After more than half a century, the Anschluss still resonates in Vienna. On March 12, 1938, the Austrian capitol welcomed Hitler s Nazis with open arms. The effects were immediate. Within days, tens of thousands of people were arrested and the city's 180,000-plus Jews 10 percent of the city's population soon were placed in concentration camps. In Vienna's Conscience, the late Richard Winter, a Viennese Jew who escaped to America in 1938, relates the complexity of modern Vienna through interviews and images, with assistance from his wife Susan Winter Balk. Beneath the beauty of the city s grandiose architecture lies conflict within the population as it comes to grip with its past. Winter depicts this conflict through insightful interviews and striking images. The resulting portraits resonate beyond their pages. Gregory Weeks places Winter's work in context.

This book studies the role played by Jews in the explosion of cultural innovation in Vienna at the turn of the century, which had its roots in the years following the Ausgleich of 1867 and its demise in the sweeping events of the 1930s. The author shows that, in terms of personnel, Jews were predominant throughout most of Viennese high culture, and so any attempts to dismiss the "Jewish aspect" of the intelligentsia are refuted. The book goes on to explain this "Jewish aspect," dismissing any unitary, static model and adopting a historical approach that sees the "Jewishness" of Viennese modern culture as a result of the specific Jewish backgrounds of most of the leading cultural figures and their reactions to being Jewish.

The current blockbuster German TV series Babylon Berlin introduces viewers to the tumultuous period in German history known as the Weimar Republic. Critics have praised the series for its relevance to the present: it shows dark populist forces undermining a fragile democracy. While Weimar Germany makes a fascinating backdrop, its story does not inspire much hope for our present-day political and cultural woes. A fascinating contrast is the Austrian capital, Vienna. After the First World War the former imperial city elected a Social Democratic majority that persisted into the 1930s. "Red Vienna" undertook large-scale experiments in public housing, hygiene, and education, while maintaining a world-class presence in music, literature, art, culture, and science. Though Red Vienna eventually fell victim to fascist violence, it left a rich legacy with potential to inform our own tumultuous times. The Red Vienna Sourcebook provides scholars and students with an encyclopedic selection of key documents from the period, carefully translated and introduced. The thirty-six chapters include primary works from canonical names such as Sigmund Freud and Arthur Schnitzler but also introductions to lesser-known figures such as sociologist K the Leichter and health-policy pioneer Julius Tandler. The documents will be of interest to such diverse disciplines as economics, architecture, music, film history, philosophy, women's studies, sports and body culture, and Jewish studies. Rob McFarland is Professor of German Literature, Film and Culture at Brigham Young University. Georg Spitaler is a researcher at the Austrian Labor History Society. Ingo Zechner is Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital History.

From border garrison of the Roman Empire to magnificent Baroque seat of the Hapsburgs, Vienna's fortunes swung between survival and expansion. By the late nineteenth century it had become the western capital of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but the twentieth century saw it degraded to a 'hydrocephalus' cut off from its former economic hinterland. After the inglorious Nazi interlude, Vienna began the long climb back to the prosperous and cultivated city of 1.7 million inhabitants that it is today. Subjected to constant infusions of new, Vienna has both assimilated and resisted cultural influences from outside, creating its own sui generis culture.