordinary.
Another image that stayed with me was Vladimir Putin dancing with the then Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl at her wedding in August 2018. The photographs below show the dance and her curtsy. It was a very different sort of performance from the familiar picture of Viennese hospitality.
Perception Abroad
What always amazed me when traveling abroad was how or whether we were even known internationally. In the USA, for example, I hardly met anyone who knew Austria or Vienna straight away. In China, I usually heard, like a shot, “Vienna, the centre of music”. And I heard how many couples danced at the traditional Vienna Opera Ball and how many flowers were hung for decoration.
Mozart, Schubert & Co are of course known everywhere. Better-informed people also know Viennese musicians like Joe Zawinul (Weather Report), Friedrich Gulda, Falco (Vienna calling), and some even Michael Mantler (Carla Bley).
For those interested in fine arts, Klimt, Schiele & Co are of course no strangers, but surprisingly rarely are they immediately associated with Austria.
The list of important Viennese and Austrians who could be included in this series is long, very long, and ranges from Empress Sisi to Sigmund Freud to Nobel Prize winners such as Erwin Schrödinger (1933, quantum mechanics), Bertha von Suttner (1905, the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize) and, more recently, Anton Zeilinger (Physics, 2022).
Speaking of peace. After we learned that waging war doesn’t work for us that well – and of course also because of the resources of a small state, we turned to peace. If someone has too high an IQ or biceps that are larger than the standard size, we drive them away. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, who only a few people perceive as an Austrian.
An article about Vienna I wrote a couple of years ago: my earlier reflections on living in Vienna
Footnotes
[1] Vienna Calling is a song by Falco. The title gives this personal account its musical starting point.
[2] Economist Intelligence Unit, 27 June 2024: Vienna ranked first in the 2024 Global Liveability Index for the third consecutive year. This article refers to that year’s result.
[3] The quip also recalls the title of Situation Hopeless… But Not Serious (1965). Its use here is humorous, rather than an account of a particular wartime conversation.
[4] City of Vienna: the origins of Vienna’s drinking water. Alpine springs are the main source; groundwater provides additional supply security.
[5] Die Welt der Habsburger: Tu felix Austria nube; Maria Theresa’s children. The marriage-policy saying predates Maria Theresa; she bore sixteen children.
[6] Austrian Federal Chancellery: the Moscow Memorandum and State Treaty; Austrian Parliament: State Treaty and neutrality. The treaty and the later neutrality law were distinct steps.
[7] British Film Institute: The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed, with a screenplay by Graham Greene.
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