2 - “weiße Strümpfe oder neue Kutten”: Cultural Decline in Vienna in the 1930s

Summary

ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL STUDIES on Austrian culture during the interwar years bears the title Aufbruch und Untergang (New Departure and Decline), a juxtaposition that succinctly conveys the era's combined legacy of great achievement and bitter disappointment. By concentrating on the second idea, that of decline, this essay will examine what happened to the burgeoning cultural and intellectual developments of the early period of the First Republic in Vienna following the calamitous political events of 1933–34. For many commentators it was the Anschluss of 1938 and the subsequent emigration of Jewish intellectuals, authors, and performers that marked the downfall of Viennese culture. However, Austria had already suffered major setbacks earlier in the 1930s for which there were three main causes: the blow to left-wing modernist culture caused by the abolition of Social Democracy and its many institutions and organizations in February 1934; the loss of talent brought about by those who chose to go into early exile; and the cultural policies of the Catholic, nationalist Ständestaat (corporate state) from 1934 to 1938. Before assessing these causes of decline, I begin with a brief recapitulation of the early achievements of the First Republic up to the fateful years 1933–34.

Viennese Culture under the First Republic to 1934

The political stepping-stones that mark the path toward the end of democracy in the First Republic have been well charted. Less well documented is the effect political destabilization had on cultural life.