Random Learnings #19 – Scott's Blog

From the June 1951 National Geographic, Occupied Austria, Outpost of Democracy.

Ranked as a liberated nation, not a former enemy, Austria has its own Federal Government and exchanges diplomats with foreign country as does any other sovereign State.
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The German Anschluss of Austria occurred on March 12, 1938 and the debate since was whether it was a true annexation, capitulation, or desire to create a single German state and rejoin the major world powers. The Treaty of Versailles forbid a single German state, combining Germany and Austria, even though the treaty specifically spoke of national self-determination. It’s very possible that a plebiscite would have confirmed this, but it was never voted on.

Though only six years after the war, it sounds like the Austria-as-a-victim narrative was already accepted, something that Austrians were talking up even before the end of the war.

In the 16th and 17th centuries autocratic Austria stopped invading Turks at Vienna’s walls and saved Europe from rising tides of Moslem expansion.
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Obvious show of the writer’s or National Geographic’s tendency for pro-Christian, pro-Western ideologies. My mother showed me World War II-era National Geographic articles where the Japanese were called Japs in insulting manners. Yes, Japan was the enemy, but growing up National Geographic seemed much more neutral than perhaps it was. And perhaps I need to go back and re-read more contemporary issues and see if that opinion remains.

Brightly colored tiles picturing the Imperial Eagle again sheathe St. Stephen’s roof…
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I’ve been to Vienna multiple times, I’ve been to the cathedral multiple times, and yet I never realized it was the Imperial Eagle. Duh.

Like most European glaciers, crevassed Pasterzen is shrinking. A century ago it reached the level of the flag-decked parking lot. Now it is only six miles long, but it remains the largest ice river in the Eastern Alps.
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The author is calling out global warming decades before we gave it a name. I don’t know, but expect that the glacier has further shrunk.

Special Soviet military passes allowed us to travel from Vienna over Semmering Pass into Styria through the highway corridor reserved for the British. Apprehension gripped the city as we left; North Koreans had just crossed the 38th parallel, and World War III seemed imminent.
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The Korean conflict began In 1948 with the creation of two separate Korean countries and governments, leading to war in 1950. The crisis pushed the creation of West Germany in 1949 out of the three western-occupied sectors as the Allies realized a self-governing Germany would free up resources to deal with Korea.

Though Austria was self-governing already in 1951, the Allies still held their occupying rights until the Austrian State Treaty was signed in 1955. I would have expected Austria to regain their sovereignty similarly, but didn’t until the treaty was signed.

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