The Anschluss
In 1934, social tensions broke out into civil war, Europe's first confrontation between fascism and democracy. Austrian nationalism under the authoritarian chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, put an end to progressive policies. Later that year, Austrian Nazis assassinated Dollfuss, and Nazis were included in the resultant coalition government. In 1938, Austria united with Nazi Germany (the Anschluss). Hitler returned triumphantly to Vienna, several decades after he had lived there as an impoverished and embittered artist. In a national referendum, 99.75% of Austrians voted their support.
World War II & its Aftermath
The rise of Austria's Nazis devastated Vienna's academic and artistic communities. Many of their members, including Sigmund Freud, fled to safety elsewhere. About 60,000 Austrian Jews were sent to concentration camps, and only an estimated 2,000 survived; Austria's homosexual and Gypsy populations were similarly decimated.
Beginning in 1943, Allied bombing raids demolished vast neighborhoods of the city, damaging virtually every public building of any stature. The city's most prominent landmark, St. Stephan's Cathedral, suffered a roof collapse and fires in both towers. The city's death rate was one of the highest in Europe. For the Viennese, at least, the war ended abruptly on April 11, 1945, when Russian troops moved into the city from bases in Hungary.
During a confused interim that lasted a decade, Austria was divided into four zones of occupation, each controlled by one of the four Allies (the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France). Vienna, deep within the Soviet zone, was also subdivided into four zones, each occupied by one of the victors. Control of the inner city alternated every month between each of the four powers. It was a dark and depressing time in Vienna; rubble was slowly cleared away from bomb sites, but the most glorious public monuments in Europe lay in ashes. Espionage, black-market profiteering, and personal betrayals proliferated, poisoning the memories of many older Viennese even today.
