What Every American Should Know About Europe

by Melissa L. Rossi

  Austria was globally ostracized. Israel yanked bank her ambassador, as did the U.S. Austria was sneered at across Europe; ties with EU countries were cut and fierce words were exchanged. The European Union “will not behave with this government as if it were a normal government,” declared French president Jacques Chirac.6 “Europe can do without Austria,” sniped Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel, declaring it “immoral” to go skiing there.7 The heat was so intense that Haider quickly stepped down as party head and threw in another Freedom Party member in his place. That didn’t appease the EU. Neither did the statement Haider and Schüssel signed denouncing the Nazis and declaring Austria’s dedication to human rights. The diplomatic sanctions stayed in place, and Austria’s only “sort-of friend,” Germany, was not about to protest the matter.

  Those working in Austrian tourism dubbed the international frostiness the “Haider Effect,” as conventions and tour groups canceled long-held reservations. Tourism typically brings in over $15 billion annually to the country’s coffers, representing nearly 7 percent of GDP.8 That year it didn’t.

  With diplomatic relations on ice, Austria threatened to veto important EU legislation and withhold EU dues, but that just led to more barking from Brussels. In August 2000, however, the Austrian government announced that it would put some $80 million into a compensation fund for survivors of the Nazi concentration camps—later adding $360 million more for those whose lands had been seized. The EU agreed to lift sanctions. The experience, however, left Austria feeling utterly isolated. With Austria’s political arena under international scrutiny, and a matter of lurid fascination to the world’s press, Austria did what she’d done during the Kurt Waldheim affair in 1986. First she got angry, then she changed.

  REEXAMINATION

  Stately Kurt Waldheim, eloquent secretary-general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, was a source of pride to his compatriots, the first postwar Austrian to cut such a distinguished presence on the world stage. He returned to Austria to run for president in the mid-1980s, his victory assured on name recognition alone. But when he landed back on home turf, problems began. The press made accusations, never entirely proven, that Waldheim had been far more active with the Nazis than he had admitted. Austrians apparently didn’t believe the rumors, or didn’t care: in 1986, they voted Waldheim in with a landslide victory. The doors to the international community slammed shut the next day. Formerly one of the most powerful and respected men in the world, President Waldheim didn’t dare set foot in the U.S. where he’d been barred entry and placed on the State Department’s watch list; the only “country” that welcomed him was the Vatican. Austrians were outraged by the global chill—at first. But ire turned to introspection and soul-searching as Austrians explored what their country’s role really had been during “Anschluss,” as the 1938 annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany was called; it had been a taboo topic until then. The Waldheim incident triggered debate and belated acknowledgment of Austria’s Nazi-supporting role. Schools, which had previously taught history only up until the First World War, encouraged a more open view; writers suggested a certain complicity; and intellectuals pointed out that many in Austria, suffering a national identity crisis after the empire was ripped apart, had wanted to bond with Germany. Austria’s part in the Holocaust was acknowledged for the first time and she established her first programs to compensate concentration camp survivors and slave laborers.

  Haider, it now seems, was just ahead of his time. His sudden popularity portended the rise of the radical right all over Europe. The man who personified the anti-immigrant right was soon joined by others across Europe: Vlaams Blok in Belgium, Pia Kjaersgaard in Denmark, Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, Carl Hagen in Norway, Umberto Bossi in Italy, and the British National Party’s Nick Griffin—all heroes to neo-Nazis, who now add the anti-immigrant platform to their anti-Semitism. Public sentiment, however, turned against Haider. In the following election, the Freedom Party took only 10 percent of the vote. In the 2004 election for the European Parliament, it won a scanty 6 percent and lost four of five seats. Haider recently ditched the Freedom Party and started the Alliance for Austria’s Future, under the antiglobalization banner. The new party is even less popular. Hard-right Haider, who so shook up Europe and Austria, now looks like a has-been. And that too may foreshadow trends across the Continent.

  LOUDLY NOT NAZI

  Between Haider and Waldheim and the high-intensity glare of the international spotlight, Austria has indeed changed. She finally came forth with funds for victims of Nazis and admitted to culpability in crimes against humanity that were previously shrugged off. Now Austria is making up for lost time: Austrian headlines all but shout about government acts officially honoring Nazi victims, from gays to women who perished under the regime, and the government is commemorating the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, a Vienna resident, by naming a street after him. In fact, Austria is now making headlines for her vehement anti-Nazi stand. Austrian authorities arrested Holocaust denier and British author David Irving for speeches he’d made in which he questioned whether Nazi victims at camps had died in gas chambers. Irving, who’d been invited to Austria by a radical student group to speak in November 2005, is visiting much longer than anticipated. In 2006, he was sentenced to three years for two speeches he gave in 1998—in violation of Austria’s 1992 law against “playing down” or “trying to excuse” Nazi crimes in broadcast or print. Even Irving is changing his tune, admitting he was wrong about denying that Auschwitz held gas chambers. But the “Nazi Issue” hasn’t gone away. The new leader of the Freedom Party now begins speeches with “Heil.”

  The latest show stealer is journalist Hans-Peter Martin, a European parliamentarian who grassed on his colleagues in the notoriously wasteful European Parliament. Martin videotaped the reps signing in for Friday’s work, then promptly leaving—but claiming that day’s pay and the hefty $350 per diem. His colleagues were outraged—and Socialists were so red-faced that the party expelled him. Martin formed his own party, and in the 2004 parliamentary elections he was Austria’s biggest winner, pulling in 14 percent of the vote. He may aim higher in Austria’s next general election, once again shaking up the formerly staid world of Viennese politics.

  History Review

  Lounging against the snow-frosted Alps, Austria is now beloved as a stunning skiing getaway and haven for classical music. But most have forgotten that she was long the power seat of continental Europe. From the thirteenth century on, Vienna was headquarters of the Holy Roman Empire, the longest-lasting European empire in history—and at times the largest, stitching together lands from Spain to Yugoslavia, Poland to Sicily.

  ROMAN EMPIRE VS. HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE VS. AUSTRIAN EMPIRE VS. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE

  The Roman Empire officially began in 27 BC; in AD 476 the last Roman emperor abdicated. The Holy Roman Empire, founded by Charlemagne in AD 800 with a push from the pope, eventually extended across most of Europe, and for six centuries was usually headed by the Austrian Habsburg clan. Napoleon ended the Holy Roman Empire in 1806; after 1815, the term “Austrian Empire” was popularly used to describe the Austrian Habsburgs’ central and eastern European holdings. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was coruled by Hungarians, becoming the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1919, the whole kit and caboodle ceased to exist.

  Headed by the Habsburg clan from the late 1200s onward, the Holy Roman Empire greatly enlarged—mostly through politically motivated marriages—and the riches of Vienna expanded with it. In 1529 and 1683, Turks besieged the opulent city, hoping to rope her into the Ottoman Empire. Twice beaten back from the walled kingdom, Turks nevertheless took most of the southeastern land, making Vienna the back door to Europe. Habsburg victories later pried Hungary and her environs from Ottoman rule, expanding the empire to the east, but Austria remains a symbolic bridge between East and West.

  To celebrate one defeat of the Turks, Viennese bakers concocted the croissant, which Austrian Marie Antoinette brought to France when she ma
rried Louis XVI. Or so the story goes.

  THE HABSBURG RULERS: A FEW STANDOUTS OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPERORS

  Rudolf I (b. 1218) 1273–1291: Started Habsburg rule, conquering Vienna by threatening to destroy vineyards and making the city the center of the Holy Roman Empire.

  Rudolf II (b. 1552) 1576–1612: Bright but a tad mad and often depressed, Rudolf moved the imperial capital to Prague, where he invited scientists and magicians to explain the nature of the universe.

  Charles V (b. 1500) 1519–1558: Ruling during the birth of Protestantism, Catholic Charles condemned Luther but let him live. Europe’s richest man held so much land it was unworkable; his son Philip II got Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands; brother Ferdinand got the eastern chunk. (See “The Netherlands,” page 179.)

  Maria Theresa (b. 1717) 1740–1780: Her hubby, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, became Holy Roman Emperor Francis I (1745–1765), but enlightened Archduchess Maria Theresa began reforms against serfdom, initiated public education, and abolished torture.

  Joseph II (b. 1741) 1780–1790: Abolished serfdom and the death penalty, he allowed total freedom of religion.

  Franz Joseph (b. 1830) 1848–1916: Senile by the end of his rule, Emperor Franz Joseph declared war on Serbia in 1914, igniting the First World War.

  Karl I (b. 1887) 1916–1918: Poor man came to power during the First World War, and tried unsuccessfully to halt it and negotiate a separate peace with Allies. The last Austrian emperor, he was stripped of the title in 1918 and banished to Switzerland.

  The lavish imperial capital, known for dancing Lippizzaner horses and devotion to high culture, hosted the nineteenth century’s most important meeting of European heads: the 1815 Congress of Vienna, which redistributed the lands seized by Napoleon. The leaders remapped Europe, creating new kingdoms (among them the Netherlands, which combined Dutch lands with Belgium and Luxembourg) and tidying up amorphous fiefdoms. The most important creation was the German Confederation, which gave a solid outline to the jumble of German-speaking principalities, cutting it down to thirty-nine states: the Austrian Empire, which spilled into Eastern Europe, was but one state in this new confederation, but she dwarfed the others, and by size alone, she assumed the role of driving the car.

  Austrian archduchess Marie Louise married Napoleon in 1810, giving birth to his heir Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles the next year. Napoleon II, more or less kept captive in his palace, died of tuberculosis in Austria at age twenty-one.

  The Congress of Vienna, however, did not address the main problem facing the Austrian Empire: her unruly mix of peoples. The Austrian Empire included today’s Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Slovenia, parts of the Balkans, and several Italian states, as well as Austria—a dozen different ethnic groups, all forced to speak German and heed the archaic Austrian dynasty. Inspired by the French Revolution, the different ethnic regions began revolting and plotting how to take down the Austrian Empire. Throughout the 1800s, the Habsburgs battled to keep power, becoming increasingly weak. In 1866, the German state of Prussia invaded and won, booting the Austrian Empire from the German Confederation. Next, Hungarians demanded rule of the Eastern part of the empire; weary Austria added a hyphen, and the territory became the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (See “Hungary,” page 307.)

  During the late nineteenth century, so many tragedies befell the Habsburgs that you have to wonder if they were under a gypsy curse. The emperor’s kind-hearted brother Maximilian ruled France’s “new” colony, Mexico, briefly in 1863, but was assassinated by a firing squad; his poor wife, Charlotte, went bonkers. In 1889, unhappily married Crown Prince Rudolf killed himself and his eighteen-year-old lover at Mayerling, the royal hunting lodge. The emperor’s other brother, Karl Ludwig, died from typhoid in 1896, after drinking from the Jordan River during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. An anarchist fatally stabbed anorexic Empress Elisabeth in 1898, while she vacationed in Switzerland. The last heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, had tuberculosis and he too was doomed—but his 1914 assassination by a Serbian nationalist triggered more than national mourning. The bullet that pierced his jugular launched millions more as the Great War engulfed Europe.

  Black Hand, a secret society of Serbian nationalists who wanted independence and to rule all Slavs, dispatched at least three would-be assassins from Serbia to Sarajevo to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was considering giving more representation to all Slavic peoples, not just Serbs, an idea Black Hand didn’t like. All three potential killers, like the archduke, suffered from tuberculosis.

  ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND (1863–1914)

  Had it not been for a series of untimely deaths, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent, would have been little more than a distant royal, a role that his uncle Emperor Franz Joseph would have preferred. The emperor didn’t much care for his rebellious nephew, who refused to play by family rules, which included marrying only Habsburgs or other royals. Czech countess Sophie von Chotkovato was not deemed suitable, but the archduke insisted on marrying her in 1900 anyway. His future children lost all claims to the crown and Sophie wasn’t even allowed to ride in the royal coach during state affairs. Franz didn’t care; he was mad for his Soph—and it’s a good thing he so enjoyed her company, since he was shunned by the class-conscious Austrian upper crust. Invited to observe military demonstrations in Sarajevo in 1914, the archduke might have said no, had not the invitation (for once) included Sophie. Although secessionist ideas were brewing up there, he accepted the offer. His murder was nearly thwarted thrice: the Serbian prime minister heard of the plot and ordered the arrest of the three men dispatched to Sarajevo, but his order was ignored. The assassins’ first attempt—hurling a hand grenade into the ceremonial parade—missed the archduke, but injured those in the following car. The archduke insisted on being taken to the hospital to see the injured. The general in the car ordered an alternative route out of the city; when he realized the driver was going the wrong way, the general demanded that he turn the car around. During the slow reversing of the automobile, Serbian extremist Gavrilo Princip, who’d been sitting in a café, ran to the car and fired several bullets, fatally wounding the archduke and his beloved. “Sophie dear! Don’t die! Stay alive for our children!” were the archduke’s last words, but his wife of fourteen years was already dead. The date, June 28, 1914, was a fitting ending for the couple’s story: it was a mere three days before their wedding anniversary.

  Emperor Franz Joseph didn’t attend the funeral. Neither did German Kaiser Wilhelm, who’d claimed to be a friend. Nevertheless, the assassination provided an excuse for the Austrian emperor to crush the call for Serbian independence. Everyone thought the military exercise would be over in a few months.

  Nine million deaths and four years later, the “war to end all wars” had made a wasteland of Europe and resulted in yet another remapping of the Continent, this one more extreme. In 1919, the Austrian Empire was hacked apart, creating Czechoslovakia, a new Poland, a new Hungary, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia). By the time the mapmakers at the Paris Peace Conference put down their pens, Austria had been whittled down to a sixth of her former size; her population shrank from 60 million to 7 million. Austria, once Europe’s shining star, was flickering out.

  The 1919 Treaty of St. Germain, signed by the Allied forces and the Austrian government, officially dissolved the Austro-Hungarian Empire and prohibited the new republic of Austria from politically or economically bonding with Germany again—a clause pretty much ignored when Germany annexed Austria in March 1939.

  Gone were the king, most of the kingdom, and the former wealth. Austria, never self-sufficient, was cut off. Regions that previously supplied food, energy, and raw materials halted shipments; store shelves were soon bare, factories closed, furnaces grew icy from lack of fuel. Palaces were looted, trains stopped running, paramilitary groups roamed the streets, and it was cold everywhere. Unemployment skyrocketed, the government broke down, typhoid swept Vienna; the situation was so desperat
e that Allies eventually sent in food. Still, Austria was broke—so broke that she was unable to pay war reparations. The once-mighty empire hobbled into the 1920s, a shattered land marked by gloom.

  SIGMUND FREUD (1856–1939)

  When the father of psychotherapy stumbled into mental health in the late 1800s, treatment of the insane often involved removing sex organs; female hysteria was “cured” by slicing off the clitoris. Enter Dr. Freud, whose previous claim to fame had been finding the sex organs of eels.10 Believing that behavior problems stemmed from childhood issues—including repressed desires to sleep with Mummy and kill Pops—that could be unleashed by unstifled chatter, Freud developed theories of the id (center of desires), the superego (the conscience), and the ego (the balancer of id and superego), as well as “penis envy,” “castration anxiety,” and the developmental stages oral, anal, and phallic. Psychoanalysis caught on in the early twentieth century, and was wildly popular through the 1950s. However, Freud-bashing is now the norm. His formulaic ideas and cold rapport with patients, who were prevented from making eye contact with the therapist, are denigrated as stiff. Some believe that Freud actually uncovered widespread child abuse,11 saying that when he tried to report it, the response was so explosive that Freud repressed the information, and instead stated that patients were merely experiencing unconscious fantasies.12

  Freud’s daughter, Anna, pioneered the field of child psychology.