Columns | Open Diary

A Troubled Future

To use Naipaul’s expression, Europe is a wounded civilisation

Swapan Dasgupta | 04 Oct, 2024

THE TOP FLOOR of the Upper Belvedere palace in Vienna that houses some of Gustav Klimt’s iconic works, contains an impressive collection of modern paintings by Austrian artists. What I found slightly odd was that the entire period from 1934, starting from the assumption of power by Kurt Schuschnigg to 1945, the collapse of the Third Reich, was collapsed as a dark phase, with no representative collection of art from that period. True, the blame for the dark ages when artists were compelled to flee Austria or were otherwise neutralised, wasn’t pinned on the 1938 Anschluss alone when Hitler drove triumphantly through Vienna cheered by ecstatic crowds. The responsibility was placed on fascism and even its Austrian variant that preceded the country’s formal incorporation into the Reich.

I don’t know enough of Austria’s post-Anschluss experience to proffer any definitive view. However, since Mozart and Beethoven now compete with Klimt for being regarded as the symbol of Austria—along with schnitzel and sachertorte—my proverbial attention was drawn to the largest retrospective of Klimt. It was an exhibition of 66 Klimt paintings and 34 Klimt drawings (including a fair chunk of what was subsequently to be dubbed ‘looted art’) which was inaugurated on February 7, 1943, at the Exhibition Hall, Friedrichstrasse. The inspiration behind the exhibition was the Nazi Gauleiter of Austria, Baldur von Schirach (who was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials). According to an account of the exhibition by a Jewish art historian, some 24,000 Viennese visited the show—not an insignificant number considering it was in the middle of the war.

Schirach, who may well have been one of the style icons of the Nazis, also came up as one of the patrons of a gentleman’s outfitters in the heart of Vienna. This charming, old-world shop whose name will remain undisclosed for fear of attracting anti-fascist mobs, doesn’t of course publicise its famous clients, but the fact that a Viennese counterpart of London’s Turnbull & Asser quite readily opened its doors to the Nazi governor is significant.

The post-1945 consensus that all Austrians were dragged kicking and screaming into unification with Germany is about as persuasive as the belief that all Indians were resolutely opposed to British rule. The Austrian experience in the Third Reich was quite a mixed bag, as the experience of former UN Secretary- General Kurt Waldheim suggested. I am sure that Gustav Klimt, who was commissioned by many of Austria’s more prominent Jewish families, had to make similar adjustments. Merely blacking out uncomfortable facets of a nation’s past or rewriting history to project what is at present expedient is something that isn’t confined to Austria. The forcible suppression of all rightwing tendencies by the Soviet-controlled regime didn’t take away from the grim reality of pro- Nazi collaborators in nearly all the countries of Central Europe.

Last week, after the nationalist Freedom Party led by Herbert Kickl polled the maximum number of votes in the Austrian general election and overtook the Centre- Right People’s Party, a clutch of demonstrators gathered outside the Austrian parliament demanding that Nazis be kept out of power. There is some evidence that the Freedom Party was established in 1956 at the behest of people who had links with the Nazi regime. Should that be a ground for the party’s permanent disqualification from the top political job, as some are insisting?

The reason why the Freedom Party overtook the more established conservative People’s Party is that it was willing to be forthright in its disavowal of the European Union-sponsored demographic disfigurement of Europe. Its Fortress Austria policy sounds strange, but it is a plea for the retention of the country’s cultural personality. Add to this the growing concerns over immigrants who have scant respect for the rule of law and have set up cartels all over who fleece tourists and others.

There is nothing unique in these concerns. All over Europe, nationalist parties are making electoral gains centred on the demand to restore Europe back to its natives. Some of these parties, like Austria’s Freedom Party, want to opt out of the European Union (EU), while others such as Hungary’s Fidesz have organised a Patriots for Europe group to try and change the direction of the EU from within. What is becoming increasingly clear is that the Eurocrats in Brussels are deaf to these reverberations from the grassroots. They still prefer a mixture of intellectual snobbery and Nazi demonology to divert attention from their responsibility in plunging Europe into social unrest. At present the flashpoints are sporadic, but anyone can see a troubled future. To use Naipaul’s expression, Europe is a wounded civilisation.