Heeresgeschichtliches Museum

08/05/09

Today I visited the Military History museum of Vienna, and spent almost the entire day walking the premises and taking in the amazing amount of artifacts that they have there. We ended up walking from the classroom up through the Belvedere to the museum, a walk of only a couple of miles or so but it took us through some very beautiful parts of the city. We stopped and admired the Russian soldier perched above his square, which brings many more questions than answers for me.

I feel as though I understand what Dr. O meant when she said that the Viennese keep it up out of tradition, but I don’t think that I can quite relate to it. The Russian occupation is still a very tender subject with many Viennese it seems, and the universal recognition was that it was extremely brutal in comparison to the American and British occupations. In one sense, I can see the statue as being something of a joke in the sense that it taunts the Russians who have lost most of their influence on the world stage. Being a young American, I certainly cannot relate to the feelings of central European countries when the USSR fell apart, but I always imagined that it was an immense relief. It reminds me of Southern American attachment to Civil War monuments and statues, which have often come under scrutiny for their stark placement in many city squares or thoroughfares. The need to keep these statues comes from a much different feeling though, as Southern pride in the Lost Cause has not diminished in the 140 years since the war ended (if anything it has increased). But no Viennese would attest that they have any affinity for the Russians and what they represented during their occupation, so where does this feeling of devotion to a public statue come from? Not only that, but for somebody who does not have access to the sort of analysis that Dr. O offered it would seem a grand testament to the feelings of the Viennese for the Russians, which of course is just non-existent.

By far the most impressive pieces at the museum were the car and uniform of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, both of which were in terrific condition. Clearly visible on one of the side doors of the car was the hole through which the bullet that killed the Archduke’s wife traveled, and in the collar of the Archduke’s jacket another bullet hole was visible. His entire jacket was stained with blood, and just standing within feet of these artifacts gave me a powerful feeling of connection to the significance of what those bullet holes meant. Millions of men died as a result of the ensuing conflict, and to see what was essentially the ‘match’ that lit the powder keg of Europe gave me a new appreciation for the sort of effect such a small occurrence can have on the rest of the world.

The overall effect of the museum was very good in my opinion; though of course the history was written as such that it put the Austrian military in the best light possible. The subject of the Nazi occupation is always a difficult one in Austria, and of course in a museum dedicated to the military history of the country it was impossible to skate over the subject completely. On the whole I thought that they managed it pretty well, but there was no doubt that all of the World War II exhibits had the overtone that National Socialism had been thrust upon the Austrian nation with the help of a minority of powerful Austrians, and without the amount of support that they really had.

German word o the day was Wirtschaftlich--'economical'