The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna under Hitler [Hardcover]

Thomas Weyr (Author)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press (Feb 16 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195146794
ISBN-13: 978-0195146790
Product Dimensions: 24.3 x 16.3 x 3.1 cm
Shipping Weight: 612 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #382,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #80 in Books > History > Europe > Hungary

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Even before the end of WWII, the Allies declared Austria the first victim of German aggression. Austrians have savored this designation, which gave them a halo of innocence and spared them the full force of postwar occupation and control. Weyr isn't so sure the Austrians deserved to be so well treated. In this fast-paced chronicle of the destruction of the city's cultural and political life, he shows that most Austrians happily accepted the 1938 union with Germany and the benefits of the pillaging of Europe in the war's first years. Many Viennese exercised their basest instincts through the public humiliation of Jews. For Weyr, Nazi domination led to the destruction of the glittering culture of Vienna, the city of Freud, Klimt, Loos and so many other intellectual and artistic luminaries. That city had been, Weyr says, "largely a Jewish creation," the fruit of a multiethnic, tolerant milieu. Weyr, a native of Vienna and longtime reporter for UPI and Newsweek, mourns the passing of that world as he provides a decent account of the city's history, drawing on memoirs and autobiographies that give the work a rich texture. But to gain deeper understanding of Viennese culture and the effects of Nazi rule, readers are better off with the notable studies by Carl Schorske, Gary B. Cohen, Evan Bukey, Marsha Rozenblitt and others. 25 b&w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In recent years, some Austrians have claimed their nation was the "first victim" of Hitler's expansionist drive in eastern and central Europe. A less charitable view regards the Austrians as willing, even eager accomplices to the crimes of the Nazis; after all, Hitler and other top Nazis were Austrian born, and the Anschluss (union) with Germany had considerable popular support. Journalist Weyr was born and reared in Vienna, and in his portrait of his native city under Nazi rule, he writes with a moving mixture of sympathy, outrage, and regret as he views the material and spiritual destruction of this once-glittering cultural center. He begins with a description of the tumultuous events of March 1938, when the Austrian government, pressured by domestic Nazis and Hitler's threats, acquiesced to a shotgun marriage. Inevitably, anti-Semitic outrages became commonplace in Vienna's streets. He then shows the steady decline of the city during the war, as political indoctrination and repression escalate, the Jews are deported, and the Russians turn the tide and inexorably advance. Weyr takes a balanced approach; he does not avoid condemnation of those who supported the Nazis, passively or actively, but he also shows us how most ordinary people merely tried to survive a conflict that they barely understood. This is a superbly written work and an excellent addition to World War II collections. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Amazon.com: 3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A well-researched and good book, Oct 14 2005

By Schmerguls "schmerguls" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna under Hitler (Hardcover)

The author was born in Vienna but left when he was 11. After the war he returned, to get his university education, and served as a correspondent for United press, ABC, and Newsweek. This is an account of the occupation of Austria by Hitler, and what Vienna went through while part of Nazidom. The account of the takeover by Hitler is of high interest and well-told. The account of the war years is also well done but it was not as interesting. In the final chapter Weyl gives a good account of Austria since the war, and shows that many Austrians exaggerate their resistance to Hitler. This is a book well worth reading if you want to know about Austria's fall and the dreary war years in Vienna, and the post-war course of Austria. One is glad that so much that was destroyed in the war has been reconstituted.

2 of 17 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars The Setting of the Pearl, Feb 24 2006

By Donald G. Werth - Published on Amazon.com

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This review is from: The Setting of the Pearl: Vienna under Hitler (Hardcover)

The author uses a lot of words to describe something that could be said in much fewer words. He has a very difficult reading style.

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews 3.0 out of 5 stars